Rembercourt-on-Mad

Rembercourt-on-Mad is a common French, located in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle and the area Lorraine.

Geography

History

Rembercourt with Currants and its lords

Ermariscourt and Rembercourt, of the origins at the year millet

Rembercourt-on-Mad, village of the canton of Thiaucourt-Regniéville (district of Toul, in Meurthe and the Moselle), established on the middle price of the river of Mad, not far from the confluence of the Ru of Charey, downstream from Jaulny, should not be confused with Rembercourt-with-Pots (today Rembercourt-Sommaisne), Rembercourt-on-Ornain (today Val of Ornain) and Rambucourt, all located in the Meuse.

Does the village draw its origin from a frank colonist (mérovingien?) name of “Ragimbert”. This one would have installed its " curtis" (its field) against the fields of Soiron, the “Warbordis villa” (Herbeuville the Saint-Julien) and of “Buriacum” (current Buret). It was on the downstream part of the old Gallo-Roman villa of " Galliniacum" , which gave itself the toponym of Jaulny.

Ragimbert (or Rambert) has already found on the site of the grounds in culture for a few centuries, of the vine, the sources, of wood, a calcareous ground good exposed, with the shelter of the wind of north and thus clean in particular to the vine growing, along a driving ancient way in the Moselle.

First written mention clearly quoting the field of Rembercourt, the " villa Raimberti curte" , goes back to year 848, under Charles the Bald person. With this date, some " Fredal" , wire of” Osianna”, brother of “Ogtulf” and husband of “Blitgiane”, Carolingian great landowners in the valley of Rupt-of-Mad and the neighborhood, makes an important pious donation with the abbey of Gorze (founded towards 750). It carries on approximately 12 hectares of arable lands, wood, of vines with their serfs, their dwellings and a mill farinier. The text of the donation (“(…) in fine Raginbertiaca vel in ipsa villa Raginberto curte (…) ”) made a clear separation enters the yielded territory (fining) and funds, the “curtis”. The few old or more recent mentions of this mill and the village which surrounds it tend to show that the current village of Rembercourt and the goods listed in 848 have an often distinct history.

Collected dice 855, under Lothaire II, by the laic abbots of Gorze, the site is the object into 959, at the time of the Otton emperor, of an award of the duke of High-Lorraine, Frederic d' Ardenne pronounced at the royal court of justice of Gondreville. After various unknown adventures, one finds into 972 the mill and the land surrounding one within the abbey mense of the Benedictines of Saint-Mihiel whose same Frederic is then the solicitor. Frederic is the husband of Beatrice of France, sister of Hugues Capet (acknowledged itself of the fields of the abbey of Saint-Denis) and built the first castle of “Bar-with-Duke”. In 972, it undersigns in the name of the couple and of its son Thierry, an emphyteutic lease which relates in particular to the antique mill farinier, with the profit of two owners, Vidon and Etienne. At this point in time the mill and the hamlet where it is located are indicated under the term of “Ermariscurte surper fluviulum Matthe”. Thus, unless imagining that the toponyms of Ermariscourt and Ragembercourt were confused by linguistic deformation, right from the start, there exists a hamlet with a mill, named Ermariscourt, on the fining of Rembercourt, but which is not the bearing village-center (he too?) the name of Rambert. Indeed, the unit aimed in 848 and 972, located at the bottom of the small valley of Hacnivaux, in extreme cases with Waville, will be called until XVI-XVIIes centuries, Amecourt (unquestionable misadventure of Ermariscourt, Armacourt, perhaps Ramecourt…). It exists there thatched cottages, a “fountain” (the brook now dried up of Hacnivaux) and the communal mill of origin. The charter of the abbey of Saint-Mihiel could not in any case concern Saint-Baussant, as that was considered by the scholars of the 19th century.

The medieval period

One can think that after the year millet, upstream of the unit from which one comes to speak, on Right Bank of Mad, the security of the ford and of the crossroads between the antiques ways of Villecey-on-Mad, the Viéville-in-Hague, Charey and Jaulny, the opportunist construction of a fort orders. It is the ancestor of the future Castle of Rembercourt; undoubtedly established with the seat of one of the old Carolingian fields laid out on both sides of the river. This fort is built by a clan of small landed proprietors which enters quickly the network of alliance of the owners of the freehold and the castle of Jaulny, in the orbit of the first lords d' Apremont. The idea of the militiamans is of monnayer their protection to the inhabitants of the group of dwelling which can have preexisted to this place, as the files of the franque period make it suppose and even if those of 972 are foreign for them. The family of these small knights avoids name of the site: “Ramber-court”.

The village takes its eases quickly or joined the habitat of left bank of Mad, along the Gallic “strata publica” carrying out towards Amecourt, Waville and Metz, to evolve to the aspect that one knows to him still today. It is probable perhaps that one of the local abbeys, certainly Saint-Benoît, equip it with a modest vault dice the end of the 13th century. As for the passage on Mad, it makes necessary quickly to throw a bridge between two banks but until after the Napoleonean Empire, it will remain out of wood.

The documents show indeed that about the 13th century, a share of the round of applause and fining of Rembercourt are with the hands of the Cistercian abbey of Saint-Benoit-in-Woêvre, which became with the liking of alms, the holder of the mill and the hamlet of Amecourt. The village of Rembercourt, where always the small lords of the same name evolve/move who keep the feudal tower, fact part of the innumerable possessions which the lords d' Apremont succeeded in collecting all along the course of Rupt- to-Mad and in the area. It is however proven that Metz-native abbeys (Holy Glossinde, Gorze…) or the cathedral, have revenues there, in particular on the grounds of Right Bank, the side of Villecey-on-Mad. Fining is with horse on the two ecclesiastical dioceses copied from the Gallo-Roman laic dioceses of Metz (left bank) and Toul (Right Bank) which, themselves took again the layouts of the old Gallic cities of Médiomatriques and Leuques. But this border of Mad is theoretical since the Saint-Gengoult church of Rembercourt, on “Metz-native” bank remains attached to spiritual to the Toul-native episcopate. It is not very probable that is to say there the reason of the extremely late maintenance of Rembercourt like appendix of Jaulny, village of Toul-native bank him-also (until 1802). The church itself is attested only as from the 15th century under the term of “moutier”; from where the idea of a foundation by the Saint-Beno4it cheese convent, but certainly quite former.

The knights of Rembercourt, for their part, are in process of absorption. As much of families of second importance, they become exhausted in pious alms. Without one being able to draw some from the final decisions, let us note that they relate to Right Bank clearly: thus of the donation by Gerard, " miles of Rembercourt" with the prémontrée abbey of Holy-Marie-with-Wood of a freehold located on the round of applause of the " dressed-villa" (The Viéville-in-Hague) (1206). Thus of the confirmation by Hugues, brother or wire of the precedent, the right of grazing ground granted by the same Gerard to Sainte-Marie in the region of the " Small Montagne" (1219). Hodiarde, sister of this one is then the wife of the lord Erard de Jaulny.

The first important act of the millenium on the seigniory and the soil of Rembercourt goes back in April 1260. One learns there that the abbey from Saint-Benoit-in-Woêvre exchange with the Count of Bar Thiébaut II in particular all that it has in Rembercourt out of wood, meadows, grounds, revenues and other incomes of the " city and of the ban". Its serfs of the place are added to it, a mill and a furnace. In exchange, the monks receive from the count various goods located in Barrois. It is not question of the castle and of its dependences and the exchange thus relates to apparently only the shares of the two villages located on the left bank (side of the “Large Mountain”), there-included/understood the furnace and the presses which will be always on this bank, with the outlet of the bridge. The worthy ones of Saint-Beno4it cheese will keep some revenues at the village however.

