Colombey-the-Two-Churches

Colombey-the-Two-Churches is a common Frenchwoman of 650 inhabitants, located in the department of the Haute-Marne and the area Champagne-Ardenne. It is located at 27 km in the North-West of the prefecture Chaumont, with the limit with the department close to the Aube.

The village became famous to be chosen by the general de Gaulle, which had acquired there a property June 9th 1934 “ the Brewery ” renamed at once “ the Woodwork ”. It chooses Colombey because the village was halfway of Paris and its garrisons of the East and North and because austere landscapes of the moors and forests of this countryside, with the bleeding of the provinces of Champagne, Lorraine and Burgundy, fragments of eternal France, corresponded to its spirit and its heart. The General devoted to Colombey the last pages of the Mémoires of War , text become traditional: Vast, rough and sad horizons; wood, meadows, cultures and waste lands melancholic persons; relief of old very worn and resigned mountains; quiet and not very fortunate villages of which nothing, since millenia, changed the heart, nor the place ......

The General is deceased there the November 9th 1970.

Geography

August 1st The commune is in the valley of the Blaise. Bordering on the Department of the Paddle, it is located on RN 19 which connects Chaumont (27 km in south-east) to Troyes (61 km in the west).

The south of the commune is occupied by the forest of Dhuits, which is located in the Eastern prolongation of the large forest of Clairvaux.

History

Heraldic

A little history, an eye on the past…

In year II and until year X (Revolution) the commune takes the name of Colombey-the-Mountain. The etymology is explained by Latin columbarium (dovecote); the presence of two religious buildings differentiates it from its many homonyms: the old priory Saint-Jean-Baptist (with only one nave) founded about 1100, dependant on Cluny and the church Our-Lady-in-sound-Assumption (chorus of the end of 11th S.), and apse (18es.), vault of the Virgin and Saint Nicolas's Day (16th S.) nave and sides (18th S.), polychrome stone statues and wood gilded) of 17th at the 19th century. When it attended the mass, the De Gaulle general occupied the 7th bench on the right).

The name of the commune thus comes owing to the fact that it had two churches a long time, the parish church and that of the priory Saint-Jean-Baptist. After the Revolution, the priory was sold like Bien national and was transformed into dwelling house by its new owners. Nowadays, only sound Abside is still visible. On the other hand, the parish church is still used for the worship.

Hostages of Colombey

The recent history of common was marked by a taken hostages during the Second world war. The August 19th 1944, the German troops station in Colombey in front of the Woodwork and the town hall. A truck in which FFI are passes in the village. Blows of machine-gun burst, two German soldiers are killed, others wounded. The reprisals do not delay and of the S, come from Bar-sur-Aube arrive, stop without understanding the 21 men and the woman who fall to them under the hand in the street and the houses. Twenty-two hostages are taken along and imprisoned with Chaumont; another person, already stopped in addition, is associated with the group, which undergoes four days of interrogations.

Moments of anguish for the families which know the atrocities made by the Germans during this war. During this long delay, with the hope to be finally released, the 23 hostages form the wish, if they are left there, to set up a statue in homage to the Holy-Virgin.

These twenty-three hostages - for the majority farmers, cheesemongers, farm laborers - were originating in the village. Last nines of them worked in a forestry company which carried out wood-cuttings in the surroundings.

The events evolve/move in the good sense since the hostages will be finally released. The promise made during their detention will be held. The ordering of the statue of the Virgin is prepared. The foundry of Vaucouleurs is selected. In spring 1946, the former hostage Fernand Roethlisberger will take delivery of it.

Work starts. Mr. Denarda, a mason of Colombey, built the base of the monument and the base out of concrete. The steps are offered by the Boiteux monumental mason of Juzennecourt. The site with the ground of access to the statue on the mountain of Colombey was offered to the church of Colombey by the Etienney family. The painting of the base is carried out by Maurice Chappuis, painter of the village. The cast iron statue, high, 2,20 m weighs 620 kg. The whole of the monument rises to 5,20 m height. In 1963, on the initiative of the abbot Drouot, it was decorated of a table of orientation showing all the area.

