Passadoc Gazette - No. 70

The Quiz!
We talk a little... a lot... passionately!
Mistral... 15 October 1470 – 14 February 1471 : Saint-Tropez... The departmental parks of the Alpes Maritimes... Old Island... To Ramatuelle... The history of « Miss I Hope »... Women in the Resistance... The village of Grambois in Vaucluse... The clandestine newspapers during the Second World War... Goult: the chapel of Saint-Véran... The dolmen of Gaoutlabry… Promote Provencal...
Vagabondages...
Photos yesterday.
Passadoc library.

André Abbe

Mistral

In January 2021, going to Sainte-Maxime (Var) to see my friend Roger, painter and collector, I fell nose to nose with this statue of Frédéric Mistral, installed Louis Blanc Square.

Its author Sébastien Langloÿs was able to restore a faithful image of the Master on his old days, worthy and elegant.

Aged, Mistral was conservative. He refused to support the hunger strike farmers in 1907.
Louis Blanc, journalist, Socialist MP, died in Cannes in 1882, was progressive. In Sainte-Maxime posterity associated them.

Frédéric Mistral... Nobel Prize in Literature [Photo André Abbe].

Alain Cathala

15 October 1470 – 14 February 1471 : Saint-Tropez

550^e birthday... Reformation of Saint-Tropez,
After two centuries of crisis linked to the ravages of wars and epidemics, René, Count of Provence, expressed his will to repopulate a number of deserted places, abandoned by their population. This repopulation is ensured by a real contract between a lord and a group of people who are to reside in the territory. Between 1460 and 1523, some 40 housing acts were signed in Provence, notably in Vidauban, Bagnols-en-Forêt, or Vallauris.

1470, Saint-Tropez is uninhabited, only a tower in ruins remains. (The Tower of Suffren which will become the residence of the Lord and his baily). This territory belongs to Jean COSSA, Sénéchal de Provence and Baron de Grimaud, who wants to repopulate this strategic place for the security of the Gulf.
On October 15, 1470, Jean COSSA donated the seigneury of Saint-Tropez to a noble genoese Raphaël de Gariskio, entrusting him with the task of ensuring the repopulation, reconstruction and fortification of the city.

Source: Municipal Archives and Conference of Elizabeth Sauze (2020).

The Suffren Tower – Saint Tropez

The Alpes-Maritimes departmental parks

From Théoule-sur-Mer to Menton, these exceptional sites offer unique features in terms of topography, location, biodiversity and layout.

The department makes every effort to preserve the fauna and flora of its natural parks while allowing as many people as possible to continue to discover them.

But you are the first actors in this preservation! Then come discover or rediscover these exceptional natural spaces while protecting their biodiversity and raising awareness of the environment. Explanatory panels along the discovery trails on various themes such as the vast natural, cultural and historical heritage await you.

Philippe Natalini

Island of the Old…

... To Antheor. It is one of the jewels of the coast of the Esterel massif. But maybe you knew that a night club with restaurant was set up there in 1960?
The café-garage in front was transformed into a café-terrace with sunbathing. A shuttle bus made the journeys between the Old Beach and the island, while the large hotel of Antheor (above the café-garage) hosted guests on holiday.

But two severe winters of storms were right about the shuttles and the company stopped net.

Today, the island is rid of light cannibal and plaster constructions. It has been returned to nature, especially to the seabirds that are peacefully evolving there.

To Ramatuelle...

In the famous village of Ramatuelle, not far from the cemetery, a memorial is erected. This is what he recalls, commemorates and honors...

The monument was inaugurated on 3 May 1959, in the presence of the guard of the Sceaux Edmond Michelet, representing General de Gaulle. Designed by architect Gaston Gastel, it was carved by Marcel Courbier, friend of Jean Moulin, head of the National Council of the Resistance. 322 names engraved in the stone recall the sacrifice of men and women, aged between 17 and 83, casual intelligence agents or active agents, who perished in sometimes atrocious conditions, under the blows of a fierce enemy.

Submarines make the connection between Algiers and Ramatuelle, from 4 February 1943 to 26 November 1943, it is Colonel Paul Paillole who coordinates the missions of four submarines, The Casabianca, The Marshal, The Pearl and Arethuse, responsible for transporting military intelligence agents to the French coast.

