Bourgon

Bourgon is a common French, located in the department of the Mayenne and the area Pays of the Loire.

Geography

Bourgon is located 30 km of Laval and 20 km of Loiron, its chief town of canton, it is a peaceful locality which one discovers to 116 m of altitude, near the Vilaine and of its splendid reserve of water. It would owe its name with Latin “ river of the borough ”. One counted 817 inhabitants in there 1726, 1.610 in 1871, 995 in 1898, 954 in 1906 and 771 in 1969. Its territory - which recovers the surface of 2.040 ha - lengthens, of north in the south, until its limit with the Ille-et-Vilaine. Sprinkled by the Unpleasant one and some of its affluents, it has altitudes of 173 m to Brossinière and of 151 m to the wood of Rousineraie. The borough, very excentré, is located on a headland which dominates the Unpleasant one and faced the first rocks of the close province, Brittany.

In 1696, and until the Revolution, a third of this territory was still covered with the moors: moors of Brossinière, Bas-Montigné, Trip hammer. The remainder distributed enters 22 smallholding S, presented " bad grounds and of the meadows ". At the end of the 18th century, one notes the culture of the flax and hemp. The cereals were also cultivated, and one grouped them in two categories:

- " large blés" (wheat and rye), sowing itself at All Saints' day;

- " small blés" (barley and oats), sown in spring;

Buckwheat, although not being a cereal, had an major importance in the food. It pushes in three months and can thus be sown tardily, if corn harvests are announced insufficient. This culture will be mainly reserved thereafter for the food of the cattle and it will be completely abandoned after the Second world war.

" large blés" , and particularly the red wheat, were often required by the noble ones and the clergy of their farmers or sharecroppers.

History

Feudality

Bourgon enters the history at the 9th century under the name of “ Burgodenum ”. “ J. of Borgon ” in XIIe century, “ Saint-Pierre de Bourgon ” in 1458, the parish was called “ Bourgon-the-Pare ” in 1562. Thereafter, the village will be called quite simply " Bourgon". Nevertheless the mention of " is found; Saint-Pierre de Bourgon" in the parochial registers, in 1685 and on the register of grievances of known as Bourgon (1789).

Formerly, the “Chemin gravelled” or “way of Roy” (mentioned in 1454), was in fact a portion of the " Way of Cocaigne" , old Gallo-Roman way which connected “the Cotentin to the Gascogne”. In North, portions appear still here and there on the communes of Saint-Pierre-of-Moors, Pellerine, Larchamp, Loroux, Pontmain. It emerged in Bourgon in the court of the old school of the boys, with the locality " Pavement". In the South, this way was selected like limit between Mayenne and They-and Vilaine. It cuts the road of Bourgneuf to Vitré in Brossinière, avoids Bréal, and continues towards the Gravel, skirts the forest of Pertre. It moves then towards Angers and the Bridge-of-C.

Vassal of the county of Laval, its Seigneurie of parish was a Baronnie in 1706. Its lords took the title of counts of Bourgon at the 17th century. Of their Castle, which still exists at the 17th century, " in the east of the borough… with a planted alley of trees and a vault dedicated to Holy-Anne " , one generally thinks that there does not remain any memory. It is fortunately inaccurate, since the count of Corbinaye lived in his " home of Bourgon" still called " house seigneuriale of Bourgon" until the end of the XVII° century. On the chart of Hubert Jaillot (1706), the current farm of the Logis comprises well an alley bordered of trees. " Château" quite modest, but which was often appropriate for the small aristocracy provincial very often as poor as certain middle-class men, even more. A few tens of meters downwards, at the edge of the brook, is a picturesque species of renovated small house: it was acted in fact of the " mill of Bourgon" , to which the peasants of the various smallholdings and Closeries of the East of the commune were to make grind their grains, realizing payment of the miller and royalty seigneuriale. One can be astonished to find a mill on such a small brook. In fact there were even… two: that of Bourgon and that of Choiseau. Four water reserves had been arranged in the valley of the brook of Choiseau and they are still quite visible. These reserves made it possible to accumulate water reserves which the brook could not have provided to him to only actuate the two mills.