Sunday August 24th 1946 took place official unveiling of the statue of the Virgin who will become “ Our-Lady-of-hostages . ” Under a beautiful estival sun, 3 000 people attended the large-mass chaired by M {{gr.}} Chiron, bishop of Langres. One noticed in crowd the presence of Yvonne de Gaulle, accompanied by two members of his family. The de Gaulle general and his family assisted in the afternoon, in the church of the village, with a ceremony of thanksgiving. Inside the base was placed a sealed bottle in which figure a sheet written with the Indian ink by the Drouot abbot, priest of Colombey, which recalls the history of the hostages with their names.

Since this date, every year, last Sunday of August, a Pèlerinage followed by a Messe takes place in front of the statue.

To date, only one of the former hostages, Fernand Roethlisberger, 87 years old, is still of this world, Mr. Roethlisberger is impassioned of history and it is under its feather that it published a plate memory for the 50 years birthday of commemorations of our Lady of the Hostages in 1994. His/her friend, Mr. Burkardt, left under other skies, a few months before, leaving a vacuum.

The last survivor, Fernand Roethlisberger closed the eyes in this month of October 2007. With its departure a book of the history of Colombey is closed, but the history remains in the memories of the village. Now it remains with the young generations the duty to perpetuate the memory of these men and women who worked for the freedom of France.

Charles de Gaulle and Colombey

The commune is famous because the general Charles de Gaulle and his wife Yvonne had bought there, in 1934, the field of " the Brewery " who, in fact, was the old brewery of the village (creates in 1843), famous " the Woodwork ". It is offered to the glances from the village with a capped hexagonal tower of old tiles of the country that de Gaulle had made build. It will install its study there from where of a glance, it could embrace the immense and wild landscape. The general liked to come to rest in what he regarded as his true and its only residence. He took refuge there to make the important decisions, in the calm one and loneliness.

With the Woodwork were accommodated and accepted a great number of personalities come to visit him. Among them, the 14 and September 15th 1958, the German Chancelier Konrad Adenauer.

After its resignation of the Presidency of the Republic, in April 1969, it had undertaken there the drafting of its “ Mémoires of hope ”. It died there the November 9th 1970, at the evening of an aneurysmal rupture, old of almost eighty years. The field since then belongs with his/her son, the admiral Philippe de Gaulle.

The general and his wife as their Anne daughter are buried in the small communal cemetery. His/her son-in-law, the general Alain de Boissieu, deceased in 2006 rests beside the tomb of the general.

Since 1972, on the territory of the commune, is the Charles-of-Gaulle Memorial. Visible by far, monumental a Cross of Lorraine in Granit of Brittany rises, symbol of the free France. Financed by national subscription, it was set up April 4th with the May 6th 1972 on the “Mountain” (397 meters of altitude), the highest site of the village. The monument, works of the architects Marc Nebingen and Michel Mosser, was inaugurated by the President of the Republic Georges Pompidou the June 18th 1972, day of the thirty-second birthday of famous the Appel with Resistance launched on the waves of BBC for the general.

Administration

Demography

See too

Common of Haute-Marne

External bonds

Bonds in connection with the contents of the article

Historical of the construction of the Memorial on the site of the Institute Charles de Gaulle
Speech made by Georges Pompidou on Sunday, June 18, 1972 during the inauguration of the Memorial with Colombey-the-Two-Churches
Some pages of history on Colombey and the General De Gaulle

General bonds on the commune

Colombey-the-Two-Churches on the site of the national geographical Institute
Colombey-the-Two-Churches on the site of INSEE
Colombey-the-Two-Churches on the site of Quid
Localization of Colombey-the-Two-Churches on a chart of France and communes bordering
Plane on Colombey-the-Two-Churches on Plane Mapquest,
and images of Colombey-the-Two-Churches seen by satellite on Google Maps
Official site of the commune

Photograph gallery

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