It seems that this purchase has not disturbed the rights whose family of Apremont lays out in Rembercourt for a few decades already, either in property or in stronghold of the Count de Bar (the lords d' Apremont said “to the cross”, because of their armorié ecu). Always it is that on May 7th, 1315, one sees certain Vauthier d' Apremont (of one of the branches juniors or homonyms by the famous dynasty previously quoted) taking again his rights to the castle of Apremont. He intends to restore with the heirs to the first (with the young person Joffroy d' Apremont and his/her mother Isabeau de Kiévrain) what he has in Rembercourt with Pannes and Charey, against in particular of the rights on villages of the " high Rupt-of-Mad" like Rambucourt, Ressoncourt and Cuvery. This share of the village of Rembercourt which becomes thus barroise in 1315, comprises neither the castle, preserved according to any probability by the lords de Rembercourt (Richier) nor, apparently, the furnace and mill.

In 1353-54, the count Robert, duke of Bar, hold however still under his " directe" a share of the men and round of applause of Rembercourt including the furnace, which it rents with a plowman. He divides apparently the remainder of his rights with a second unspecified lord but doubtless of the family of Apremont or one of its obliged.

These transactions do not blame the separation of the soil of Rembercourt in two quite distinct sites. On a side the village is held of Rembercourt, spread out over two banks of Rupt de Mad with on a bank, the fort or the future castle, and over the other, the furnace, the presses and the moutier. Further, downstream, with the outlet of the small valley of Hacnivaux, on both sides of the road of Waville, the variation of Ermariscourt-Armacourt-Ramecourt-Amecourt remains, with its antique communal mill.

The knights of Rembercourt from now on are grabbed by the vicissitudes of the history and the natural disasters or human. From 1348, the ceaseless wars, the crises dynastic, the plague, the disasters frumentaires and climatic fall down on the area and decimate the population. The ducal accounts show that in ten years, between 1347 and 1357, the number of debtors to the size with Rembercourt fell of half, passing from about thirty to less than fifteen; what gives about 1360 an approximate population of sixty fifteen hearts. At that time, ground and seigniory of Rembercourt, two entities village with their banal buildings (castle, mill, furnace…) became simple currencies of exchange for the warlike or speculative needs for the aristocracy barroise or Messina. They remain however strongholds related to the “baronnie” of Apremont.

In 1360, the share of Rembercourt-on-Mad (and Charey), moving of Geoffroy d' Apremont is in the hands of Poince de Vy, alderman of Metz. The other share belongs to the duchy of Bar. The ground of Rembercourt is indeed pawned for more than one century against a loan of 400 pounds tournaments granted to the lord d' Apremont, at the origin by Jean de Marly. This one yielded of them the rights to Jean de Puxe, before this one does not give them to Poince de Vy. These characters are all rich person members of the oligarchy which controls the middle-class republic of Metz. In 1433, the pledge which the seigniory of Rembercourt and Amecourt constitutes finds with the hands of Thiébault de Vy. It offers it then equips some with his Béatrice daughter when she marries of Jehan Baudoche, main alderman of Metz which pays homage to Hue from there Furnace bridge, lord d' Apremont of the new dynasty. Naimery Baudoche, its ancestor, could entremettre in these fiduciary transactions about 1378…

In November 1466, Jehan Baudoche renews the homage for the Earth of Rembercourt in the hands of Emich de Linange, successor of the preceding lords d' Apremont. In 1454, Poincette de Thiaucourt, of a family of faithful officers of the Duke of Bar and originating in the borough which gave them its name, bases a mass birthday in the abbey church of Saint-Mihiel, sitting on his incomes of Rembercourt. In 1463, under unknown conditions, its distance cousin Didier de Thiaucourt, already main of Shock-in front of-Louppy and which exerts at the ducal court of Bar, became also lord of “Rembercourt-on-Maid” partly.

December 22nd, 1484, under the reign of the duke of Lorraine and Bar Rene II, Henri de Moncelz and Didier de Thiaucourt the old one divide Rembercourt with equal shares. Henri de Moncelz with the part where is located Amecourt and its mill (“still - known as-it - I have ung a villaige small value”). They are the first modern mentions of the two parts of the village: Amecourt on a side and “Rembercourt-with-Currants”, sometimes called simply “Grozelles”, other. The currant bushes have indeed replaced the vineyard, maltreated by the climate and the social situation, very degraded for two centuries. Ten years after, in 1494, the portion of Moncelz falls to the rider Martin Lambert by marriage with a girl of this family, Valence, sister of the precedent. The community of Rembercourt then counts approximately a hundred and thirty five hearts and with-less the six families of plowmen.

Rembercourt at the time of the dukes of Lorraine

Between 1534 and 1541, with the liking of the transactions, the incomes of the two villages are divided per halves, quarters, or three quarters, between two, even three lords: Didier de Thiaucourt, manservant of the Duke Rene II, Mahaut d' Apremont (of the branch called “to Merlettes”) and Christophe of Armoises. In 1541, the share of Thiaucourt is yielded to the owners of the castle of Jaulny: Ferry III and Joseph de Jaulny. From 1562, Rembercourt is divided between Ferry III of Jaulny and its first cousin Christophe 1st of Armoises.

Christophe II of Armoises, his son, succeeds and gives enumeration of his half to him to the duke Charles III on January 27th, 1573. The document in detail enumerates the taxable quotas and royalties which had by each inhabitant of the village as well as the rights and seigneuriaux goods prisoners. One from of deduced the presence from sixty ten households, which gives a population of approximately three hundred inhabitants. The royalties seigneuriales are expressed out of money and wine, sign tangible of the reappearance of the vine, which shows that the relatively flourishing situation of before 1350 was restored a little. The antique mill of Amecourt there sufficient more, one second mill is built starting from the middle of the century (from where its name from “nine mill”). One chose the upstream of the village, at the place where it is held nowadays. It is also called “Marcou mill”, of the name of the business man of the family of Armoises.

This family of the high Lorraine aristocracy, took again the castle (“the strong house”), returned by Thiaucourt. It is certainly at the time of Armoises that it undergoes transformations to put it at the last style. One enters there by a portery to machicolation and a drawbridge thrown on the ditch fed partly by water of the river. The “castle” has a garden, girds walls and protected symbolically by four round towers which will be transformed later into dovecotes (there will still remain about it one, “découronnée” before the war of 1914-1918). The banal presses are installed in a barn on other side of the bridge out of wooden, with the angle of the street of the church, giving on the place of “the fountain” (the feeding trough which goes down to the river against the bridge). The two mills, “Cramp-the-mill”, that of the origins (that of Amecourt) and the new one, divided per halves between Jaulny and Armoises, pay to them in rights of grinding nearly five tons to corn. There is no more communal oven with Rembercourt: the lords tolerate there the existence of three bakers who make trade of the bread and pay a tax n the other hand.

In 1579, calvinist convinced and falling under the blow of the ordinances from the Duke from Lorraine Charles III, Ferry III of Jaulny, lord of a quarter of Rembercourt since 1562 must exile himself in Switzerland. Not having any heir, it is obliged to sell its goods and dies in Basle in 1587. The name of Jaulny dies out with him. Its rights on the grounds and castles of Rembercourt and Jaulny fall initially jointly to its nexts of kin, his/her cousins of the line of Armoises, Christophe II and Thierry IV and with their own cousin, Nicolas of Armoises.

To died of Christophe II of Armoises, in 1588, the heritage of Armoises on Rembercourt falls to Thierry, while Jaulny returns to Nicolas. Thereafter, the rights on Rembercourt, very parcellized and imbricated in particular with those of the seigniory of Hannoncelles (with City-in-Woêvre - 55) are allocated successively to the boys (Paul, Philippe….) and with the girls of the family (Marie, wife of Nicolas de Gourcy and Anne, wife of Dominique d' Ourches). Guillemette of Armoises introduced into the place by its marriage the family of Gournay, lords of Friauville, with his Samuel husband, of the dynasty of the Masters aldermen of the Metz-native City.

