An e-mail letter from Philippe Garcelon, which
brought us this text in Spanish, plus our curiosity, have led us to
research the path upon which our adventurous ancestors could have
embarked. This epic journey toward Spain, which has attracted so
many of our people at different periods of time, could not leave us
indifferent. Even if we are placing our focus on their trips to
Spain, at the same time we cannot forget that they traveled everywhere
in France and that they also included Holland, Guernsey, England and
other places as well that we have not yet turned up.
Text in Spanish
(French title )
Movement
of merchandise and commercial systems in the Pyrenees (XIII XIX
centuries)
VOLUME 1
Jean-Michel
Minovez and Patrice Poujade/ Editors 7th Course on the History of
Andorra International Colloquium on Andorra Conference Center at
Escaldes-Engordany. 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th October 2003 CNRS
University of Toulouse-Le Mirail
(Spanish
title) The Patterns of Auvergne Emigration and the Development of
Copper Metallurgy in Southern Aragon
Emilio Benedicto Gimeno (Ph.D. University of Zaragoza)
The accuracy of
the translation was approved by Jacques GODEFROY.
Possible itineraries:
Journeying from Ally in the Cantal to Calamocha
in Aragon, and following as well as possible the details of the
following itineraries represents today an approximately 850 km trip.
Imagine Geraud Garcelon and his companions leaving in 1632 on this long
journey; clothes, baggage, horses. The Pyrenees mountain peaks are
closed six months of the year because of snow and bad weather
First part of the itinerary.
This has to do with an article about the Chinchon company.
It is about an emigrant from the Cantal in the XVIII century. The
itinerary is on horseback from Aurillac to Valencia by way of
Barcelona. (A.D. from the Cantal cote 130 F 6) Say its a total of
176.5 leagues and each one takes ¾ of an hour on horseback, that
would be about 25 days. (176.5 leagues: 1
league = around 4,200km)
We have
figured that today the section of the trip from Aurillac
Toulouse must be 34 ligues or 240 km. approximately.
Portion
of the trip
Distance
in ligues
Aurillac
- Saint Mamet
3
Saint Mamet - Maurs
4
Maurs
- Figeac
3
Figeac - Villefranche de Rouerge
5
Villefranche
de Rouergue - Cailus
5
Cailus - Montauban
6
Montauban - Fronton
3
Fronton - Toulouse
5
Second part of the
itinerary, stopping at the town library in Mamers -72- (number of the department of la Sarthe, the principal city
being Le Mans)
Guide for the
Traveler in the Pyrenees by RICHARD, editors
of European itineraries by Richard. L. Maison Bookstore, 5 rue
Christine, Paris. -1851- (About 100 years after the above
itinerary, but one could reasonably think that there have not been
major changes since then.
At the present time:
145 km for 13 myriameters (ancient unit of measure) and
6 km mentioned below. (1 myriameter =
10km.)
See some details of the journey below the
photo.
We have stayed in
this pleasant region and hiked along these trails without doubting that
these were the routes that those from the Cantal took on their way to
Aragon. Are we governed by an atavism that
comes from our Garcelon genes? Do we find ourselves sometimes and
by chance on one of the paths they took?
For those who are already familiar
with the itinerary from
Luchon to the Hospices de France followed by the climb to the Venasque
pass, you will not find the latter hike restful!
From the
Hospices de France to the Venasque pass the ascent is 1100 m. Then
descend on the Spanish side toward Venasque. This is an itinerary with
which we are not yet familiar but which must be just as spectacular.
(It must be noted that this route was described
before 1851 and that living conditions were very different then, more
like what our Cantal travelers on their way to Aragon were familiar
with one hundred years earlier than those experienced today.)
Selections
from
the guide through the Pyrenees
Bagneres de Luchon to Benasque
Travel on horseback, two days (this route still exists and
is a wonderful hiking path).
From Bagneres de
Luchon you pass by the Castel-Vieilh tower, the Hospice at Luchon, five
lakes, (four hours after Luchon). Here the route makes a zigzag and is
in very poor condition and one would do well to descend on horseback.
Looking at the lakes is lovely, and you must make a ten minute stop. A
half-hour hike leads to the Venasque pass. This last part of the route
is the most tiring, but also the most beautiful and the most
picturesque. When you reach the pass, you have in front of you the
somber and majestic Maladeta and its immense glaciers.
A view of the Benasque peak taken
after "les Hospices de France"
Here the route makes a zigzag and is in
very poor condition and one would do well to descend on horseback.
