Uruffe
| Uruffe | ||
|---|---|---|
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| region | Grand Est | |
| Department | Meurthe-et-Moselle | |
| Arrondissement | Toul | |
| Canton | My au Saintois | |
| Community association | Pays de Colombey et du Sud Toulois | |
| Coordinates | 48 ° 24 ' N , 5 ° 56' E | |
| height | 257-401 m | |
| surface | 13.05 km 2 | |
| Residents | 401 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 31 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 54112 | |
| INSEE code | 54538 | |
Uruffe is a French commune with 401 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in the Grand Est region . The municipality is located in the arrondissement of Toul and is part of the Communauté de communes du Pays de Colombey et du Sud Toulois .
geography
The municipality is located on the Aroffe River just before it flows into the Meuse , about 20 kilometers southwest of Toul . In the south and west, the municipality borders on the Meuse department . The Aroffetal, about 270 m above sea level, is up to one kilometer wide and is used intensively for agriculture. To the northeast and southwest of the river valley, the terrain rises by almost 100 meters and reaches the highest point in the municipality at 401 m in the forest area of Forêt de Meine .
Neighboring municipalities to Uruffe (clockwise, starting from the north) are: Gibeaumeix , Vannes-le-Châtel , Pagny-la-Blanche-Côte , Champougny and Sepvigny .
history
The origin of the place name Uruffe was discussed controversially for a long time. An obvious thesis assumed the river Aroffe as the namesake. A pastor of the village had discovered the name Uruffe Reiff on an old map , which indicated a derivation from the Latin terms ripa (bank) or ruppes (rock). Finally there was an explanation that Uruffe is descended from Araffe , the name of a species of wild ox that used to be common in the local forests. Since the end of the 20th century, the prevailing interpretation has been that the village was called Rufiae in 707 and Uruffiae in 1402 and thus emerged from the Latin personal name Rufius , which slowly changed to Uruffe under Germanic influence ( Rufius became Urolf here ) . Another spelling in a long-extinct patois has come down to us from the 15th century . Here it was said about the poor village: "Et Yeureuffe, l'diable y creuffe" ("At Uruffe the devil dies there")
The blue-silver stripes and the originally three gold stars in the blue head of the coat of arms were the insignia of the Ernécourt family, the lords of Gibeaumeix and Uruffe during the ancien régimes . The stars were replaced with stones to indicate that the parish was dependent on the diocese of Toul .
In the Middle Ages, Uruffe was a poor village in a sparsely populated area, which belonged to the Duchy of Bar , which was involved in many warlike activities due to its division into two parts . During the Thirty Years War , Uruffe was destroyed by Swedish troops. In 1650 there were still 138 inhabitants in the village. In 1707 there were only 36 fireplaces in Uruffe. A phase of stability and development in agriculture began. From 1751 Uruffe was part of the Bailiwick of Lamarche . On the eve of the French Revolution, 410 residents were counted. The most influential large landowners in Uruffe were the Cachedeniers de Vassimon family .
In the middle of the 19th century the population increased sharply (in 1846 there were 888 inhabitants, in 1881 the previous high of 928 people was reached). The supply of a numerically higher population was made possible by the drainage of the Aroffetal, the clearing of larger forest areas and the development of some quarries, which offered many jobs. Since there was a lack of meadow areas for dairy farming, agriculture concentrated on growing potatoes. A cholera epidemic in 1854 hit the village of Uruffe less severely than the nearby municipalities of Gibeaumeix and Blénod-lès-Toul . In the middle of the 19th century, the Fort de Pagny with the associated battery d'Uruffe was built on the municipal boundary of Champougny. In 1881 there were a few grocery stores, three inns and a few looms in Uruffe. At the end of the 18th century, besides seamstresses and knitters, a hairdresser, a wig maker and a tailor were resident in Uruffe.
The existence of a watermill, initially owned by the Chapter of Toul , is documented as early as the 17th century. During the French Revolution, the mill was expropriated and sold as a national property. In the 19th century the grain mill was converted into an industrial mill. The white limestone extracted in the quarries of Uruffe was crushed and pulverized in the mill to feed the glass industry. In 1897 the Uruffe mill was shut down because its last owner, a manufacturer of lime in Vaucouleurs , no longer wanted to pay for the maintenance of the Aroffe watercourse. At the beginning of the 20th century, the restored mill was used to drive a sawmill. From the end of the 20th century, the mill site served as a backdrop for a theater workshop on weekends.