It seems however that by Nicolas of Armoises, one second branch of the family of Gournay (that of Marchéville) was put on the rows to dispute rights on Rembercourt, in particular the Count Henri de Gournay de Marchéville, man influential and rich, lord of more than one ten villages, of which the County of Marchéville-in-Woêvre. It cumulates the offices and dignities at the court of the dukes: baillif de Saint-Mihiel, baillif of évêché of Metz, tutor of the young Duke Charles IV of Lorraine… Despite everything, one finds it later as ambassador of King de France in Constantinople and like cofounder of the Company of Guyana, created under the orders of the king Louis XIII to colonize Americas. He will be condemned to death in absentia in 1648 for high treason by the Duke Charles IV, because of his political activities and military in the camp of French, sworn enemies of Lorraine (business of the baillif d' Hattonchâtel).

Dark the XVIIème century

November 27th, 1619, Henri de Gournay de Marchéville agree to yield his rights on Rembercourt to his cousin Regnauld de Gournay de Friauville against an annual rent representing in capital thirty thousand francs barrois.

The enumeration seigneurial of 1620, carried out in the hands of the Duke Henri II of Lorraine shows that Regnauld de Gournay de Friauville still divides the village with the lord of Hannoncelles, Paul of Armoises or its successor. This one made the recovery in 1612 of it.

One counts at that time, before the horrors of the war, sixty ten to four twenty household heads in the village of which about half are widows, that is to say between two hundred and sixty ten and three hundred inhabitants. The ground of Rembercourt brings back to the lord twenty tails wine with the press (either approximately four twenty fifteen hectolitres at a rate of 468 liters/tail) and, in particular, thirty carriages of hay. But each hearth owes with the Remy saint a bribe per day of vine (twenty ares) and a geline per annum for “right of middle-class” (tax translation of the old serfdom). Two bakers exert in Rembercourt since the inhabitants bought the end of the banality of the furnace. The group of the taxed inhabitants has into clean more than five hectares of vines approximately. Two vines belong to big landowners of Thiaucourt. In 1632, two beautiful pieces of the vineyard located in the coast above the church are sold to a rider of Béney percent four francs barrois. One does not know unfortunately the surface of it.

1617 mark, seem it, the end of the presence of Armoises with Rembercourt with the profit of only Gournay. Regnauld de Gournay is an active soldier, within Lorraine pulled about between its interests clean, the official defense of the Catholic religion against reformed and the sights precise annexationists of king de France, the Germanic empire and their various allies. The lord of Rembercourt is initially officer of the king then passes by again in the Lorraine camp at worst the moments than will know Lorraine: the Thirty year old War.

Regnauld de Gournay de Friauville lends a new homage for its seigniories of Rembercourt and Friauville on August 27th, 1625. It east exonerates on January 30th, 1630 of the murder of Paul de Haraucourt, perpetrated during a duel with Gorze. It seems to be since 1625 the only one to have of the castle and the seigniory of Rembercourt. He dies before 1643. He left procuration to his wife Dorothée de Tavagny with many recoveries for the management of his revenues at the time of the long military campaigns at the sides of the duke. The will by which it leaves the usufruct of all its goods to his wife goes back to 1635 but it dies shortly after and Dorothée de Tavagny will write itself its last wills in 1639.

Between 1639 and 1658, its two sons preserve Rembercourt in the joint possession. Paul de Gournay marries Charlotte of Ficquelmont, a famous family of Lorraine nobility, very influential at the Court; and Regnault II, captain of cavalry, Louise de Revers. They cumulate the incomes and the rights on the seigniories left by their parents: Rembercourt, Friauville, Molinel and Champigneulles. At that time, the ceaseless devastations of the army rabble, the famine and the epidemics cumulated their effects to destroy more than 60% of the population of the duchies…

It is on September 4th, 1658 that the two brothers decide to divide the ancestral Grounds. While Paul preserves Friauville (it is at the origin of the last lords of Jaulny and Friauville, combined in Raigecourt), Regnauld II becomes the only lord of Rembercourt. It receives his mother the titles of Etreval, from where the name of this new branch of Gournay, known as of Estreval.

Regnauld II of Gournay makes a first enumeration of Rembercourt in 1664 and it must renew it in front of the " room of réunion" from Metz, i.e., in the hands of the King Louis XIV, on February 1st, 1681 whereas the project of annexation of the Lorraine State progresses to France. The lord of Rembercourt again lends the feudal homage for his seigniory on November 20th, 1699 but this time in the hands of the Duke from Lorraine Léopold in which treated it of Ryswick year returned its rights to the crown. He peacefully manages his Ground during close to a half century and leaves the families and the man power to reconstitute social fabric, the left inheritances and soils pantelants by the horrors of the century which finishes.

Rembercourt at the time of the Lights

The Gournay last to have Rembercourt is the Count Ignace, wire of Régnault II, born in 1662. He inherits at the end of 1707 it. He is chamberlain of the Duke Léopold, governor of the County of Vaudémont and large-baillif de Vézelize, where he often resides in his private mansion. He makes three marriages but no child will have any. The last marriage in date, that of 1729, creates jealousies and one suspects in the entourage of the old aristocrat who has sixty-seven years then, a captation of an inheritance on behalf of the married young person, Marie-Charlotte de Gourcy who only has any twenty-three.

The sister of the old count, Louise-Dorothée de Gournay, marries of Nicolas-François de Baillivy, then asks for the revision of the marriage contract of her brother who would carry transfer of all the strongholds to the young person " donzelle": two farms of Thorey, Earth of Rembercourt and the hotel of Vézelize. In fact, the Count Ignace de Gournay restored balance by providing in his will, written in 1734, that its young widow will be satisfied with the usufruct of the seigniory of Rembercourt; the remainder returning to his/her sister and her nephews, until those can in their turn enjoy it in all integrity.

The Count Ignace dies in August 1738 and indeed, the incomes of the seigniory of Rembercourt pass temporarily to Marie-Charlotte de Gourcy, his dowager, until the year 1748. On this date, become major, the young count Ignace, his nephew, oldest son of Louise-Dorothée de Gournay (wife of Baillivy), can itself inherit it. Thus with the autumn 1748, the annual plaids of the village are convened in the name of the Count Ignace de Baillivy, lord of Mérigny, lieutenant-colonel of cavalry to the Rosen-German Regiment. Marie-Charlotte de Gourcy, widow, found a good party in 1752 in the person of the Marquis de Toustain de Virey.

In 1748, the Earth of Rembercourt is thus preserved at the blood of Gournay thanks to the women but thus passes to the dynasty of Baillivy, soldiers resulting from the former aldermen of Toul, Bailly or Baillivy.

Monopolized by his military functions, the Count de Baillivy makes manage his interests of Rembercourt and Mérigny to his wife, Henriette-Armande of Saint-Blaise, who comes sometimes to the castle from Rembercourt. Widow in 1771, the countess of Baillivy remains some time tutor of her two sons, François-Xavier and Charles-Marie-Dieudonné de Baillivy de Mérigny, both captains in the royal army and who will be Co-lords of Rembercourt of 1771 at the end of 1774 without leaving of remembering truly cordial in the local memory, so much their control are typical aristocratic excesses of the finishing mode; the files testify some.

The “soft time” of the Count de Malartic

Jean-Vincent-Anne de Malartic of Moors, married in 1768 in Jeanne-Dorothée de Baillivy de Mérigny (the sister of the precedents), repurchases to them their share in the Earth of Rembercourt and becomes thus the new one and last lord of the village to the beginning of the year 1775. The Count de Malartic descends itself from an antique and illustrates family of knights which one finds the roots as of the 13th century in the entourage of the Counts d' Armagnac, Fezensac and Rodez. The name comes to him from the village and castle from Malartic. Jean-Vincent-Anne was born on December 27th, 1739. He is the son of Pierre-Hippolyte-Joseph de Malartic of Moors, knight, Count de Montricoux, lord of Artigues and Saint-Geniuses, in Agenois and Quercy, lieutenant with the French Guards (in April 1768 death) and of Antoinette-Charlotte de Savignac (girl of an adviser of the King at the Court of the Assistances of Montauban). There one sees the southernmost genealogical fasteners and the seniority of the districts of nobility of the new lord of our village barrois. One imagines the effect produced by the Gascon accent of the new lord on the simple manouvriers and vine growers of Rembercourt…

The four brothers of the new lord of Rembercourt are all officers with the armies and illustrate themselves in various campaigns in Americas and Canada (foundation of the town of Malartic).