See above&
From
the Venasque pass you reach the foot of Pena Blanca in an hour
and fifteen minutes by a difficult zigzag trail. Almost an hours hike
takes us to the Benasque Hospice in a magnificent basin. Near the
hospital you can see three lovely waterfalls. Its about an hour from
the hospice to the Ramougno falls. This falls drops from the mountain
of the same name. Then comes Pont des Bains, then Fantail falls, and
the sulphur baths at Benasque. Then you cross one after the other the
Malihierne and the Cubere bridges (one and three-quarter hours) along
an area of rough ground and dotted with falls, then one hour more and
youll come to Benasque.
Benasque: a small
Spanish town of 500-600 inhabitants; its streets that are poorly laid
out are dirty, narrow and winding. Because of a lack of hotels you must
stay in private homes.
Another
point: along the road that climbs to the Benasque pass and before
arriving at the shelter, theres a place called the copper potmakers
hole! What a coincidence and what is the origin of this
name?
Another possibility: continue the itinerary through the valley of
the Garonne as far as Vielha in Spain.
20
kilometres before reaching Bagneres, all you need to do is follow the
Garonne River to St. Beat in order to rejoin Spain and Vielha and the
Vielha pass. From St. Beat then Bagneres de Luchon, Benasque and
Fraga, the distance is for all intents and purposes the same. All
you need to know now is what the mountain passage is like by way of
Vielha peak!
Considering the height of the two mountain
peaks, 2440m. to Venasque and a little less than 2500m. to Vielha peak,
the mountain pass remains the big problem as the winters at that time
were severe, (the Seine froze over in Paris).
See Le
Pas de Peyrol (Potmakers Peak) at Puy Mary
at the present time. (Pas = peak and Peyrol means potmaker in the
auvergnat vernacular.)
All thats left is finding the route through
Spain!!!
The establishments at Caspe and
Fraga near Lerida can help us in this research.
============================================
Comments on crossing the Pyrenees
Its obvious that the great migration routes, such as the
roads to Santiago de Compostela or armies crossing to surrender in
Spain, have acquired an important status.
But it would be,
in our opinion, a mistake to think in the abstract about the capacity
to adapt on the part of the Cantal travelers and about their business
instincts. In order to engage in this activity, they had to
establish commercial networks, as one does at the present time, appeal
to peoples sympathies, know their customers well and based on that, be
able to obtain from people accurate information. They had to, of
course, increase their area of activity, and also find passes where
they could cross the Pyrenees safely with the earnings they had amassed
during their stay in Spain.
And so much the better that they
had created commercial societies that had conventions or accords or
passeries (a local term also meaning accord but reserved for use
between the French and Spanish. Both terms can be substituted by
coutume or custom.) Both French and Spanish communities shared the
summer visitors passing through the Pyrenees and they, too, had their
own commercial relationships. Their contact was made easier because
they all spoke Occitan. Therefore the terrain was favorable for our
Cantal people and the risks were probably fewer than on the main roads.
These mountain passes still exist and the customs among the French
and Spanish peasants the same. And
there wasnt necessarily only one way to reach Aragon. Instead several
were to their liking since they had come out of good relationships that
had developed.
The Emigration Networks of People from Auvergne and the
Development of Copper Metallurgy in South Aragon by Emilio Benedicto Gimeno (Ph.D. University
of Zaragoza)
We have obtained
the translation of the document from the original Spanish to French
thanks to the perseverance of Jacques GODEFROY. That article is on the
French website. Here it is now translated from Spanish to English:
We have focused on the part that seems essential to us as far as the
Garcelons and the populace of the canton of Pleaux are concerned.
Besides, these elements push us to carry out more extensive research on
the parishes of Ally, Chaussenac, Barriac les Bosquets and the notaries
who served at these places.
The use of
the references in Spain would be a plus, but thats another story!!!
The chaudronniers or dinandiers or copper pot makers
from Auvergne were well known in all of Europe. We find them in
numerous locations in France (Alsace, Lower Normandy and the Alps) and
also in foreign regions and cities like Artois (Flanders), Madrid,
Valencia as well as Aragon. The term dinandier comes from Dinan in
Belgium. They must have learned how to work copper and make utensils
from the French. For centuries the inhabitants of the Massif Central
have been primarily an emigrant people. The cantons of Upper Auvergne
(like other French mountain zones) have undergone demographic growth
but deprived of resources, they have been forced to send their men to
search for other livelihoods outside the localities they came from. (1)
1 According to the account elaborated by Lefevre
dOrmesson in the year 1697, every year 5,000 or 6,000 workers left
Auvergne and who returned there with 700 or 800 thousand pounds. These
emigrants came principally from the mountains in the Aurillac, Mauriac
and Saint Flour zone, in the northwest cantons. Cited by Duroux, R
(1992): The Auvergne People from Castille. Rebirth and death of a XIX
century migration.
