Saint-Veran (Historical Dictionary of Cultural and Queyras) 
Raoul Blanchard is a famous geographer, specializing in alpine regions, on which he has written books that are still authority, sixty or seventy years later, and General William often quoted in The Queyras
. It is also the author of two articles, one entitled "Housing in Queyras" published in the Bulletin
Geographical Society in 1909, the other "life in Saint-Veran" (Subtitled "a joint monograph mountain"), published in The Mountain
in 1910. This article is part of a series of reports due at the beginning of the century, journalists, polygraphs, writers, geographers who publish articles on this village, reports and books. Read what was said J. Tivollier in Le Queyras, Volume 1, p. 181: "Saint-Veran is also entered in the literature and report (...) and I quote, among many others: Peter Scize, at altitude, People of the peaks; Robert Husson, Mountain wants to live; The Uncompromising, the Friend of the People, Candide, L'Illustration, Le Petit Dauphinois etc.. "
Raoul Blanchard's article is divided into three parts: the geographical conditions of Saint-Veran, life in Saint-Veran, the signs of transformation. In the first part, the author explains why the village was resettled at an altitude so high (over 2000 meters) and explain the reasons, occasions, among others, by General William: modeling and large softened Valley in any glossy soft shale, south exposure, soil fertility, etc.. He also describes with great accuracy the location of the village that hugs the slope: "The houses are aligned in rows that span on the mountainside, far above the bottom wet and cold in the valley. Saint-Veran and consists of five steps, five rows of houses, lined up behind each other, all facing south and east. " The second part is devoted to "the works and days," agriculture "work down the rhythm of the seasons." The third part is the most interesting. Raoul Blanchard enumerates the changes that bring an "ancient civilization and very stable" general conditions of modern life ': the creation of good gravel road, the village connected to the rest of France by telegraph wire, the creation of small cottage industries that employ in winter (gem cutting, machine knitting workshops), the introduction of the ski that facilitates communications in the winter, the development of trade butter and cheese . Yet he is convinced that the future of the village is in agriculture: "This is not the life that was going to change, Saint-Veran obviously must remain an agricultural village, it will always hasten to shake all field work in the short period given by the climate. " At no point does he allow that tourism to the villagers, as Queyrassins all, finally got to the same average level of life than the French. See "tourism", the Works and Days, "" agriculture and livestock, "" Claude Arnaud "," Abbe Pierre Berge.
Located 13 km from Château-Queyras, Saint Veran is the most famous villages of the Queyras - as emblematic of the high valleys. Books (read that of Claude Arnaud or that of Abbe Pierre Berge) are dedicated and can be found photos, including one taken by Henri Ferrand, in 1907, illustrates the cover of his book, The Country
Briançon and the Queyras . The famous dictum " the highest mountain where they eat bread "(we must understand the bread made with rye, grown), said that Saint-Veran was, until the reconstruction of Tignes at 2100 m, most highest village in France and probably in Europe: 2050 m average. Attendance at these heights of a large population - the town in 1841 had 874 inhabitants - is explained by geographers who still argue the same reasons, those expressed with firmness and precision Raoul Blanchard.
History According to legend, the village was founded in the sixth century in following circumstances. Saint-Veran, then bishop of Cavaillon, freed his city from a fiery dragon in chasing him to the heights of the Luberon. The monster, after being mounted in the air, would have fallen in the mountains of Beauregard, on the slopes which is built the village. The Queyrassins informed by transhumant shepherds would have given the place the name of the Bishop of Cavaillon.
chronicles mention of wildfires in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries or incursions of Vaud militias in the war against the League of Augsburg and Savoy, i690 to 1696. Built mid slope, Saint-Veran, as Greenhouse Molines is protected from flooding from the White Aquamarine.
the nineteenth century, insurance companies refused, given the high risks, ensuring the owners of the village, they banded together to form a membership organization against risk of fire or loss of livestock and was the pride of Queyrassins, because the creation of this mutual expressed a strong sense of solidarity.
In the 1920s, J. Tivollier has seen the development of tourism in Saint-Veran: construction of the Hotel Beauregard, workshops where they made skis and knitwear creation station winter sports. Today, tourism has become the main activity of the village.
Oral traditions
was said in St. Veran, as in Round Chalp and Raux, many stories of wolves. Girls, returning from the vigil, near a fountain saw an animal they mistook for a dog. It was a wolf. They heaved rocks. But the wolf rushed upon them and they had just enough time to close their doors before the animal to escape its fangs. Forannes to a wolf, wanting the dog to attack a house, entered the barn, which stood vigil. There young people could kill him. The people have these stories to be authentic. However, elsewhere in the Alps, we find the same stories, just as detailed. These stories are actually the oral tradition and are rarely miscellaneous. They constitute what one calls 1'on folklore of the wolf.
