I do not admire Chastel so much for his accomplishments, of which there were many, but for his courage, demonstrated several times, to recognize that he was on the wrong path and take what must have been very painful personal steps to change course.
He went out of his lines, as you say, to Cendrillo and some other dogs because he realized that character was being lost. He did train, but you must realize that he lived at the very center of combat in two wars and in a Belgium in the 1950's where the Bouvier almost literally died out, reaching a low of 60, dogs, not litters, in a year.
About 1990 he left the Belgian club because, among other things, the show breeders and their hangers on were giving away the select designation in the very kind of test we see being pandered in NAWBA.
When I visited him in 1993 I saw an old man with his life's work in jeopardy making a final effort to make a difference. I know that rational analysis says that I will probably live to see the end of the Bouvier of the founders, but I will not accept it, and for that reason I will not accept a temperament test or an organization that panders it.
Jim Engel March 1999