THE COPPER POT MAKERS FROM AUVERGNE
We are familiar with the chaudronniers or copper pot
makers presence in great detail in the town of Calamocha,
Aragon, from the year 1632. The first were Pierre and Guillen Albarate,
originally from Mealet in Auvergne. One of the two was married to a
woman from Calamancha ( which implies that for several years they left
for Aragon). In the city of Zaragoza we find
some auvergnats (people from Auvergne) from the year 1642.
We find them at that time working in several localities in the Jiloca
valley. In the town of Daroca
in the 17th century Jean Visie from Rallai
and eight other persons from the Massif Central about whom we do not
know their occupations but who could well have been copper pot makers.
The Baguena Council in the year 1718 hired Antoine Sabio
(Savau)(a)
French pot maker residing in this same locality, to repair all the
copper-based utensils from the local stores. Jean Pujol,
a merchant from Saint Christophe les Gorges in
Auvergne, resided in Mora de Rubielos. He
enjoyed close relationships with the pot makers from the Jiloca
Valley. (47)
a
Geraud Garcelon married Francoise Sabio. We have turned up the Sabau
at Chaussenac. Is there a link with this Antoine? 47 A.HPCalamocha, Notaire:
Martin Miguel Esteban, 1646/XII/17(Sig. 1109. fol.364v.)
The
meeting places for the emigrants coincide perfectly with the copper
mining zones in the Spanish system and with the sites where the
martinets or hammers driven by hydraulic power to flatten the metal
were set up. We find the greatest concentration of copper pot makers in
Calamocha, which had been their destination
since the beginning of the 17th century.
We find another
large concentration in the little town of Luco de Jiloca,
where they worked the mines and the martinets that were set up there.
They were numerous as well in the town of Teruel,
where they worked the copper extracted from the Albarracin
mountain. Spread among these three localities we find 68 potmakers from
Auvergne who represented 70% of all those in Aragon. The city of Tarragona,
near the mines at Calcena, was home to 12
potmakers. In the Jalon valley, the
potmakers resided in Calatayud where mining
took place in the mountains at Vicor and the
Ateca area. The towns of Caspe,
Ejea, Fraga and Maella had an
insignificant number, one or two artisans maximum. Not having any mines
nearby, these artisans sought to provision themselves with basic
staples from more or less distant areas and they then provided
provisions for the local market as well as repairing old chaudrons or
cauldrons and old bouilloires or two liter pots with lids.
With regard to the matter of the places of origin of the copper pot
makers, those who lived in Calamocha in the
17th and 18th centuries, according the the parish registers, came from
Upper Auvergne, from the canton of Pleaux, and
secondarily from the cantons of Saint Flour and Aurillac.
For the origin of the emigrants weve established that from Ally
there were 29 emigrants, Chaussenac: 15 and Saint
Martin Cantales: 5, the rest scattered from among the villages
of Barriac les Bosquets, Escorailles, Fontanges and Meallet.
The societies or commercial or artisans groups of copper pot makers
that we find in Luco de Jiloca and in Teruel
during the years 1764-1766 also originated in Upper Auvergne,
particularly from the villages of Chaussenac with 9, Ally
with 4 and Saint Martin Cantales with 2 others. As we
see it, the places of origin of the copper pot makers who made their
way to the southern part of Aragon during these times were very limited
and were concentrated in a small area in Auvergne with a tradition of
involvement in artisans activities.
THE EMIGRANTS SOLIDARITY RESOURCES
The migratory flux from Auvergne was characterized by putting
in place a series of guidelines based on rural solidarity common among
mountain groups. These guidelines were very simple: lineage, parentage
and neighbors in the inhabitants community.
The pot makers
who traveled in groups, living and working if possible within the same
group, shared the same skills and they were gathered or assembled
together with some relatives or neighbors from their place of origin.
These group displacements offset the traumatic effects of being
uprooted. Their mix of ages, their common migratory experiences and the
perennial nature of this migratory current were also mitigating
factors. By traveling together and residing together, these Auvergne
mountaineers were able to maintain their own way of life by slowing the
process of inevitable acculturation. Their destinations contributed to
molding their character but at the same time they could up to a point
remain faithful to a common cultural heritage. Emigration of the
potmakers had a strong family component. Several members of the family
were usually involved, and engaging in the same type of activity, they
regrouped in Spain in the same locality and probably in the same house.