December 30th, 1776, the Count de Malartic has lent faith and homage for the seigniory of Rembercourt to King de France, for his duchy of Bar, built-in for ten years with the Kingdom. Contrary to wire of Baillivy de Mérigny, the new Master is present as soon as it can it near his flocks with whom it seems to have positive ratios. Before 1900, the memory of the Count de Malartic is still present at Rembercourt, for its obliging character. It is also sensitive to the financial needs for the middle-class men of Thiaucourt to which it lends the sum of 6200 Pounds in 1787, which will not be refunded (without haste) only in the current of 1790…

Jean-Vincent-Anne de Malartic is pious man, charitable and sensitive to miseries of her subjects. There is for example between him and the community a litigation as of its arrival on the rights of affouage whose lord has in wood the community, " for him and its maison". October 26th, 1775, it passes convention with the inhabitants by whom it is agreed that one will subject oneself to the arbitration of three lawyers of Nancy to cure it. Various other conciliations with the inhabitants on feudal rights or taxable quotas show its accommodating spirit.

The Gascon aristocrat will be one of the police chiefs appointed for the drafting of the book of the complaints of the local Nobility which is held in the hotel of the bailliage and of the town of Thiaucourt on March 16th, 1789. Elected by its pars, the following day, like deputy with the room of reduction of Bar, it is also designated as deputy of the Nobility barroise to the General states of the Kingdom.

The Count de Malartic is lieutenant of the King in Nancy and as such, it belongs to the command of the garrison when are held the events of the " business of Nancy" in August 1790, where he plays, seems he, an extremely honourable role, testifying là-aussi to much courage and moderation.

The 22 messidor year VIII (Tuesday, July 3, 1799), still a mark of generosity to its credit, the Count de Malartic written with Napoleon 1st to ask him to stripe list of the emigrants his brother-in-law, the former lord of Rembercourt, François-Xavier de Baillivy de Mérigny. Under the Empire, it decides to enter the orders. Ordered priest in 1802, it is named higher diocesan of the new seminar of Nancy where its benefits are noticed. He resigns in January 1812 modestly and dies at the end of March.

Thus the last lord disappears from the village of Rembercourt.

Rembercourt under the Revolution and the Empire

Rembercourt does not know any notable disorder, if it is not the legitimate effervescence conveyed by the gazettes and the pewters which run from countryside to shift starting from the hawkers or of people who have fortune to move downtown. The various events which intermittently mark the installation of the new institutions, the requisitions, the calls to the weapons and the news of the armies or the capital put each one in agitation. One imagines also the tinted hope of a deaf person concern who gains the spirits with Rembercourt during the drafting of the registers of grievances, of the election of the deputies to the General states or of the events which follow: constitution of the national guards, storming of the Bastille, emigration of the aristocrats, nationalization of the goods of the Clergy, celebrates Federation, oath of the priests, seizure of the emigrated goods, arrest of the king in Varennes, very near, the difficult days of the government " of hello public" with the legitimate anguishes of the invasion coming from east (already) etc.

A Municipality is well-sure made up. It includes/understands in 1793 as mayor Sebastien Robert and prosecutor certain Naudin, the former plowman of the Count… One will apply… with difficulty… the republican calendar. Without any doubt, put aside " Montagnards" convinced (in Rembercourt, it was not necessary to be appointed with Convention to be " montagne") little world, except more the activists or more the conformists, does not launch out celebrates it " Hello and Fraternity, Citizen! ". In spite of this innate prudence and this moderation of the Lorraine vine grower, those of Rembercourt will never fail owe them towards the Republic.

In June 1791, with-moment of the escape of the king stopped in Varennes, the lifting of volunteers for the National guard of Rembercourt at a rate of a man on twenty gives six names: Joseph Pérot, captain, Pierre Gozillon, lieutenant, Nicolas Philippot, Antoine Cailloux, Jean Manson and François Remy. Sign which does not mislead, him either, François Baudot, ex-priest of Jaulny and Rembercourt, is then mayor of the village…

In April 1792, the 99 valid men of Rembercourt go (or are carried) voluntary to defend the revolutionary assets. With the 51 of Xammes, they will form the 1st low company of the battalion of the national Guards of Thiaucourt, including/understanding 94 fusiliers, who is ordered by the captain Joseph Louis, of Rembercourt. Among them one notes the presence of Nicolas Châteaux, corporal. In July 1792, a few weeks before the victory of Valmy, the commune states to have 16 rifles, 1 gun, 2 guns of pocket, 1 saber and 1 sword…

March 1st, 1793, 15 hearty fellows of the village from 18 to 40 years are declared ready to carry the weapons to defend the " Fatherland in Danger" … Three citizens of Rembercourt are already under the very new Tricolours and four others are " with federate of Paris": Antoine Pérot, Clement Henry, Nicolas Pierre, François Mouxaux. They will bring back in their double sacks a new song, which they will entonneront on their return, which one imagines triumphal, in the common room of above the castle, vis-a-vis the rabble assembled: " battle song for the armies of Rhin" , alias " Marseillaise".

The population as a whole is put at contribution on several occasions, in particular under Convention, for requisitions of fodder, grains and horses of which however are struck by preference richest: plowmen and of the discrete aristocrats that the weighting of the inhabitants or the political attitude will not have obliged to emigrate. Thus the girls De Gourcy, ex lords of Charey, with the gentilhommière of Montplaisir and the Count de Malartic itself seem saved by the storm. On their side, Raigecourt-Gournay, Masters of Jaulny and reactionary-born, by too wet from their relations with Versailles and Tileries, reinforce at the sides of the Austrians against the incipient Republic. The large bells of the church of Rembercourt are descended and delivered to the cast iron (grapeshot obliges). The orders arrive directly of the " Representatives of the People in Armées" , that is to say Committee of public hello, via the district of Pont-à-Mousson which reflects and centralizes. In July 1795, under Thermidorienne Convention, at the time of the one of the many censuses of likely food products of requisitions, one counts in Rembercourt 31 horses, 48 animals with horns, 276 sheep, 21 goats and 24 pigs.

Far from the heating of the clubs and sometimes bloody political debates of Paris or big cities of the ex-Province, the vine growers of Rembercourt persevere to watch for the late frost which is likely to carry a fatal blow to their harvest and obstinately ingénient themselves to go up the ground with the feet of the stocks…

Napoleon will still puncture his tribute of courageous and obstinate men with Rembercourt since, in particular, Dominique Châteaux, one of the many children of the village and the region to be appeared in the Large army, are fusilier with the 17th regiment of infantry of line as from 1802. He will see the " sun of Austerlitz" and will bravely be killed the O6 on October 14th, 18 with the battle of Iéna. His/her own brother, Nicolas, in 8th then in the 4th regiment of Hussards, will take part in many battles of Napoleon since 1805 until the retirement of Russia and in the countryside of France of 1814.

All these men have certainly only one idea at the head, touch balances it after so valiant combat and to return in Rembercourt, in the valley of Rupt-of-Mad which they like so much, there to found a hearth and to take again the way of their vines.

Daily life at the time of the dukes

The best moment to evoke old Rembercourt, its men, the landscapes and the peaceful history of the village, is perhaps that where the Count Ignace de Gournay crosses as a new Master the portery of the castle. It must be about 1708 (see the preceding chapters).

The village is concerned slowly its ruins then and is repopulated since the end of the Thirty Year old War.

Population

It passed from approximately 160 hearts in 1534 to approximately 310 in 1573. It had to fall considerably in the middle of the 17th century because of the epidemics, the famine and the atrocities made by the soldiers of all nationalities having had to overlap in the Province. In 1708, she arrives again to forty families (between 180 and 200 people) against sixty eights at the end of the 16th century (between 280 and 350 hearts). In 1758, it will have totaled 300-350 inhabitants (351 in 1794), to reach a top of 429 inhabitant for 115 hearths about 1850.

