Collar of the Small-Saint-Bernard

History of the collar

The importance of the collar begins as of the Neolithic era. The traces of a vast stone circle, or cromlec' H , are still visible today, in spite of the irrevocable damage made by the highways departments at the time of the realization of the motor-road (RN 90/S 26); according to certain authors, the supporting works would have destroyed a central dolmen. The cromlec' H draws an ellipse whose main roads, perpendicular to the trunk road, measure approximately 72 meters. Its dating remains problematic (age of Iron?).

The Salted, tribe Celtic of the Val of Aoste, will borrow then the collar to communicate with the Ceutrons, their cousins of Tarentaise. It could be used in 218 av. J. - C. by the army of Hannibal to cross the Alps towards the plain of Po.

Thereafter, in 45 before our era, the Romans build on order of Jules César, a Roman way connecting Milan to Vienna. It is this way, named “ Alpis Graia ”, which will be used until in 1858 date on which it will be replaced by road RN 90. They build also a “mansio”, the equivalent of the relay, intended to lodge the travellers and to provide them fresh horses. Its foundations remain easily locatable Italian side. They would have also built a temple dedicated to Jupiter, similar to that of the collar of the Large-Saint-Bernard. This temple would have been decorated of a statue of the god drawn up at the top of a column, the column of Joux (Joux < Jovis , genitive of Jupiter ).

After the fall of the Roman Empire, with orée of the Early middle ages, the centers of the capacity move Milan with Pavia and of Lyon to Vienna, and the passage of the collar of the Small-Saint-Bernard is partly supplanted by the passage of the Col of the Mount-Cenis, a route less escarpé and less dangerous. The Roman mansio has to fall then in ruins or was destroyed during the great invasions, but certain authors speak about the construction of a first Christian shelter as of the 5th century. In fact, it seems that the collar, also became as of this time a reference mark of brigands.

Saint-Bernard and the old people's home

To the turning of the Year millet, Holy Bernard de Menthon (923 - 1008), future owner of the mountaineers, specialist in the fight against paganism, goes up there to drive out the demons and the brigands. It founds a first old people's home intended to ensure the protection of the pilgrims against the brigands and the risks of the climate. This one would have been set up first of all on the Eastern slope (valdôtain), then, damaged, rebuilt by the bishop Pierre II of Tarentaise on its own diocese, in the west of the collar (slope tarin). Bernard conceived his network like a service of free assistance opened to all, at the same time help center for the poor and the patients, refuge for the pilgrims, the monks, the merchants and the soldiers. For that, it took again the old Roman network, which it started to reorganize.

In 1752, a bubble of the pope Benoît XIV gives officially the old people's home and all its goods with the Ordre of the Saints Maurice-and-Lazare, which will take care of its operation until the beginning of the 20th century, serving more as ten thousand meals each year, in particular with the maronniers , people of the close hamlets which, in exchange of the exemption of the military service, were to guide the travellers wishing to cross the coll After his abandonment and its partial destruction lasting the Second world war, the old people's home was reopened never again.

The border

The collar of the Small-Saint-Bernard marks, along the watershed between the brook of the lanches of Savoy (Recluse) and Doire de Verney, the border natural (and secular) between Savoy and the Valley of Aoste. This line represents very exactly an axis of symmetry of the cromlec' H, and marked until in 1715 the communal limit between Séez and Thuile.

In 1715, because of an epidemic which decimates Savoy, the shepherds of Thuile set up a medical barrier in the west of the collar, around the old people's home. They annex de facto the protected territory. In 1725, a judgment is returned, which restores only partially the initial situation: only half of the territory “confiscated” by the valdôtains turns over to the Savoyard ones.

During the Revolution, France annexes all the plate, then, after the conference of Vienna in 1815, one returns to the former situation.

At the time of the “final” annexation of Savoy in 1860, Napoleon III authorizes new Italy born to push back the border until - beyond the old people's home (the border extends a kind of pseudopode to include the old people's home and its dependences).

After the Second world war, the Treated of Turin , signed in 1946, stipulates the return to the strict watershed. But the topographic commission charged to carry out the treaty makes an error while making pass the border to the Column of Joux. The commune of Séez protests, a correction is finally operated: the border runs according to the half-small axis of the Chromlec' H, then joined the summit of the Mont View-point (where before it passed slightly to the east of this one).

Chanousia

Of 1860 with 1909, the Old people's home of the Small-Saint-Bernard, then in Italian territory, was directed by the abbot Pierre Chanoux. This last, impassioned of botany, carried out opposite the old people's home a small alpine garden, baptized Chanousia in the honor of its founder.

Managed successively by Italian scientists of reputation like professors Vaccari and De Marchi, it sheltered more 4 000 species of alpine plants. Completely devastated at the time of the combat of the Guerre 39-45 it was then abandoned.

In 1978, the Company of the flora valdôtaine, under the direction of Efisio Noussan, gives again life to him. It is currently in French territory, and managed jointly by the department of Savoy.

Engagements at the time of the Second world war

When the June 10th, 1940, the Italy declares the war with the France, already overcome, the monopolization of the collar of the Small-Saint-Bernard is one of the goals of Mussolini. The population of the border zone is evacuated. Cut off in the Ruined Redoute - a perched fortress with 2 400 meters of altitude on the sides of Traversette - forty soldiers of BAF defend the passage of the collar against thousands of Italian soldiers. This bolt holds good and more than six hundred Italian soldiers will find death while vainly trying to take the fort. The French soldiers, who count only nine dead, evacuate the fort the July 2nd, 1940 with weapons and luggage under the honors of the fascistic troops, after having received the order of evacuation following the armistice signed the June 25th.

The Italian troops occupy the sector and the population, authorized to return as of September 1940, to resume the agricultural work, notes plundering in rule of their houses. After the rendering of the Marshal Badoglio, the Italian occupants are replaced, the September 8th, 1943, by troops of the German army. These are these troops that the French soldiers of the 13th Battalion of Alpine hunters face in April 1945. Released, meter after meter, the collar of the Small-Saint-Bernard, is nothing any more but desolation at the end of the engagements the April 29th, 1945. The old people's home, broken by mortar fires and its sifted walls of impacts of balls are ready to crumble, its furniture and its library are dispersed on the ground and the alpine garden of Chanousia is entirely devastated.

The contemporary time

At the time of the foundation of the ski station of Rosière, of the beginning of the Years 1950, its initiators had already thought of a winter connection, by the collar, with their neighbors valdôtains of Thuile; the road of the collar being closed during the long months of snowing up. Starting from 1984, the chair-lift of the Hanging-post and ski-lift of Bellecombe, French side, and the chair-lift of the View-point, Italian side allow this connection. This junction, carried out at the place even of the murderers engagements of 1940, opens to the skiers skiable a common field - the space San Bernardo - of 3 000 hectares, 150 km of tracks served today by 38 ski lifts.

Excursions

The collar constitutes the starting point of the rise of the top of Lancebranlette (approximately 3 hours), which offers an original point of view on the top of the Mont Blanc (North-South orientation), like for the Lac bottomless.

See too

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