Les Mées (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence)

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Les Mées
Coat of arms of Les Mées
Les Mées (France)
Les Mées
region Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur
Department Alpes-de-Haute-Provence
Arrondissement Digne-les-Bains
Canton Oraison
Community association Provence-Alpes agglomeration
Coordinates 44 ° 2 ′  N , 5 ° 59 ′  E Coordinates: 44 ° 2 ′  N , 5 ° 59 ′  E
height 348-824 m
surface 65.4 km 2
Residents 3,735 (January 1, 2017)
Population density 57 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code 04190
INSEE code
Website www.lesmees.org

View of Les Mées from the north-west. Left in the picture the southwestern end of the Pénitents.

Les Mees (pronounced [ le ms ], formerly [ Le mɛs ]; Provençal : Lei Meas ) is a French municipality with 3735 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in the department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in the region Provence-Alpes -Côte d'Azur . It is assigned to the Arrondissement of Digne-les-Bains and the Canton of Oraison .

geography

View over the Durance valley at Les Mées to the east. In the background the mountains of the western Alps stand out above the Valensole plateau.

The municipality in the south of France is located at an altitude of 410 meters in the Durance valley on the A51 autoroute (which corresponds to European route 712 ), roughly halfway between Grenoble and Marseille .

The municipal area is over 65 square kilometers and includes numerous districts, all of which are downstream (south) of the village center. Dabisse , which has its own school and its own parish hall, is the most important offshoot; Pourcelles is the name of the most remote hamlet.

Les Pénitents

Les Pénitents rock formation near les Mées

A geological feature makes the place unmistakable. They are Les Pénitents ('The Penitents'), a bizarre rock formation that rises above the village, visible from afar. It stretches for about one kilometer and the highest peak towers over the valley by 114 meters. The appearance of the rocks is reminiscent of a group of friars who wear monk's robes with hoods . Although it gives the impression that the structure is composed of individual cones, in reality it is a single large sediment body consisting of numerous layers of a conglomerate (coarse gravel that has solidified into rock) on top of one another . The current appearance of the rock massif is the result of the interplay of erosion and fissures : the conglomerate of which the Pénitents are made is very resistant to erosion and was therefore naturally carved out of the mountain. Since erosion tends to attack the natural fissures that run through every rock, the individual cones were cut out of the conglomerate body. The Pénitents belong to the Valensole Plateau , which is actually a former sedimentary basin that was filled in with Alpine molasses in the western Alpine foothills from the early Miocene ( Burdigalium , approx. 20 million years ago) , but is now predominantly an area of ​​erosion. The layers of conglomerate that make up the Pénitents were deposited by rivers at the turn of the Miocene to the Pliocene around 5 million years ago.

In the 18th century, a 200 meter long gallery was driven into the rock to divert rainwater that ran off from the mountains, which had devastated Les Mées several times after severe thunderstorms.

history

Toponymy

There are two theses about the origin of the name of the place (first mentioned as Metas ), whereby these agree that the name should be in connection with the striking rock formation behind the village. Ernest Nègre suggested the name as the Frenchified form of the Occitan word meya what millstone means Michel de la Torre however, interpreted Metas about the Latin as "bench", "row" (for the penitent).

middle Ages

Les Mées was first mentioned in 1098 under the names Metas and Las Medas . A fortified place was formed which was administered by Syndici in the 13th century . In 1353 Les Mées came under the rule of the Vice- County of Valernes . The fiefdom was later divided between the Montfort and Beaufort families until the 16th century. A ferry across the Durance has been recorded for the year 1348. In the late Middle Ages , the place enjoyed a toll that was required of travelers to Digne in the Bléone valley .

In 1348 , Queen Joan I of Anjou , who had been expelled from Naples , exiled to Provence . To raise funds for the reconquest of the Kingdom of Naples, the city of Avignon sold them to the Pope for 80,000 guilders . In return, she received the papal absolution , which she washed clean of the suspicion of having staged the murder of her first husband Andreas of Hungary . Gratefully, she then gave the Pope's brother, Guillaume II Roger , the fief of Valernes, which was made a vice-county in 1350. This vice-county included the parishes of Bayons , Vaumeilh , La Motte , Bellaffaire , Gigors , Lauzet , Les Mées, Mézel , Entrevennes and Castellet . This also included areas that were dependent on the named communities and the exercise of jurisdiction. The aforementioned Guillaume Roger came from the Beaufort-Canillac family, previously called the von Montboissier family.