The growth of the population in the 19th century made it necessary to build a village school. For this purpose, an old building with a barn and stable was purchased in 1825 and a teacher's apartment was set up next to the boys 'and girls' school. According to the Jules Ferry Acts of 1881/82, which stipulated that every parish must have a secular and a free school, the parish purchased a piece of land to build a new school for girls. The old school from 1825 has served as a boys' school since then.
After the Franco-Prussian War , the French military began to learn from the defeat. The war exposed the inadequacies of the defense system inherited from Vauban . General Raymond Adolphe Séré de Rivières recommended the construction of new forts. Among these is the lesser known one of Pagny, flanked by the two batteries in Pagny and Uruffe. Located on a limestone plateau that dominated the valleys of the Meuse and Aroffe at the same time , around 30 people lived in the fortress area. The fort did not influence the course of the First World War, because the decisive fighting took place much further to the northwest.
Population development
| year | 1962 | 1968 | 1975 | 1982 | 1990 | 1999 | 2006 | 2016 |
| Residents | 404 | 367 | 320 | 280 | 311 | 326 | 548 | 398 |
| Sources: Cassini and INSEE | ||||||||
Uruffe scandal
In the 1950s, Uruffe became known nationwide through a crime. A farmer's son, Guy Desnoyers , was ordained a priest in 1946. In July 1950 he became a pastor in Uruffe. He was a very active priest and was valued by his parishioners for getting the local youth interested in sport. At the same time, Guy Desnoyers had relationships with several women. In 1953 Michèle L., a 15-year-old girl, had a child by him. He persuaded her to give birth in secret in a distant place and to abandon her child. In 1956 he had another relationship with the 19-year-old Régine Fays from Uruffe, whom he seduced in a theater project he had created. She got pregnant too. Desnoyers was able to convince Régine's father that the father of the unborn child is a young man from the village who wanted to move to the Algerian war. Régine promised to keep the secret of the father a secret, but she refused to give birth in secret. On December 3, 1956, some time before the expected day of the birth, the pastor drove with his lover on a remote forest path and shot her in the head. He slit open her belly with a knife and took the child out to be baptized and then killed. He also cut up the baby's face to hide a possible resemblance. The day after, he helped find the missing person and claimed that he knew the killer but could not name him because of his silence. He confessed to his crime on December 5 after the gun that went with the cartridge cases was found on him. On January 26, 1958, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Nancy Assistant Court. He was spared the death penalty, which was still in force in France at the time, thanks to the influence of clergy on the jury. He was released early in August 1978 after 22 years and retired to a monastery in Brittany. The killer died in 2010 at the age of ninety.
Attractions
- Saint-Martin church from the 19th century (the predecessor church, which had become too small, was located on the site of the current cemetery and was demolished by the villagers)
- Remains of Fort Pagny and the Uruffe battery
Economy and Infrastructure
Uruffe is a quiet, almost sleepy village with three farms, two of which are agricultural cooperatives. Since there are hardly any other job opportunities in the village, many residents commute to the surrounding larger communities.
The D4 trunk road runs through Uruffe and connects Vaucouleurs in the Meuse Valley with Colombey-les-Belles on the A31 autoroute .
supporting documents
- ↑ Origin of the name on moreau-christian.com (French)
- ↑ genealogie-lorraine.fr (French)
- ↑ Uruffe in the time up to the French Revolution on moreau-christian.com (French, PDF file)
- ↑ Uruffe in the 19th century on moreau-christian.com (French, PDF file)
- ↑ Watermill Uruffe on moreau-christian.com (French, PDF file)
- ↑ Schools in Uruffe on moreau-christian.com (French, PDF file)
- ↑ Fort Pagny and Battery Uruffe on moreau-christian.com (French, PDF file)
- ↑ Uruffe on cassini.ehess.fr
- ↑ Uruffe on insee.fr
- ↑ Jean-Pierre Bigeault: Le Double Crime de l'abbé Desnoyers, curé d'Uruffe , L'Harmattan, 2008, p. 208 ( ISBN 978-2-296-06067-8 )
- ↑ Agriculture in Uruffe on annuaire-mairie.fr (French)