The soil of Rembercourt

It is the reflection of the activity of the community. It is then monopolized primarily by work of fields and especially of the vines. The bottom of the valley of Rupt-of-Mad is occupied by the chènevières and the gardens which border the street " of Lozeret" (or of the osiery), current street of the mill, and the street of the Valley of Metz, with in withdrawal of low houses to the covered roofs of tile-boots. Further, to the circumference of the village, but always in the low part or close to the river, the meadows come to hay, where the communal shepherd puts to feed the herd hardal after the haymaking. For the hays and times of ploughing (“is occupied it”), they are put “in saving” by the plowmen, in accordance with the habit of Saint-Mihiel. They make to brouter their horses there: " the pre one with the huile" (on which the revenue of the luminary for the church, increased in the middle of the century was certainly taken a long time), " large Pré" , " pre Maréchal" , " pre Serizier" , " Netted-Champs" , " small Croix" …

In the center of fining, on both sides from the castle of the counts, " extends; Breuil" , upstream, and the " Large Jardin" , downstream; two shares of the reserve seigneuriale from where people of the castle draw vegetables and the fruits from the table like the fodder of the cattle. With hillside, on left bank, wedged between the meadows and the vines, some fields of cereals: " Beautiful Moulins" , " the Cunots" fields; (which preserved the name of their tenant, certain Cunos, which cultivated it the year 1353) and, on Right Bank, with the small mountain, large grounds with cereals (wheat and oats, especially, a little barley and very little rye): " Cumine" , " Netted-Champs" , " Fourchottes" , " the Part of Viéville" , " under Chanois" …

The entirety of the coast exposed to south-east, the Large Mountain, is covered with vines, since " Bourgognes" to the Stone quarries. Only the vine the wooded spaces dispersed on the round of applause and the cliffs limestones (" escape; roches") who overhang the valley starting from the path of Saint-Julien. With beyond and starting from the reverses of coasts, some cereal fields and the first potato fields occur (towards the end of the century). The forests (towards Haillebas and Jaulny or on the side of Villecey) are seigneuriales (" the Wood of Debate or Goal, known as thirteen Journaux") or Community (future wood communal). The inhabitants have there the right of affouage, severely controlled by the gruyers and foresters. The cuts are regulated and shared by it annually. They have the right to make there mark trees for the construction of the houses, to make their pieces of furniture and tools.

The village

The aspect of the village will remain intact until the beginning of our century, before this one is considerably amputee and disfigured by the slope of the railroad which duplicates the cut of Rupt-of-Mad. At the 18th century, the village with the general shape of a cross deposited across the brook, the foot with the Small Mountain, the arms and the head in the Large Mountain. We place the back towards the Viéville-in-Hague, in the coast of the Small Mountain, above the way of Villecey, vis-a-vis this cross, and look in the direction of the church.

Houses Lorraine plowmen and vine growers, typical, all in length, coupled ones with the others, rough-cast, with their large roofs " plats" covered with tile-boots stage themselves along the central axis, until the bottom of the coast. They are in retreat compared to the street, the street of Viéville, where the poultries in freedom are occupied. The hardly paved way is bordered of parges rather short, the usoirs. They are shorter than in the Resident of Toul or Woêvre, but encumbered like them of, agricultural tool and heap timber chocks of manures, certainly not so large that those which one finds out of the valley of Mad. The barns with their large aligned doors, rythmées by the low-size window glazed, are neighborly sometimes with low gerbières. The houses open with the back on narrow small gardens, chènevières or planted enclosures of fruit trees.

After being last in front of the portery of the castle and having cut the way of which leads to Jaulny by Haillebas, with the bottom of the street of Viéville, we let us cross Rupt de Mad, by the small wood bridge of the width of a tipcart, regularly damaged by the risings and the wood balls which one makes float since Thiaucourt to the city and citadel of Metz. Us here on left bank of Mad, the side of the church. One finds there the place, with his fountain and at the bottom, the antique market of the presses. On the left, parallel to the brook, the street of Lozeret (or of the osiery?) flees over there towards the mill-nine and an old ford of Jaulny (to which a junction of the way of the mill always carries out). The old ones call still sometimes this mill " Marcou" mill;. With right hand with the outlet of the bridge, the street from the Valley of Metz or street of Waville begins, with its houses of tight vine growers and their usoirs. Against the brook, gardens and chènevières, closed by hedges and hedges. They were sometimes gained fraudulently on Rupt-of-Mad, through fill, them also regularly covered by the muddy flood with the risings.

The district top consists of two lanes in " V" overhung by the cemetery and the small Church. Beyond, one leads to the " street of behind the église" with its houses vigneronnes and their small gardens, leant with the coast, glaze of vines. From there one can gain the plate and the gentilhommière of Montplaisir (at De Gourcy) by borrowing the " on the left; Taye de Charey" , or towards the Stone quarries by taking on the right the escarpé path of Saint-Julien. Behind the Church occurs " the ruelle" , narrow way of the width of an ass or a cart which skirts the axis of the rocks and carries out to the Stone quarries. This slope of Large' the Mountain is in vines, closed quickset hedges, strewn with seedlings of vegetables or fruit trees.

Rupt-of-Mad

The river is already engoncée in its reeds and certainly polluted by all the rejections that one made there upstream (the inhabitants of Jaulny, those of Thiaucourt, the floatation of wood and the tannery installed in this place with the bottom of the Midsummer's Day suburb pour all kinds of infamous rejections there). Its water is doubtless unsuitable with consumption but this pollution is very biological and it there prosperous a rich and varied fauna fish, batrachians, crayfish, birds and insects. One fishes there eel, pike, carp and a variety such of small fish that one can launch there the sparrowhawk, there tender of the bow nets and even rent the incomes of a quasi artisanal fishing. The brook unconsciously draws up a true psychological and material border between the two portions of the fining (which is the suburb of which?). The lords from time immemorial leave there the fishing rights to the inhabitants, sometimes limited to the part located between the patural and the " pit Jean Guidon". He asks them to respect the period of the groove, the police regulations on the size of fish and the ustensils used; being also understood that they cannot sin of night or with " engins" prohibited, that is to say to make trade of it… This does not prevent the poaching in any kind, as that is practiced with hunting; acts inlassablement continued by the guard supervising, true gendarme seigneurial, fox crafty one and incorruptible which supervises itself the communal bangardes, the shepherd, fishing, hunting, the cultures, wood… Because fish, birds and game of any kind supplement the menu of a vine grower madin who, without that, would be often at the edge of the famine. Thus the inventories after death count sometimes sparrowhawks and nets with larks… proof of an unquestionable abundance of the small fauna.

The castle and the Justice of Rembercourt

But the vital organs of the village is with the accesses of the bridge: the place of the fountain with the market with the presses, animated by the kids of the village to leaving in the regent school. Opposite the castle is held; large rather austere masonry, house-stronger than gentilhommière, than one imagines brightened a little by some transformations in the traditional style, surrounded by a decorative tree and pleasure garden large but still having his four grosses towers of angle, rounds, reconverted in dovecotes. In 1708, there still remains about it the portery with its machicolations, facing the way coming from Jaulny. It is here, in the big room of the castle, that the regular assemblies of justice and the annual meetings are held of the plaids, during which the count points out his prerogatives of high lord, average and low dispenser of justice. He enacts there the regulations of police force perpetual or special to the year, recalls the personal impositions resulting from the old serfdom: “rights of middle-class”. It there pronounces the repressive sentences against the subjects, slices some litigation between private individuals and levies the various taxes seigneuriales. The seigneuriaux rights rise since the Middle Ages in local currency with two Large and a " poulle" for the rights " of bourgeoisie" , a franc barrois for the repurchase of the banality of the furnace and a bribe (2,5 liters) per day of vine (20,44 ares). The plowmen as for them owe a corn setier and an oats setier by horse " trayant" ; that is to say 45 kg of each kind per draft animal. These rights were fixed at the Xiii-14th centuries, n the other hand of the abandonment of serfdom and are recalled throughout the long succession of the lords of Rembercourt.

