With Aristide Albert, author in 1889 of a biography-bibliography (an inventory families and famous men: cf. Article with that title) of the Canton of needles and with Harriet Rosenberg (A Negotiated World, pp. 77-89, "Blaise Richard Calve, usurer and director revolutionary"), we know the outline of the life and work of Richard-Calve.
He was born in 1756 in Abriès to a merchant family of cheeses, leather and wool. His parents were wealthy, have sent him a "good education" (which he has retained the bulk, which is evident in the motto carved on the facade of his house. See "registration Jansenist?). He had three brothers: Chaffrey collector to Guillestre, Claude, cheese merchant, Bartholomew, a priest and a sister who married a notary Ristolas. Richard Blaise-Calve was married twice. In 1795 he married the daughter of Francis Berthelot, the royal notary Abriès and "lord" Queyras, who died in 1809 childless in 1810, Euphrosyne Gonssolin, 22, daughter of a powerful magistrate of Grenoble.
Richard Blaise-Calve was not only grown, it was so rich and powerful. Trade in leather and wool, as it had substantial capital, he said the loan money. Debtors lived Abriès Queyras and even Piedmont. Because it lent to 5%, Harriet Rosenberg calls it a usurer, unfairly in our view. 5%, objectively, this is not a usurious rate, especially from 1792 to 1806, years during which the crisis of "assignats" and political unrest have severely eroded the currency. Furthermore, we know that even nationalized banks have not hesitated recently (1980) to set their rates to over 20%.
Money, a strong culture, beautiful weddings have enabled him to make a brilliant political career. After 1790 he was elected "president of the Central Government", which earned him the nickname of President Blaise. This position is roughly equivalent to those of president of council and prefect together. When the function was set to prefect, he was appointed magistrate of the canton of needles and he remained until his death in 1818. As president of the Administration of the Hautes-Alpes, he inaugurated in the year V of the Republic (1797-1798) "Central School" in the department and he delivered the keynote address, published the same year Gap.
The name of Richard-Calve was also illustrated by the nephew of doctor, born in 1799 and died Abriès in the same village in 1849, who argued at the University of Montpellier an original thesis for the time . The subject is "Gymnastics applied to hygiene and therapeutics. "
It seems that the descendants of the family Richard-Calve Abriès have all left. In 2002, the Mayor of the town, accompanied by the policeman, went to the cemetery to see the tomb of the family whose grant date from the late nineteenth s was abandoned and the location to concede another family.