Pierre Albarate from Meallet married a woman from Calamocha in the year
1633, which did not prevent him from receiving his brother Guillen into
his home. Etienne Fontanges (b)
lived with his brother Pierre from 1638 on. The
potmaker Pierre Riviere, who joined the group after
1634, lived with his brother Antoine, who he would
later call his son. (51)
b
Michel Garcelon married Margueritte Fontanges and had as their first
child Jean in 1674. What is the link? 51
A.HPCalamocha, Notaire: Martin Miguel Esteban,
1632/VII/22 (Sig. 1098, fol.96 r.), 1638/II/20 (Sig.1101. fol.51 r.)
and 1657/1/26 (Sig.1120, fol. 16v.)
These close family relationships also explain the continuity of
emigration through the generations. Geraud Garcelon
was living in Calamocha in 1640 specializing in
making cauldrons.
In December 1644, having
become ill, he made out his will, citing as legitimate heirs his sons Francois,
Jean, Michel and Pierre, all residents of Auvergne. In the
will he decided that his son Francois should continue
the trade of copper pot making and he willed him all his worldly goods,
i.e., credits (debts owed to him from customers) and whatever
material was in stock that belonged to him in Spain. Francois
was obliged to take his brother Jean under his wing,
to do everything necessary during the first three years to help him and
to teach him the métier or trade of potmaking. When Geraud
Garcelon died, his son Francois would
continue emigrating, would reside in Calamocha to
continue working in copper potmaking, but he would involve all his
brothers Jean, Michel and Pierre. (52)
52A.HPCalamocha, Notaire: Martin Miguel Esteban,
1634/XII/29 (Sig. 1108, fol. Iv)
At the beginning of the year 1632, when the potmakers Etienne
Fontanges (c) and Geraud
Garcelon were going to appear before the judge or notary of Calamocha
in order to inform him of the fact that they had formed a company of
potmakers with Jean Cocard, (d)
and that the latter had died recemtly. As the deceased did not have
relatives in Spain, they requested that the judge name some witnesses
for the act of dissolution of the company and for the sharing of the
profits that they had accumulated. In figuring the accounts they
pointed out that Jean Cocard had invested in the founding of the
company 243 escudos and had obtained profits of 154 more escudos. To
the total they were to divide 397 escudos and they did it in the
following way: 306 escudos to pay off the debts owed various persons
that they said were the most reliable ones and 46 other escudos in
different kinds of merchandise. From the rest of the capital they
deducted the costs of Cocards illness and burial. They also divided up
various tools, arms and a rattan chair..(54)
cCould Etienne Fontagnes be
Gerauds sons father-in-law?
d - Pierre and Simon
Garcelon will later create a society with Antoine Blancher from St.
Martin Valmeroux and then his son Pierre. To take up their business in
Salers, they will also have an accountant in Limoges. The principle of
business organizations only dates from today!
54A.HPCalamocha,
Notaire: Martin Miguel Esteban, 1637/II/12 (Sig. 1100, fol. 48v.)
Another dissolution document that stands out from 1670
but it is more like a final balance sheet. On that date Michel
and Georges Garcelon, neighbors from Ally
who are also potmakers promised to pay a third shareholder of the
company, their brother Jean, 1200 sous in six equal
payments, to be paid every two years because of the sums that are
coming to him today and to keep for him in addition a sack full of
tools. (55)
55 A.H.P.
Calamocha, notaire : Martin Miguel Estaban, 1670/III/7 (sig. 1130).
Evidently, dying in Spain was one of the emigrants greatest
worries. Everyone had a will, normally done by a notary in France,
but they could modify or change it completely before the notaries
in Spain, if that was considered necessary. In the notaries
protocols we have found two testamentary modifications made by the
potmakers Geraud Garcelon in 1644 and Antoine
Riviere the elder in 1680. These men
with wills, if they were gravely ill, decided that they would rather be
buried in the parish church at Calamocha (or in the church in the
village where he died added Geraud Garcelon) or wherever the usual
funeral rites would take place (burial, novena and anniversary).
Antoine Rivera delegated the decision according to whatever would be
convenient for his brother to do, his brother also residing in Spain. Geraud
Garcelon specified that one should say thirty requiem masses,
fifteen of them in the convent of San Roque in Calamocha, which
would attest to his love and attachment for the Jiloca valley
from having spent long years of his life in Aragon, and the other half
of the masses in the Notre-Dame chapel of the parish church at Ally
in Auvergne. The two potmakers married in their place of origin and
most of their belongings went to their wives and children.
Geraud Garcelon created a difference between the belongings
that he had in France and what he left his wife, Francoise
Sabio (Sabau), with the proviso that she leave them to their
children distributing them in a way that would be suitable and the
goods he had in Spain would be passed on to their son Francois
Garcelon, so that he could continue his lifes work of being a
potmaker.
The other parts of the document are
very interesting and show us different aspects of the life of these
people in Aragon, and there are numerous and interesting anecdotes!!!