The family De Gournay which is thus in possession on the one hand of Rembercourt starting from the beginning of the 17th century, becomes definitively alone about it holder only as from the years 1620, as vassal of the Duke of Lorraine and Bar. Rembercourt belonged since the 13th century to not-moving Barrois and the châtellenie of Lachaussée, attached then to prévôté then to Bailliage de Thiaucourt. At the beginning of the last century of the Old Mode, the lord is thus Gournay: Lord Ignace, wire of Regnauld II, Large Bailly de Vézelise, Governor of the County of Vaudémont, first Rider and Chamberlain of the Duke Léopold. It will be honoured with the title of marquis before his death. He prefers, well-sure, his residence of Vézelise to his gentilhommière of Rembercourt; what obliges the community to frequently send messengers to him to take its orders there, to carry missives or papers to him. The Marquis Ignace de Gournay dies in 1738 (see preceding chapter).

The lords have in Rembercourt of the officers who settle the administrative questions there, legal and of current management: a judge-guard, a prosecutor of office, both generally selected within the lawyer dynasties to the bailliage of Thiaucourt, sometimes within an only family (such Picquant). A clerk supplements the legal apparatus of the place. It is generally a man well-read man, but whose very typified turnings of sentence decorate the deciphering of the registers of the High Justice of Rembercourt. It is assisted of a mayor seigneurial, his lieutenant and a sergeant, seigneuriaux officers selected for their integrity and their fidelity with the order, more than for their book culture. These loads make lambsquarters of certain families of the village which draw from it prestige and authority compared to the churls. The count has also servants and a dreaded character over all, the guard-supervisor " wood, rivers, plains, and chasses" , sometimes even charged with the " morality of the cabaret". The count on the spot maintains also a small domesticity with a gardener, right-hand man which deals with the " Large Jardin" (Breuil). These stations were often occupied at the 18th century, at least, by members of families still remaining in the region.

Community, its goods and its municipal officials

The goods of the community, ancestor of the commune, are composed of some grounds and wood as well as fishing rights in the river. But the debts are not absent. One knows it by the declaration that it makes like all the villages of the duchies first once in 1700, but with more precise details in 1738. It has a hundred arpents to 400 rods with the Large Mountain, on the plate, half in waste land, arable half, of which the farmers of the lord de Gournay exploit a part. The remainder is left free with the use “of the first occupant”. Measurement used here is the arpent of Metz with 400 rods, making 35,45 ares. ; what gives for these common grounds 35,5 ha. With the Small Mountain, it has a canton of ploughings to half in waste lands, moreover considered ungrateful, of about thirty arpents to the same measurement (10,6 ha). It made essarter a small canton of undergrowth in Pèrière, which it intends to rent to plant vineyard there. Since 1726, the community yielded by emphyteutic lease to the Marquis de Gournay his fishing rights on the round of applause of Rembercourt and the round of applause of Waville, to the “bridge of Vuoiel”, against a capital of five hundred Books. The wood of the community comprise the following cantons: Ø “Périère”, of one hundred arpent with 250 rods, (arpent of Lorraine to 20,44 ares, is 20,5 ha), Ø “Deffoy” of forty five arpents of which the third is “remply of espines and wood picants” (16 ha), Ø glazing bar of fifteen arpents located at the “Coast of Hailbacq” (5,3 ha) Ø another of fifty arpents to the “Vuarin Cross” (17,7 ha) Ø a forest of four hundred arpents “in Coste de Bouffey” (14 1,8 ha) and another of two hundred arpents in the “Coste of Tyllot” (70,9 ha).

The community does not have a title written on this subject. “The unmemorable possession” is enough to prove its rights on these eight hundred and ten arpents, separated by terminals and ditches (either approximately 320 hectares including 272 of wood). While confirming the community in these rights, Nicolas Parxel, then “captain provost gruyer and chief of police force of Thiaucourt and Lachaussée” address several remonstrances to the communal syndics who are rather instructive. It points out to them that it would be more advantageous at the community to yield to highest offerer the hiring of the grounds, rather than to give up them with the waste land or the exploitation in particular of “some aysés private individuals of”. In addition, it cancels the emphyteutic lease of fishing, made without the agreement of the Council of State of Lorraine and Bar and order the restitution of the money to the Marquis de Gournay. As for wood, it of prescribed precise land surveying. The quarter in reserve will be maintained and twenty arpents will be delivered annually for the affouages, “with reserve of the old barks, balivaux, old, modern, and of the age of tailly”. Thus each year, with the autumn, one sees sixty ten to four twenty affouagists drawing with the fate their wood-cutting from the year. As for a hundred and ten nine books which the community owes in Nicolas Guéry and Antoine Cailloux, the provost of prescribed the payment with the inhabitants, with the agreement of the Chancellor of Galaizière, governor of Lorraine and dedicated guard of the French interests under Stanislas.

At the time of plaid annual (the assembly seigneuriale of the inhabitants) which is held first Monday following the Saint Martin's day (November 11th), the community, ancestor of the commune, designate two young adults or recent grooms to manage its business from day to day (syndics). It is reserved to deliberate most of the time at the exit on the mass, on the businesses requiring group decision: maintenance of the ways, the church, the bell and the clock, the bridge, often put at evil by the risings, of the rights of the community on wood etc ..... That gives serious verbal scuffles… There is also in Rembercourt of the aldermen of church; purely honorary title when it is known that the factory of the place does not have practically anything to manage, if they are not some obsolete royalties on some squares of vines and the " pre with the huile" …. There is also a " maistre of eschole" , indicated by the community, presented by the priest of Jaulny but in any event accepted by him. Against some coins, he learns to the kids from Rembercourt the rudiments from alphabet, the canticles and catechism during the part of the year when the parents need less them with the fields. He acts as cantor and sexton. 80 to 90% of the men, much less women, know " signer" their name about 1780. The women choose between them a matron (an obstretician) but it is allocated to the priest of Jaulny to establish it… One will include/understand why. In spite of its experiment some practice, the matron is charged with the baptisms in extremis than gestures minimum likely to save the mothers in gésine and the children of which there is then a true hecatomb. Hygiene is deplorable and handling, the receipts " fumeuses" helping, the iron door of the small cemetery surrounding the church is too often closed again on the moms died in layers, the babies or small children of the village hardly cooled. People are hardly buried a day after their death, very old tradition and memory of the epidemics of the previous century….

Cultures

The cultures follow the usual rotation of the three plates, one of them being in turn put in fallow and being used for the grazing ground of the communal herd (cows, ewe, goats). With the autumn, after recognition of wood by experts, generally of old of the village, each hearth has the right to send the family pig to glandée in wood communal, under the crook of the contracting shepherd; what makes a herd of a hundred animals, marked beforehand with red iron with a “R”. At the darkest days of the Revolution, in period of shortage, of a certain administrative disorder, requisition and insecurity, at the beginning of 1795, the inhabitants of Rembercourt declare their harvest of the year past as follows. The figures are skinflints: they are still minimized, by fear of new punctures. The figures thus give the most pessimistic possible vision of the productivity of the soil before and during the Revolution:

- 4 hectares of corn bringing back 24,44 quintals; that is to say 6,11 quintaux/ha, - 4 hectares out of rye bringing back 44 quintals; that is to say 11 quintaux/ha, - 1,6 hectare out of barley, bringing back 18,4 quintals; that is to say 11,5 /ha quintals - 6,5 hectares of oats bringing back 71,5 quintals; that is to say 11,5 /ha quintals, - 35 mown hay (7,15 ha) bringing back 45 quintals is 6,3 /ha quintals, - 40 quintals of dry vegetables cultivated in the vines. These figures, very miserable (23,25 hectares sown) are confirmed partly by the census of food products which is carried out on October 7th, 1793. The cereal reserves garnered of the 5 plowmen of Rembercourt are evaluated with 30 quintals of corn, 40 quintals of oats, 30 quintals of barley and 300 quintals of hay; the ration of corn by anybody is estimated at 5 quintals per annum… And the prescribed house search with Rembercourt in October 1792 reveals the presence in the attics of the village of only 87 kg of flour, 250 kg of corn, 400 kg of barley and 245 kg of oats… Let us announce that in the middle of the 19th century, 175 hectares of ground were emblavés on the 504 hectares of the commune, the remainder of the territory being divided enters 14 hectares of meadows, 49 hectares of vines and 187 hectares of wood.

