Heritage Discovery Tour of Besse

Depart from the town of Besse-et-Saint-Anastaise, latitude 45.5122576 (N 45° 30’ 44”), longitude 2.9335854 (E 2° 56’ 1”)

• Butchers' House

• This house is typical of the shopping architecture of the late Middle Ages with a bay called "basket handle" or "rabbet" with a display of stone "taule" used to present the goods (here the meat).
• Postcard: F-G Faure-Perrin

• The old hospital of Broglie

• The community of the inhabitants of Besse pays a doctor from 1686, attached to the city of Besse.
• In 1780, the bishop visited the establishment which had 11 beds and was held by 8 sisters of the Saint Joseph congregation.
• In 1820, the hospice was moved to new premises next to the church: Saint Joseph Hospice.
• Postcard: F-G Faure-Perrin

• The church of Besse

• In the 19th century, the church threatened to fall into ruin. The destruction of the bell tower during the Revolution had heavily damaged the vaults. In 1805, a first rescue is operated. The choir was completely rebuilt in 1822 as well as the octagonal bell tower. The roof of the choir was redone and raised in 1877. In 1889, the cemetery with the wall that surrounds it and the square tower of the Rosary (built in 1370) are razed to build the current square.
• Postcard: F-G Faure-Perrin

• The walled garden of the rampart

• Did you know?
• Hemp and flax were introduced in Besse in the 18th century to revive the local economy. The fields were located northeast of Besse, near the Couze Pavin which was captured and brought to the fields by an aqueduct.
• The two underground passages at the foot of the ramparts are contemporary with the construction of the rampart in the 15th century and allowed the evacuation of rainwater to the Couze Pavin below.
• Postcard: F-G Faure-Perrin

• The Bailli Castle

• The charge of Bailli was bought from the lords of the Tour d 'Auvergne by the richest bourgeois families of Besse.
• These families who bought this load were before the eighteenth and until the Revolution: the Godivel and Chandezon, from the eighteenth: the Besseyre, Admirat and Morin.
• These families then took the place of 1st magistrate.
• Postcard: F-G Faure-Perrin

• The rampart

• The representation of the rampart in the burrow of Catherine de Medici, compiled by Antoine Godivel in 1575, shows an important city surrounded by monumental ramparts. The lithography was probably amplified to show the Queen of France, Catherine de Medici, the wealth of land it brings to the royal domain on a case-by-case basis since at his death, the lands of Auvergne were inherited and released from the royal domain.
• Sketch: Communication Service-Paul Gomichon-Mairie de Besse

• The role of the Squares

• Postcard: The white market Place de la Gayme at the beginning of the 20th century (Postcard: F-G Faure-Perrin)

• The House of the Consuls

• From the year 1000, cities develop economically. Besse, founded on a commercial crossroads, thrives around the church. An urban bourgeoisie appears: they are tradesmen, artisans, lawyers and letters who will organize themselves in order to free themselves from the supervision of the local lord by asking for the granting of a franchise charter and by electing among the richest bourgeois of the consuls to apply the great principles of the charter.
• Postcard: F-G Faure-Perrin

• The house called Queen Margot

To Marguerite de Valois has been added an image of slight morals by her detractors, which hides her very great culture. She wrote poems and received from her mother a refined education worthy of the highest European courts of the Renaissance. She protected the artists and drew them around her. His escape through the Auvergne on his mother's land has deeply marked the territory, honored to have hosted this prestigious princess, became Queen of France without ever having been on the throne, during her period of exile in Usson.

• When she died in 1615, she left her lands in Auvergne to the future Louis XIII, the son that her ex-husband Henri Iv had with Marie de Medici.
• Postcard: F-G Faure-Perrin

• The Place de la Pairie

• The two houses on each side of the square have a very particular archivolte, one adorned with a cut-leaf garnished with oak leaves and the other with collared figurines with the firm intention for the owners to stand out from the other mansions of the same type.
• Etymologically, "chabrit" of the name of the street means kid, which evokes the type of trade realized on this place.
• Postcard: Staircase door house of the Prairie-F-G Faure-Perrin

• The Belfry

• The bell tower is surmounted by a weathervane with a wolf's head. According to legend, one night after a party, the watchers of the city fell asleep and did not see approach the brigands. Wolves would have screamed, leaving the inhabitants of their sleep in time to defend the city. The protective wolf decorates from the Besse belfry.
• Postcard: F-G Faure-Perrin

• The Poterne Square

• This square is the symbol of the renewal of the republican city touched by the modernism of access to drinking water by fountains and laundries to improve public hygiene and the economic revival with the establishment of new places (Poterne, Church...) on new lines of communication, opening the medieval city closed to new perspectives...

• The mansion Sainte Marie des Remparts

• Originally, three houses were built, backed by the rampart. They were brought together to form the current ensemble with architectural elements of the Renaissance.
• Postcard: F-G Faure-Perrin

• The Providence and Post Office

• At the beginning of the 20th century, the great hotels of Besse welcomed great artists and great writers.
• In 1904, Wladimir de Terlikowski attended Besse before going to the Murol Painters School.
• In the 1920s, the painters Henri Rivière and Maurice Busset, the writers Raymond Radiguet and Jean Cocteau, Julien Green and Aimé and Susanne Césaire stayed in Besse.
• Postcard: Monument to the dead of 1914-18- France in mourning- F-G Faure-Perrin