One of the owners of this humble " house seigneuriale" , Pierre of Corbinaye dies there on September 15th, 1680. His wife, Anne de Quatrebarbes, had preceded it on April 10th, 1650.
Julien of Corbinaye married Laurence Lièpvre de Martigné and remained some time with the family castle. “ very erudite gentleman ”, he became president with the Parlement of Brittany in 1664 then president with the investigations. He then establishes his residence with the castle of Wood-Blin in Bréal then in his private mansion, in Vitré where he dies on May 31st, 1736. He is buried in the church of Bourgon the next on June 1st. He leaves with his brothers the use of the house seigneuriale of Bourgon.
Julien François Joseph dies with the Fournier hotel of Rennes on May 1st, 1753 and is buried in Bourgon. His wife, Charlotte de Rabasté, had preceded it in the tomb on April 28th, 1750. The last family member buried in the church of Bourgon is Romaine of Corbinaye, on February 10th, 1753 (deceased in Rennes.)

The possessions of the family fall between the hands from the family from Guerry in 1748 and 1763. Claude Alexandre Malo de Guerry was president with mortar of the Parliament of Brittany. Its possessions extended from Juvigné until Domloup. On the parish of Bourgon, one can mention the old pond of Haut-Feil, of a surface of 3 Journaux, the mill of Bourgon " with the two small ponds being used to make grind the aforementioned moulin" , smallholdings of Red-Feil, Pipardière, Haut-Epinay, of Noë-Pouillet, the furnace with lime and the field of the Small crosses, the mill of Choiseau, and the grounds while depending, as well as patches of land in Jaunaie and Chalonges. The whole was estimated with the value of 65.762 books, 6 pennies, 8 sums of money. These goods will be bought by inhabitants of Bourgon about 1800.

In addition to the Battle of Brossinière, the September 26th 1423, the locality remembers to have been “ diminished with the English garrison of Mayenne ”, in December 1433.

French revolution

Several facts of local importance mark this disturbed time. In the register of grievances, written on March 4th, 1789, the inhabitants ask for the suppression of dangerous places “known under the denomination of Guinguette or Drive-pot” and of " to destroy forever the Gabelle " , tax taken on salt of which any person having reached the 7 years age was obligatorily to acquire. This tax caused a ceaseless fight between salt-smugglers and gabelous, guerilla about which also the peasants complained who regularly saw their barriers cut to allow the passage of dogs that one took along to Brittany and which returned charged with salt from there. Their thin cultures were also trampled by the salt-smugglers or the gabelous. The salt produced in Brittany, frank province, cost 3 books the minot (a little less than 50 kg) on the Breton side of the Unpleasant one. It was worth almost 60 books in Maine, that is to say 20 times more. It was the subject thus of a dangerous traffic but which could allow certain peasants désoeuvrés (especially during the winter) to live sparely, with the help of a large taking risk. Thus it is estimated that 30% of the salt which arrived in Maine, province of gabelle Grande was salt of smuggling, " false-sel". Gabelous or " employees in the farms of the roy" , charged to repress this traffic, were disseminated in the countryside, all the half-leagues or approximately, with the center even of the local population, and the bloody conflicts were not rare. On the parish of Bourgon, stations were installed in Errie, Edonnière, the Large-Village. Quarterings of gabelous existed with Poultry market, the Bourgneuf-the-Forest, the Moor-with-Wrongs, in Saint-Pierre-the-court, like in Orrière, in Saint-Me Herve. In 1788, the parish of Bourgon paid 2700 pounds of tax on salt. The suppression of this tax will put at unemployment good number of gabelous and smugglers. As, the principal inhabitants of Bourgon asked as " the employers which do not have states, one continues to give them pledges to take care of safety publique." The suppression of gabelle, the pressures undergone by the priests, the availability of the Nation of their goods and their sale, the June 14th and August 29th, 1791, the introduction of a new administration in this rural district already extremely poor injured the interests of some inhabitants who sank then in the Chouannerie. A true civil war was held in the scrap-metal, and Bourgon could not escape the murders, assassinations and the revenges most horrible. One will retain several dark episodes of this period: after the business of the Pond of the Chain, in Bourgneuf, in September 1792, the gendarmes wanted to seize citizens of Bourgon against which a mandate to bring had been delivered. The December 27th 1792, the brigades of Ernée and Gorron, having been able to seize itself of nobody, the borough being deserted, are reflected moving towards Bourgneuf to stop other suspects. At midnight, and a quarter of mile of the borough, they were accepted with drawn rifle shots over the hedges by " a troop of inhabitants of the borough and surroundings of Bourgon" , . Five gendarmes, whose casualty, were retained prisoners. December 31st, approximately 800 national Gardes of Ernée, Laval and Vitré, informed that " four to five thousand hommes" was to meet on the parish of Bourgon, invested the borough completely deserted from December 31st to January 2nd. All the houses, including that of the mayor, were emptied their food.