It is the vine which, at the 18th century, occupies more people of Rembercourt. The cantons where the stocks cling are the following: " be worth of Anes" , " in Espagne" , " in Bourgogne" , " beautiful Moulins" , " vines in Four" , " vines in Bout" , " Belloces" , " in Taye" , " in Large Côtes" , " to Assembles-Regrets" , " in Prêteresses" , " in Sauterots" , " vines in Seriziers" , " at the Coasts behind the église" , " with Feel Tournelle" , " in Perrières" , " in Ruelle" , " in Vaucotte" , " vines in Bas" , " with the Cousots" Bald people; , " above the Way of Waville".

The majority of the inhabitants state to make occupation of vine grower, while taking part in all kinds of work such as for example the haymaking or the harvest, including on the close banns. The culture of the vine is narrowly regulated to avoid any fraud on said, the rights of pressing and on quality, found poor compared to the vineyard of Thiaucourt-Bouillonville. The misery and the extreme parcelling out of the vines push the greatest part of the vine growers, famous for their poverty, to plant stocks until in the most moved back cantons or to replace noble type of vine by large seedling of gamay; what makes fall the prices and quality. Many ordinances, even local, prescribe the pulling up or the severe control of the " romaine" , seedling of Liverdun which undermines the reputation of the vintage (ordinance of the bailliage of Thiaucourt gone back to 1775).

Agricultural work

Agricultural work itself (ploughings, haymaking, harvests, grape harvest…) is rigorously regulated: it is a primarily collective work which begins and finishes each day with the sound of the bell. Individualism as besides the fences are banished by the tradition and the habit of Saint-Mihiel, who governs the public life and constitutes the civil code of the time. It is necessary to await during the seasons the édiction of the banns, banns to be dug, banns with " chavoutrer" etc…. It is prescribed to close the vines and to prohibit of them the access starting from the publication of the banns, at the time of the beginning of ripening and not to let there digress of the animals… The communal bangardes take care day and night to charge or surprise any individual who passes in the vines, even without idea of pilfering. The vintage itself begins only after the official expertise and the publication of the round of applause with preaches mass, when the count determined itself " its day preferably " , date of its own harvest, priority. Each one then owes its day of drudgery to the lord who thus will benefit from the still high course. N the other hand, it must nourish the vintagers. Their meal consists of soaked milk or fatty soup bread, soft white cheese, sprinkled wine or rather of water mixed with wine, fruits of season. The count takes the taxes in addition, in particular banal press and receives one the third of said out of wines; the two other thirds go to the priest of Jaulny and Rembercourt.

It appears that the vine grower cannot allow himself to drink his harvest; generally preferring to pass from water on marcs for its own consumption, in order to sell to it his. Because of its average quality, the wine of the place especially is sold and carried towards the garrison towns. That does not prevent the inhabitant from preserving some pots of its best wine for the festivals, weddings or baptisms (but the bottles out of glass are still a luxury reserved for the aristocracy). One also often sees the priest Jaulny to fulminate against vine growers who neglect the frequentation of the offices, vespers or processions, spending their afternoon in drinkings and with the ninepins, reunions which too often end in memorable brawls…

The wine is sold in jugs to 8 or 10 grounds the pot of two liters and half with the cabaret of Rembercourt, according to the year. There are the choice between wine " clairet" and " wine vieux". A little wine, the ninepins and some dances popular with the sound of an old squeaky fiddle make it possible to the vine grower to forget his misery, the debts which threaten it and the frost which, " six times on sept" spoil harvest one small-morning of May…

The vine grower of Rembercourt

The vine grower is thus often tiny room to be satisfied to cultivate his kitchen garden and his fields for his personal consumption. He decorates his resources of some coins which reports to him the hiring of its arms for the agricultural work, beatings, a little craft industry or other companies such as the unloading of the trees, the transport of food product, floatation of wood on Rupt de Mad… Many are the craftsmen who work to satisfy all the needs for the place and the surroundings: bakers, butchers, master mason masons stone, egg cups, tailors, hatters, tisserants, marshals shoeing, tinmen, sabot-makers, sawyers, carpenters, innkeepers… The list of the trades, the activities and the gravers present in the villages, the life grouillante of the small shop which accompanies it then, would very strongly astonish our contemporaries, accustomed to the village-dormitories struck by the rural migration. But none of these craftsmen balks with the culture, with the breeding and to work of the vines or the fields, so much daily work is turned towards the food subsistence.

Side of finance, the hour is not with the “middle-class” pride of the century according to where each one will put a point of honor not to make any loan. On the contrary, before the Revolution, the money loans are legions. The vine grower-manouvrier does not hesitate, indeed, to borrow from the richer peasants (often plowmen), with the aristocrats or easy middle-class men of Thiaucourt like to the usurers of Metz or Pont-à-Mousson to marry, build his house, to buy fields and vines. He does not hesitate to raise with credit at the time of the liquidation of the family successions, to supplement his implements of agricultural or domestic ustensils. More serious: too much often obliged to consume the seeds which it put on side during harvest, it must still borrow to sow. This involves it in the infernal cycle of the debt, the lawsuit and the seizure. The files of “high the local justice” swarm with these judicial documents, extra-legal, statements of police force and other notarial acts which punctuate the daily newspaper. Here is certainly the origin of this edifying popular local formula: “stiff like the justice of Arnaville”. But it could well have applied to many of other villages madins. The house and the fields of the vine grower of Rembercourt are often mortgaged and the real holders of the soil are the lord, the middle-class of the tradesmen, magistrates or civils servant exerting with prévôté or the bailliage of Thiaucourt, at the same time judges and parts. One includes/understands better why the registers of grievances of 1789 denounce with such a force the “swarm of the parasites out of dress”, judges, lawyers, prosecutors, clerks and their assistants who fatten themselves on the rabble. Justice seigneuriale of Rembercourt, which sees officer this State Third, too prompt to the baffle relentless, does not escape the rule.

The house of the vine grower, bought with great sacrifice against loan with a middle-class man of Thiaucourt, Chambley, Gorze or with the usurers of Metz, sometimes inherited or rented, account two or three parts. The principal part, the stove, is the part all-to be made, with its vast chimney. On the other side of the corridor is held the barn where it returns the carriage of hay, beats or arranges its harvest (“the beater”) and where it holds its thin livestock. A cellar or reduced semi buried in the coast enables him to store its wine out of barrel, ever preserved more than two years.

The inventories drawn up after the too frequent funeral make it possible to form an opinion about its modest way of life, often miserable. Its businesses and its furniture include/understand some herds, five or six straw-bottomed chairs, one or two tables with the turned feet, a cupboard in oak, a maie, a wheel, a door crockery and the trunk which comes from the bottom of the ages, containing its linen, its more beautiful dress and its papers. One finds indexed in first with the inventory all the implements of the chimney with his cast iron cast-iron plate, the fire-dogs, grills, firebrands, grips with ember, some kitchen utensils, some rare earthenware or tin covers and bowls, of many elements of pottery of all sizes. One or two berths of wood (in oak or more often in fir tree) appears in good place in description. But what is worth expensive, it is still the marital bed, with baldachin, with its sky, its curtains, its thick mattress, its cloths, slips, thwart and enormous the plumon " filled of plume" , where one can still tighten oneself the winter, man, woman and children. Some ploughing implements supplement table (fork, knife, hoe, rebinottte, axe… and impossible to circumvent the " kâ" , kind of pickaxe with two teeth on a side, punt of the other). The barrels in oak and the tandelins of fir tree are added, beside what remains of the last harvest: bags of flour, peas, broad beans, fruits dried, wine, hay, swaths of corn, of oats, to beat and a wood stock of affouage sorted by size: the large one, the charbonnette and faggots of “fine wood”. One does not count in the inventories the many quite useful baskets and others “charpagnes” for the domestic or agricultural activity daily. One scorns there also the strings, cords and various weavings of hemp hand made; any family having her chènevière. These objects and resources are certainly regarded as “without commercial value”. They are indeed worked and braided on the spot by each family with the liking of the needs, if not by the rope-maker. One finds at the edge of Rupt-of-Mad many seedlings of wicker, so much so that the street which leads to the mill (with the bottom of the Ru of Charey) “the street of Lozeret” or rather of the osiery is called…

The livestock of the vine grower consists of some hens, which circulate freely and it consumes especially eggs, the noble food product of the gastronomy in Lorraine. It has also one or two ewes with their following, the lamb of the year, the pig, which one will gavera of nipples to the “Paisson” of autumn and which will finish with the salting tub, sometimes a cow, for milk and cheese and then, often, the she-ass, very useful in the wine slopes, with-good, an old horse.