Modern times

The Beaufort-Canillac family lived far away in the Auvergne and therefore appointed an estate manager in Les Mées. This acted very bossy and excessive and was therefore fought by the residents. In order to gain more independence and to reduce the tax burden, the population began to buy up the regalia . In 1519 she bought the abolition of the mill compulsory , the right to operate their own bread ovens and the permission to channel water into mill ponds . In 1551 the residents bought themselves free of the land use fee and in 1592 took over the jurisdiction and the right to collect the toll. In the same year, the fee for the castle, which the population could no longer protect anyway because it was destroyed, was also dropped. From 1660 the community received half of the proceeds, which were earned with the ferry service over the Durance.

Several hundred hectares of land on the Durance and Bléone rivers then belonged to the church and were irrigated. In order to exercise their influence, the clergy maintained up to eighteen priests on site. The Reformation found a certain response in Les Mées and part of the population converted . Despite the Huguenot Wars , thanks to the Edict of Nantes of 1598, a Protestant community was able to survive in the first half of the 17th century . But the pressure that came from both the parliament and the bishop became too strong and the avowed Huguenots dispersed even before King Louis XIV, who had meanwhile grown up, took the government into his own hands in 1660.

During the uprisings known as the Fronde , the people of Les Mées revolted against the absolute power of the king in 1649 and sided with the Parlement de Provence , but the rebellion was crushed by the Digne cavalry and the city had to go Pay 6,000 livres of fine. In the 18th century, Les Mées was given the right to hold an annual fair (1713–1789). Before the French Revolution , there was a Masonic Lodge on site .

Recent history

The first suspension bridge over the Durance was built in 1841–1843 by a private company. It would have been chargeable and should replace the ferry Bac du Loup , which connected Les Mées with Ganagobie . But on the day of the inauguration, it was swept away by a flood. The ferry service remained in operation until 1857, when it was replaced by a new 82-meter-long bridge, which was now toll-free. In 1904 it was reinforced with additional cables and restored in 1941. The Allies wanted to destroy the connection during the liberation of France from the Wehrmacht , but their bombs on August 15 and 16, 1944 missed the target and instead caused the deaths of around a hundred people in Digne and Sisteron . Finally, the Resistance succeeded in breaking the strategically important connection by means of acts of sabotage. After the Second World War , a temporary footbridge was built, which was replaced from 1952-1956 by a 172-meter-long Warren truss bridge with steel girders.

During the Second World War, Jehan Dienne and his wife Marie-Jeanne and their mother-in-law Elizabeth Roubinet saved numerous Jews from deportation . For this, the helpers received the honorary title “ Righteous Among the Nations ”.

coat of arms

Blazon : In red, a silver “M” at the bottom accompanied by three roses of the same color and completed at the top with three golden fleurs-de-lis .

Motto: DE ROSIS AD LILIA ("From the roses to the lilies").

Talking coat of arms : The character "M" is the first letter of the municipality. In the 16th century the citizens of Les Mées bought the rights from the local ruling family Beaufort-Canillac, whose coat of arms was the rose, and paid homage to the French king, whose symbol was the lily blossom.

Population development

year 1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999 2009 2017
Residents 2370 2063 2128 2275 2601 2925 3671 3735

Legend

According to legend, at the time of the Saracen invasion in the 8th century , the monks of the Montagne de Lure pursued the beautiful daughters of the Moors brought home by a knight from a crusade. Then the friars were punished by St. Donatus petrified on the spot where they still repent today.

Attractions

Les Pénitents

A single footpath allows you to cross the Pénitents. This four-kilometer route begins in Les Mées, then climbs up to the ridge, runs parallel to the ridge for a while and leads over the ridge at the end remote from Les Mées before reaching the foot of the rock - now over the opposite slope. The other gorges are difficult to walk and prone to falling rocks . Climbing is not possible because the rock is too loose for it. The two caves Grotte des Loups ("Wolfsgrotte") and Grotte du Magicien ("Grotto of the Magician") are easily accessible. The entry into a third cave, which houses an artifact made of two crossed beams, is difficult. On the stone walls, chisels that cannot be dated were found, which could have served to anchor wooden beams. The meaning of the cross and the potential beam supports are in the dark.