A news Affaire of Brossinière takes place the June 18th 1793, causing the death of a republican soldier. The April 11th 1794, the men of the Beaufort general face the chouans in Gélinière and on the hillock of Red-Feil where 8 chouans are killed and a score captured.

Near the Castle of Villiers (Launay-Villiers) - which sheltered Armand-Charles Tuffin, the Marquis of Rouërie during several months - Bourgon was “ the hearth of the Chouannerie ”, the Frères Pinçon there having recruited “ many members ”. Indeed the locality was announced “ animated of a bad spirit and having involved the others ”. The company of the Pinçon brothers - which counted a hundred men - passed under the command of the Vicomte of Pontbriand, after the death of Jean Chouan, in July 1794. It drove out Chartrain, “ republican defector ” and “ plundering of profession ” and took again the weapons with the end of the year 1798.

First Empire and Restoration.

The seizure of power by Napoleon 1st put an end to the disorders of Chouannerie. Remained however a problem, that of the refusal of the conscription. Also, for all this period, of the soldiers were charged to make hunting for the deserters in the commune. One notes no other at that time made historical private individual.

At the time of the restoration of the royalty, in 1815, the participants in old Chouannerie, disorders whose populations had a cooking memory, were done more daring. In 1815, Jean Pinçon took purely and simply the place of the mayor, before giving up it during the Hundred Days. In 1830, following the Journées of July Louis-Philippe Ier seized the power and Charles X the way of exiles. The mayor, Louis François Gerard was dislocated of his functions for financial embezzlements. In 1832, the Duchess of Berry, wanted to ensure the regency of Henri V, the last representing of the branch legitimist of the Bourbons. It tried to relight embers of old Chouanneries and the Vendée. The deposed mayor was implied in a business of attempt at recruitment. Contrary to what had occurred between 1791 and 1799, the populations were armed and did not hesitate to denounce the troublemakers. It is the last outstanding historical fact which proceeded in the commune.

Administration

Demography

Economy

At the 17th century, the Minerai of Fer was exploited in Bourgon on behalf of the Forges of Port-Brillet and of the Forges of Chailland but this industry was to cease before the Revolution. However, during this one, the Directory of Ernée still ordered iron ore for the forging mills of Chailland. In this disturbed period, one does not know if the request were satisfied. There does not remain any visible vestige of this activity and the files are poor on this subject. The commune - which counted 82 farms in 1834 - is nowadays surrounded of Pâturage S. Its Agriculteur S are devoted to the practice of the Polyculture and the breeding of the Bovin S, the Porcin S and the Volaille S.

At the centuries spent, many small trades were exerted in the countryside. Each " village" located far from the borough a clothier, a wet cooper, a blacksmith, merchants compait. One steeped and crushed the flax and the hemp which were transformed into wire. However, the industry of weaving, even if it existed sometimes, underwent the strong competition of the manufactures located along the river " Mayenne". About 1850, several women still exerted trade of ropemaking machines, but the trade was lost with the successive deaths of these women. At the same time, at least three tisserands transformed this wire into fabric. All these artisanal activities disappeared little by little and the commune is currently completely with agricultural vocation. The industrial main activity of the commune was without any doubt the exploitation of the stone quarries with lime, as well as the cooking of this stone, used mainly by the farmers. The " pierrière" of Haut-Feil was already in activity with the XVIII° century and a furnace with lime functioned with the locality " Croisettes" , near the farm to Pipardière. About 1815, a second source of stone with lime is discovered close to the borough, in Meslard and is the subject of an exploitation and a transformation thanks to two furnaces, one built in Noë of the Lamp (which still exists), the other on the Moor of Trip hammer, close to the way of Croixille. A third career - Clairie- is the subject of one exploitation at the same time, seems it. The career of the Home was also exploited with the XIX° century. This industry seems péricliter about 1875, time which marks the beginning of the use of the artificial fertilizers in agriculture and the decline of the population of the commune. Of these four excavations, initially flooded, there remain nothing any more but two about it at present: that of Meslard and that of the Home. The career of Haut-Feil was filled inert materials while that of Clairie was incorporated in the water level of High-Unpleasant during the construction of a stopping, in 1982.

Places and monuments

Church

The Église of Bourgon replaced a Sanctuaire “ in cross and extremely pretty ”. Its work began in 1903, thanks to the “ marvellous resources ” of the Bry priest and in the fields of the Architecte Tessier. Its blessing took place the December 10th 1905. Its inventory could proceed “only with the second visit”, Wednesday March 14th 1906 and after “ depression of a door… ”.

Personalities related to the commune

Brothers Pinçon

See too

Common of Mayenne

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