monument aux morts

English translation

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History

Since 1857, Savoyeux has been the seat of an important paper mill constructed by the company Outhenin-Chalandre Fils et Cie. The enterprise shaped the village during the 19th and 20th centuries: around 1865, the mill was enlarged and a dwelling constructed, around 1890, a workers' settlement was laid out in the centre of the village. Further extensions are mentioned in the last decade of the 19th century (hangar, sawmill and forge, shop, office, chimney and steam engine building). Finally, the Outhenin-Chalandre family occupied the castle, which had become the owner's residence, whose architecture bears witness to alterations from the 15th and 18th centuries. It is between the workers' settlement and the castle that the war memorial is placed in order to commemorate the 19 inhabitants of Savoyeux who died during the Great War. The edifice was commissioned and then offered to the commune by Marie-Louise Regad (1867-1952), daughter of a master of forges at Quingey and wife of Gaston Outhenin-Chalandre (1853-1907), industrialist and senator of Haute-Saône from 1900 to 1907. Their son, René Outhenin-Chalandre was a subaltern in the 12th battalion of the Alpine Chasseurs during the Great War. Wounded on 15 October 1915, he died from his wounds on 11 November 1915 at the auxiliary hospital of Valence. Its execution was entrusted to sculptor Albert Pasche (1873-1947). Born in Plaimpalais (Switzerland), Pasche was trained at the École des beaux-arts of Besançon and then Paris in the studios of Alexandre Falguière and Antonin Mercié. He was professor at the school of fine arts of Besançon from 1896. He exhibited in Paris at the Salon des artistes français, of which he became a member in 1905. He won several medals there, notably for Ariane Abandonnée (1903) and for the Funeral Monument of Clarisse Bourdeney (1909, Paris, Père-Lachaise cemetery).

Description

Inaugurated on 25 September 1921, it represents, according to La Presse Grayloise, a wounded Alpine Chasseur, clinging to the side of a collapsing wall holding his rifle in his left hand, and looking ahead with confidence and serenity. A maquette of the monument is still preserved by descendants of the Outhenin-Chalandre family. It is unknown whether this is a portrait of René Outhenin-Chalandre. The uniform is indeed that of the Alpine Chasseurs and the iconography chosen seems to evoke a particular event, perhaps the circumstances of his death.