Les Pénitents

Saint Honorat Chapel

The Romanesque chapel Chapelle Saint-Honorat from the late 13th or early 14th century near the hamlet of Paillerols (in the area called Les Petits Camps ) was under the control of the Boscodon Abbey . The two chapels attached to the choir simulate a transept. The chapels are covered with barrel vaults and the choir ends directly with the vertical facade wall ( chevet plat ). The tympanum above the west portal is monolithic and decorated with an anchor cross . The facade is decorated with an ox's eye . The building, which has been a French cultural monument since 1983 . is, unfortunately, is in poor condition: the bell gable has partially collapsed.

Parish Church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Olivier

The parish church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Olivier was destroyed in 1562 by the Huguenot leader Paulon de Richieu , but rebuilt in 1593. The choir has a ribbed vault . In the north wing of the church there is a three bay chapel (perhaps a former aisle), the design of which is different: one of the bays is ogival and has filigree columns decorated with foliage; the other two yokes are also ogival, but older and the pillars have a supporting function here. It is difficult to date these parts of the building exactly, but they were built between the 16th century and 1651. The two-story bell tower, made of pebbles, is massive and dates from 1560. It is fitted with a clock and closes with a striking iron forged body. The interior includes an early 18th century painting of the Virgin Mary , now attributed to the Baroque painter Michel Serre.

More buildings

  • The Portail Saint-Félix portal on Rue Font-Neuve has been a French cultural monument since 1989.
  • The Saint Roch chapel is located above the village at the foot of the Les Pénitents rock massif. It dates back to the 11th century, but has changed a lot since then.

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ W. Henry Lickorish, Mary Ford: Sequential restoration of the external Alpine Digne thrust system, SE France, constrained by kinematic data and synorogenic sediments. In: A. Mascle, C. Puigdefàbregas, HP Luterbacher, M. Fernàndez: Cenozoic Foreland Basins of Western Europe. Geological Society Special Publications. Vol. 134, pp. 189–211, limited preview in Google Book Search
  2. Ernest Nègre : Etymologie de 35000 noms de lieux . Librairie Droz, Genève, 1990.
  3. Michel de La Torre: Alpes-de-Haute-Provence: le guide complet des 200 communes . Deslogis-Lacoste, Paris, 1989.
  4. Édouard Baratier: Atlas historique: Provence, Comtat Venaissin, principauté de Monaco, principauté d'Orange, comté de Nice , p. 189. Librairie Armand Colin, Paris, 1969.
  5. ^ Jean-Joseph-Maxime Feraud: Histoire geographique et statistique du département des Basses-Alpes , p. 38. Vial, Digne, 1861.
  6. a b Catherine Lonchambon: Les bacs de la Durance - Du Moyen Aĝe au XIXe siècle . Publications de l'Université de Provence, Aix, 2001.
  7. Lucien Stouff: Ports, routes et foires du XIIIe au XVe siècle , Map 86 and commentary. In: Baratier, Duby & Hildesheimer, op. Cit.
  8. Edouard de Laplane: Histoire de Sisteron tirée de ses archives , p. 126. A. Guichard, Digne, 1845.
  9. Édouard Baratier: Les protestants en Provence , cards 118, 119 and commentary. In: Baratier, Duby & Hildesheimer, op. Cit.
  10. ^ Pierre Girardot: Diversité, unité et prolongement de la Révolution dans les Basses-Alpes - La Révolution dans les Basses-Alpes . In: Annales de Haute-Provence - Bulletin de la société scientifique et littéraire des Alpes-de-Haute-Provence , No. 307, 1989, p. 145.
  11. ^ Baratier and Hildesheimer: Map 122 - Les foires (1713-1789) . In Baratier, Duby & Hildesheimer, op. Cit.
  12. ^ Robert-Henri Bautier : Les loges maçonniques (seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle) , cards 120, 121 and commentary. In: Baratier, Duby & Hildesheimer, op. Cit.
  13. ^ Pont des Mées (1954). In: Structurae
  14. Jehan-Dienne
  15. ^ A b c Raymond Collier: La Haute-Provence monumentale et artistique . R. Collier, 1986.
  16. Entry no. PA00080431 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  17. Chapel Saint-Honorat in the French-language wikipedia
  18. Entry no. PA00080432 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)

Web links

Commons : Les Mées  - collection of images, videos and audio files