The bay of Bonporteau, near the famous beach of the Escalet, located in the town of Ramatuelle, was the central point of this. There, resistors and families living in the premises took care of these very special agents to drive them clandestinely to their operational place. Their mission was mainly to deliver mail and weapons, but also to bring back information from resistance fighters to Algiers.

On 26 November 1943, the last mission on this type of action resulted in a tragedy. Alphonse Alsfasser, a 40-year-old shadow man from Finistère, was killed by German soldiers shot at him while he was about to board the submarine. Casabiancawhich was to take him back to Algiers. Alphonse Alsfasser is now buried in the village cemetery and the memorial square bears his name.

During the Second World War, French agents, who were in charge of spying on the enemy, landed on the French coasts, including those of Ramatuelle, where the memorial of the former special services of National Defence paid tribute to them.

The history of « Miss I Hope »

After the remarkable work of Philippe Castellano.

On Saturday 27 May 1944, four groups bombardment of 304^th Bomber-Wing of the 15^th Air Force, take off from their bases in southern Italy, to attack the German airfield of Montpellier/Fréjorgues. Among them, the 454^th Bomber-Goup, made up of 30 devices. Shortly before the passage of the French coast, at the level of Cape Roux, located on the sides of the massif of the Estérel, a B-24 is hit full of whip by the flak.

Stitching with wide spirals, the apparatus « Miss I Hope », will hit the sea and simmer into the pass of the harbour of Agay.
Four men will be able to jump by parachute, and will be taken prisoner immediately. The parachute of a fifth man, the machine gunner of the nose turret, will unfortunately go into torch, while the remaining five crew members will be killed in turn, having been, for various reasons, unable to evacuate the aircraft.

The sea will close on the bomber now a wreck. It was only at the end of August 1984, during an exploration dive in the Bay of Agay, that its dislocated remains were discovered at a depth of 42 metres.
The team at the base of the discovery of this wreck (Philippe Bres, Jean-Pierre Joncheray, his son Philippe, Bernard Mariller, Yves Moussou, Claude Pinaut and Philippe Castellano), was greatly affected by this informative mass resting on the sandy bottom where anti-flak vests were lying, the parachute wrapped around a machine gun and embroiderers...

The aircraft's dial was still inscribed (painted with stencil on the left flank of the carling), the black paint miraculously resisted 40 years of immersion.

On Saturday, 5 October 1997, a memorial to the bomber's crew was inaugurated in front of the Bay of Agay, namely:

Lieutenant Robert Batz (pilot), Lieutenant Georges Erlewine (co-pilot), Sergeant Ward Bowman (dorsal turret mitrailleur), Lieutenant Robert Bragg (navigator), Sergeant Little (salt mitrailleur), Lieutenant James Logan (bombardier), Sergeant Peters (tail turret mitrailleur), Sergeant Ramsey (ventral turret mitrailleur), Sergeant Robert Royer (nose turret mitrailleur) and Sergeant Gene Vodopia (radio operator).

In the spring of 2002, as a security measure, Toulon's mine-clearing divers explored the site and destroyed 29 bombs found there.

Women in the Resistance...

Germaine Drelon – said « Germaine Michel-Jaffard » – born 11 January 1896 in Châlons-sur-Marne (Marne) and died 5 July 1973 in Fréjus (Var). She is the daughter of Felix Drelon, Mayor of Châlons-sur-Marne and Member of Parliament for La Marne, and Louise Isidore Bonnomet.

On 14 May 1914, at Saint-Cloud, she married Antoine Henri Louis Raymond Michel-Jaffard, son of Marie Antoine Louis Michel (now Michel-Jaffard in 1884), and Marie Henriette Augustine Mathilde Jaffard.

She died on 5 July 1973 in Fréjus. Being domiciled in Fayence, she is buried in the cemetery of that city, where now, at her side, he who is considered to be his adopted son, Horst Albin Schneider, dit René Jaffard (born 17 September 1914 in Auerbach and died on 1 September 1914).^andJanuary 1994 in Saint-Raphaël), winner of the Resistance and listed as Resistant of the region of Fayence, department of Var, in an unregistered network of the French Forces combatants.

As early as the fall of 1943, when groups of resistance fighters, whose parachute fields were being licensed, formed reception teams, she and Horst Albin Schneider participated in the organization of these groups. It thus takes the lead of the Parachute Landing Section (SAP) of Fayence, which is responsible for the recovery of parachute weapons, ammunition and liaison agents on the Canjuers plateau.