The plowman

“The well nourished plowman and his children”, who works hard by aspiring to the small local offices or those of the city, with his plow, his horses and his claims, dominate the rural company of the vine growers and manouvriers. There are of them always three or four families at the village during centuries, paying specific rights sitting on the number of plow and “milking” horses (two, four, six…) and one of them is exonerated: “herpiant it”. The plowman enjoys certain privileges, attaches traditionally with the “die of the bread”, in particular that to reserve the meadows mown to put to put back his horses at the time of the period of the ploughings, the haymaking or the harvests. With the miller, lessor of the Count, often his right-hand man, expert and respected, the plowman belongs to “the country aristocracy”. Often besides, miller and plowman enjoy both the seigneuriaux rights, either that they are with the service of the lord, or which they rented what remains of the feudal banalities or rights. At the end of the old Mode, richest of them almost always rents the farm seigneuriale, has the beautiful pieces of meadows and cereals and place his/her son as miller. The others are sent in pension downtown and will enter the offices. It is the hard core of the future State Third.

Hunger

The majority of the inhabitants of Rembercourt are very poor and least bad harvest makes re-appear the pangs of the last one: food shortage, epidemics. Mortality is strong, seasonal, especially in the young children, of which the half does not exceed ten years. They are carried quickly in the tomb by the various fever and infections. Enormously from women disappear in layers. The men, used by the labor, the diseases and discomfort die on average before fifty years. The families thus count many children of different parents and quickly remariées successive wives and the successions are regulated with the greatest rigor by the royal notaries. Life is hard in Rembercourt at the time of the lords and much of young men of the East leave to the adventure, for example while turning their glances towards the army. Allured by the promises of the sergeants recruiters, they are found thus with the orders of their own lords, often captains of the units which enlist them.

Festivals and saints

Sunday and the eighty or ninety days of been unemployed religious holidays are devoted to the prayer: masses, vespers and processions. But one enfreint the saints days without shame. The priest of Jaulny, which serves also its appendix of Rembercourt complains some with many recoveries. There is also " traques" , memorable shooting parties organized by the counts and where the inhabitants are used as pickups against a few pieces of game and food. The vine grower leaves his serious and exerts his talents of musician, storyteller, actor, with taken care, who in turn gathers the families at one or the other around the chimney and of the oil lamp until the hour of the curfew. Each one brings its log and some delicacy there: prunes, apples, nut, hazel nuts… . The women slip by, bend, knit and papotent while one or the other entonne a song of the traditional repertory, tells the stories of the olden days, the legends regional or the recent anecdotes. It is the school of the people there, where boys and girls educate themselves in contact with old, of the men and the women of the village. They and they acquire their culture of Lorraine young people there, in the respect of the religion, the parents and the Masters. From this Lorraine patriotism will emerge soon a national patriotism which will open out starting from the Revolution and throughout the 19th century. To the sound of the bell, each one returns at home and it is then, with the concern of the fires devastators, which one covers fire, thus hiding under ash the embers which will be useful, thanks to the faggots of brushwood, with launching the blaze of the following day-morning to the rising of the sun.

The year is remembered by “May”, the trimazzos, all kinds of collective rejoicings, jokes, jokes and other teasings like those of the Saint Gengoult, owner of the village… (and of the betrayed men…). One draws from the detonators (" boites") and of the fireworks at the time of the Saint François (festival of the last duke of blood) etc… Midsummer's Day, the Saint Martin's day, the Remy Saint and much of other moments of the year are marked by all kinds of rites, plays, feastings and culinary distorsions of more or less pagan origin which rythment the seasons, the days of the calendar and accompany the various states by the nature or the life of the men. One then dates the events and the days by the name from the saints. Because the official religion of the duchies wrapped very its precepts and governs all the daily life, spiritual or material.

The Church

The church or " moutier" of Rembercourt, surrounded by its small cemetery and transformed during the years, is in place certainly well before the XIV or 15th century, even if it is not attested for the first time in 1494, at the time of the Lord Martin Lambert. In the middle of the Age of Enlightenment, it proves too small to be able to accommodate the " herd of ouailles" of Rembercourt which, as in all the villages of the area, believed during the century. And after several repair campaigns about 1730, the community of inhabitants owes, in 1740, to bring - vainly a lawsuit with the two décimateurs, i.e. Marie-Charlotte de Gourcy, marchioness dowager of Gournay and with the priest of Jaulny, which is also the priest of Rembercourt, to force them to engage of work of enlarging which falls to them financially. The bishop has just prohibited their church, for safety reasons and of morality. While waiting, one will walk in group until Charey or Jaulny to respect the many offices and religious rites. Rembercourt will remain indeed an appendix of the parish of Jaulny until the beginning of the 19th century.

Rebuilding works of the church are allocated only in 1762 to contractors of Commercy and the masons of Saint-Julien and Rembercourt (famous the Cartwright). In 1764, François Castles and Charles Bastien, vine growers of the place, undertake in their turn the foundations ripe supporting the cemetery and the levelling the square the church (works damaged during the war of 1914-18 but maintained and which disappeared only in 1994). Taking into account the poverty of the factory, one resorts to expédients for the supply of furniture: the community must buy a stone of furnace bridge with Pont with Monsoon in 1766 and provides the wax of the luminary regularly, the cords of the ringing, tallow for the greasing of the clock; lords making some gifts them also, in particular of linen room.

The mill

The mill " neuf" or " Marcoux" mill; , whose current architecture is almost that of the time described here, is exploited by a farmer. The old mill of Happlumoulin, located downstream, also called " Cramp Moulin" , goes back to the time of Charlemagne with the old village of Ermariscourt, become Amecourt. It does not turn any more since approximately 1650. There exists still about 1780 but completely ruined, in the middle of the discrete vestiges of the old hamlet of Amecourt, which had belonged to the first dukes of Bar, close to Hugues Capet, then with the abbeys of Gorze, Saint-Mihiel and finally Saint-Benoit-in-Woêvre. There remains only the level about it, along the road of Waville. The count granted the inhabitants of Charey formerly, deprived of sources of drinking water, to come to water their cattle and to steep their swaths of hemp in the level of the new mill, " with the tail of the vanne" , by taking the way of Be worth Asses. They owe silver recognition of it at the Saint Remi and one sees every year the representatives of the community of Charey presenting themselves to the castle to give an account of it.

Thus the life with Rembercourt runs out before the Revolution of 1789 does not burst which one feels to assemble the premises in the daily life of the vine growers of this time.

sources: These historical elements sound drawn from new work of Mr. Maurice Castles, in particular " lords of Rembercourt on Mad" (1990).

Administration

Demography

Places and monuments

Personalities related to the commune

See too

Jaulny, close village with which an agreement between elementary schools is in place (until the CP in Jaulny, and of the classes of CE1 to CM2 with Rembercourt-on-Mad)
Communes of Meurthe-et-Moselle

External bonds

Rembercourt-on-Mad on the site of the national geographical Institute
Rembercourt-on-Mad on the site of INSEE
Rembercourt-on-Mad on the site of Quid
Localization of Rembercourt-on-Mad on a chart of France and communes bordering
Plane on Rembercourt-on-Mad on Mapquest

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