monuments aux morts

English translation

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History

In the then deeply rural and Protestant village of Abbévillers, the municipal council decided as early as 1919 on the erection of a monument to commemorate the 18 inhabitants who died during the Great War. It was to be placed on the façade of the town hall, set into the middle door. The building had been inaugurated shortly before: the town hall-school is rebuilt in 1877-1901 by the Montbéliard architect Jean Frédéric Jules Fallot (1840-1882). The schoolteacher of the commune, Julie Vergon, is the first cousin of Armand Bloch. It is perhaps through her that the choice of the commune was made both for this sculptor and for this location. The commune chose Armand Bloch (1866-1933) for his project, whose estimate amounted to 11,700 francs. The contract was signed on 14 February 1920. A sculptor born in Montbéliard (Doubs) in a family of sculptors specialising in funeral monuments, Bloch left for Paris in 1882 in the workshop of sculptor Alexandre Falguière in order to prepare for the entrance examination of the École des beaux-arts. He failed and seems to have ceased his training around 1885. He nevertheless received numerous commissions executed in his Paris workshop, most often coming from Franche-Comté personalities from the networks he maintained extensively (Les Gaudes, La Gairi, etc.). He exhibited regularly at the Salons where he received medals and at national and international exhibitions. Author of numerous monuments and busts, in wood or stone, he was widely called upon by communes around Montbéliard after the Great War: 11 commemorative monuments were completed between 1919 and 1924 (Abbévillers, Audincourt, Beaucourt, Courtefontaine, Hérimoncourt, Mandeure, Montbéliard, Roppe, Saint-Hippolyte, Seloncourt, and the Caporal Peugeot monument, Joncherey (destroyed)). The monument was completed and inaugurated in 1921.

Description

This is a medium-relief in white marble of arched format adapted to the arch which houses it. The city's coat of arms surmounts a figure on the left, a young girl dressed as a peasant holding in her right hand a branch of laurel and in her left hand a banner on which are inscribed the names of soldiers who died in combat. On the ground, a sheaf of wheat and a plough recall the agricultural vocation of the commune. This emblematic figure of the Lutheran Montbéliarde, called the "diaichotte" (dressed in a scarf knotted around the neck called the diairi and typical of Montbéliard, wide-sleeved shirt, apron) is perhaps the portrait of Elisabeth Vergon (1900-1993), painter born in Abbévillers, daughter of the commune's schoolteacher. Trained from 1920 at the École des arts décoratifs in Paris, Elisabeth Vergon frequented Armand Bloch there, whom she considered her master and of whom it is known that he executed at least one portrait in low relief.