In August 1944, it climbed to the so-called Place de la Roche, in the immediate north of the village of Fayence, where the garrison of the German army, still made up of more than two hundred soldiers, was sheltered in order to negotiate its surrender. Alone, a white flag in her hand, she managed to obtain from Major Turnov that her soldiers surrendered the weapons, provided that they were handed over to the Allies and not to the units of the Resistance.

Thus, his courage and perfect knowledge of the German language free Fayence.

Clandestine newspapers during the Second World War

One of the means of combating the Nazi occupier was the development by the Resistance, the underground press, and therefore the banned printing works; one of the indispensable and indispensable weapons to expose official propaganda and organize action. In 1944, its prints reached up to two million copies.

In the south, clandestine newspapers like La Marseillaise, Rouge-Midi or Provençal are the most prolific.

In this profession, many have paid with their lives this commitment to resist: out of 1,200 hard-book workers, 400 were executed.

Philippe Levieux

The village of Grambois in the Vaucluse

The existence of Grambois is formally attested only from the XI^e century, even though traces of occupation for the Neolithic and the location of three Gallo-Roman villa were noted.

To understand the meaning of the word "typical", nothing like an ascent to this perched village. Every alley, every monument, speaks of Provence! The village square seems straight out of a movie. And because of that, she is regularly invested in filming.

The entire village of Grambois offers a total change of scenery and transports through time and history. The multisacular oak adorns the coat of arms of this village on a steep hillside (to be discovered: an incredible heritage and biodiversity of the small village of Grambois, perched on the Luberon).

Located in Forcalquier County, XII^e century, Grambois became possession of the Counts of Provence in XIII^e century. Occupying a strategic site, with powerful speakers at XIII^ecentury, enlarged to the XIV^eAt that time Grambois became one of the 12 fortresses of Provence.

In 1590, during the 8th^e religious war (1585-1598), Grambois, remained loyal supporter of Henry IV, was besieged by the troops of the Duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I^and. After ten days of fighting, the village must surrender. Piled and burned, it will take about ten years for the Gramboisians to erase the traces of this drama whose archives of the era disappeared. Grand seigneurial families having ruled Grambois since the XV^ecentury (Forcalquier-Viens, de La Croix, de Gautier), history has mostly retained the name of the Roquesante, lords of the end of the XVII^e until the Revolution. The most illustrious was Pierre de Roquesante (1619-1707), who played an important role in the trial of Nicolas Fouquet, the royal superintendent of finance, accused of misappropriating public funds.

In XIX^e Despite the presence of some industries (filatures), Grambois' agricultural vocation was confirmed for the benefit of vegetable and fruit crops, and especially the vine. The phenomenon intensified in the XX^e century (1924: creation of the wine cooperative) while an art craft appeared and tourism developed. Although suffering from the rural exodus, Grambois began to repopulate from the 1950s and today has nearly 1,200 inhabitants.

Goult: the chapel Saint-Véran

It is necessary to cross the hamlet of the maquignons on the road of Lacoste to find this small Romanesque chapel built on a rocky slab and surrounded by oaks.

This was built in the XI^e century, without being able to specify the date. Fragilized by landslides, it would then have undergone a second stage of construction. It will then have the vocation of parish chapel, then priory until the XIV^e century.

Sold as a national good at the Revolution, abandoned, it threatens to ruin before being taken over by the commune and completely restored.

In the Vaucluse...

Giselle Penat-Lorde

The dolmen of Gaoutlabry

Located at the place called Gaoutabry, at 198 meters above sea level, in the Massif des Maures, this dolmen occupies the nipple of a hill in the middle of the maquis.

The toponym Gaoutabry would come from the Provencal « caud » which means hot, « gauto » round slope of a hill with reference to « gauto » which designates the cheek.

The site was discovered in 1876 by Baron Gustave Charles Ferdinand de Bonstetten (1816-1892), Swiss archaeology, and then searched several times. It is a collective grave composed of 34 erected stones which correspond to the number of buried subjects because it contained calcined human bones belonging to at least 34 individuals well arranged in what is called the room, accompanied by many offerings, such as: blades, axes, daggers, and a ornament of five pearls. However, because of the acidity of the soil and the losses caused during the first excavations, this rich furniture is only a pale reflection of the original tomb. The latter was the subject of two periods of use: the end of Neolithic (2800 BC) and the age of copper (2000 BC).