The village is rich in proverbs and sayings, written or told in dialect Queyrassins. Father Berge, in his Monograph of Saint-Veran (1928), pointed out and quoted a few. Here are two: "In mid-May the winter goes away, in mid-August, would see it there! "Or" Cuckoo shelter (April) hope the attic. "
Church
It lies near the Chatelet. It dates from the late seventeenth century. It was built on the site of the old church, repaired in the fifteenth century, then devastated during the Wars of Religion. He was given the shape of a parallelogram, without steeple or apse, as Protestant churches. A bell tower was added later, in 1838, when the roof was replaced by a stone vault. Outside, two crouching lions, sculpted in stone. These were the bases of the columns that formed the entrance porch, a relic of the old church. In the drum entrance, one can see a very old font, which is based on a triple pedestal molding and is carved in a somewhat coarse in its upper part. Inside, a magnificent wooden altarpiece carved and gilded. Most of the stalls, niches, statues, Stations of the Cross were carved, as the guardians of local tradition by cabinetmakers de Saint-Veran. One can still see two paintings by the French school of the eighteenth century. One is Joseph holding the infant Jesus on her lap, the other, the Trinity and, below, Saint-Veran and Sainte-Madeleine, the two patterns church.
architecture
The village's location is great: Mid slope in a cirque of high mountains. Seen from below, the roofs seem to touch the heavens. Homes, without being detached, are close to each other. The ridges are parallel to the fall line. For security reasons (to avoid burning of wood containing fustes hay reserves), the village is divided into quarters, clearly separated from each other and between which he was forbidden to build. (See "Architecture" and "cohousing"). Like all villages
Queyras, Saint Veran is divided quartered. You enter through Peyre-Belle, whose name is due to boulders left behind by ancient glaciers. Then what are Villard, City, or the Chatelet Chatelet, where the church and Forannes. The habitat is old, what makes the charm and picturesque village. Some houses are classified. You can read engraved on the lintel of the doors, dates and names preceded by W (short for "strong"). These houses are judged, perhaps unfairly, specifically Queyrassins (see "architecture"). Here is described the structure. The main building consists of a barn with walls stone half buried in the ground, and topped the foist, large volume because of larch trunks stacked, and where hay was stored (in the hayloft or Fenière, just above the barn), and beaten and kept rye (in the barn and attic). On the front of foist, there are two or three balconies which was dried harvest. The barn was divided into two parts: the Tauriers, where people lived and where were the furniture and the barn itself for cows, mule, sheep sometimes. Besides, there is a building, while smaller and stones: the CASET or house and its outbuildings. At the first level are the cellar, fougagne (or kitchen) and peylé (or skillet). Upstairs, rooms, workshops, storage. Before the CASET, sometimes extends a courtyard which was piled manure. Between the two buildings, stairways, or "lock" can go from barn to barn, home, to the rooms. At the rear of the house, always facing south, a wooden bridge - or Pountin - allows carts to access the barn.
At Saint-Veran, you can visit a private museum, "The House of Yesteryear," which lies beyond the church on the right.
Hamlets
Beyond Molines, the road crosses the bridge at Aquamarine Agnelle Marrou, downstream of which the two confluence Aigues, Ewe and Blanche. In local lore, the sorcerers of the valley are found near the bridge. The
Chalp Sainte-Agathe (1770 m)
2 kilometers in Moline, the hamlet has been home to a parish founded in the mid-nineteenth century. Partly burned in 1901, it is built halfway the two towns and part of the town of Saint-Veran. From there, a path that passes near the chapel of Saint-Simon and leads to the Col des Pres Cheese, after joining Trail Molines.
On the left bank, a few hundred meters from the hamlet of Raux, was a hamlet now extinct: The Chalp Round (or Charionde) on the alluvial fan of the torrent of Camaron, destroyed by avalanches. Here goes the story of the wolf and the fiddler. There was, in those days, twenty-two girls to marry Chalp-Round, which one day, went dancing, the conduct of the fiddler, Pierre-Grosse, common Molines. After the dance, the fiddler lingered and returned later, alone. Crossing the Forest of Love, on 1'ubac Mountain Beauregard, he met a wolf. He played then his violin to charm the animal and could take refuge in a chapel. There are several versions, sometimes different from the story: one of them is told by R. Husson wants to live in La Montagne. The
Raux (1930 m)
In this village, destroyed by fire in 1882, it was a beautiful panorama of the Mountain Beauregard and the village of Saint-Veran, located above. The Raux is crossed by the GR 58, which connects the refuge Agnel and mount Ceillac by the collar of Estronques (2649 m) and chalets tiourea. The
Raux, like La Ronde Chalp, the place is a story of a wolf. A girl of the village was surprised at night by a wolf, who could not take her dress. In a different version, the girl had gone to the fountain. She was holding the téo - wood or fat, or fragments of softwood, which is used as a torch. Alerted by his delay, his parents went looking for him and could deliver the fangs of the animal.
copper mine, quarry and marble chapel Clausis
Above Villard, a path wide enough and carriage plunged into the mountains towards the southeast. After the chapel of St. Elizabeth, on the left, stand the buildings of the copper mine, now abandoned, whose gallery in 2439 reached the highest altitude. The mine was known in antiquity. The operation resumed from 1921 to 1932. But the crisis of 1929, which resulted, among other things, lower commodity prices, has cost the mine unprofitable and caused its closure.
Above lies the Scrap Meander, which is below the Col de Longet, through which passes the path that connects Saint-Veran to Fontgillarde.
At 400 m, is the green marble quarry. Operated in the late nineteenth century, and from 1926 to 1931, it is, perhaps forever, closed, operating costs and transportation are too high to be profitable career. The path is broad, ends there.
Beyond stands at 2349 m, the chapel of clauses (or nails), built in 1846-1847. Dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Caramel, it has been the site of a pilgrimage on July 16, attended by Italian Catholics, who competed the longest pilgrimage of the Saint-Simon (parish Molina).
