Home : History : Background History
: Footnote 1
The Thirty year war (1618-1648)
(Taken from the History of
Lorraine published with the collaboration of
16 teachers - published by the Lorraine Society of local public studies,
Nancy. Seat of the Society 13, Place Carnot - berger Levrault Editions 1939) p.
400. Economic situation of Lorraine
during the 30 year war.
The war. It is useless to try and describe the
military operations which were extremely confused: for the most part there was
no strategy but it was left to chance, and for the most part, they were only
justified by the necessity to obtain
food or the desire to plunder. We must add that the armies of both sides were
international and did not obey just one command. There were no big battles but
a number of small encounters: these troops were seen to fight civilians rather
than their adversary. The unfortunate peasants usually did not know who they
were dealing with: they called the Cavalry Croatians and the others the Swedes
because they showed themselves more ferocious, often pursuing the Catholics
from Lorraine to give way to their Protestant hatred. Still today, in the Saar valley, the farmers
blame the Swedes for the ruins that they still uncover. The duke of Beauvau, from Lorraine, shows in 1635 the region “inundated by all
the beasts spoken of in the book of Revelations, namely the scum of all the
nations: Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, Germany, Sweden, Lorraine, France, Spain, to
whom the duke abandoned Lorraine. The six armies who lived then on Lorraine
included some 150,000 men, an enormous number for a country hardly five times
more populated; in addition and according to the custom of that time period,
the armies were accompanied or followed by a number just as large of servants
and women who were just as valiant in plundering. Their daily activity was to
attack a village, for example Gorze, in 1634: 60 men are killed on the spot,
140 are made prisoners to be ransomed later and they were thrown in the cellars
of the castle of Bassompierre, 69 houses are burned, the destiny of the women
is left to the mercy of whatever. This
sort of thing happens over and over again, and causes the inhabitants to leave
as soon as a troop approaches. The woods are a shelter for months without end
for the fugitives, because the soldiers knew that there was nothing there to
plunder and they were afraid of ambush.
The plundering of
Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, from November 4 to 11, 1635, was probably one of the
worse happenings: the town, first it was invaded by 300 French horsemen, soon
added to by many other contingents. It was ill-treated in a thousand ways and
finely burned. The large cathedral was burned last after having greased all the
wood work and framework with lard, to be sure that it would burn better. There remained only the stone walls which
were six days in the middle of the fire and were still red like coal. This
place of pilgrimage never recovered fully from this devastation.
The journal of dom Cassien
Bigot, prior of the abbey of Longeville les Saint-Avold, the one of the town
clerk of Plappeville,
Jean Bauchez, the “remarks on several things which happened: of Pierre
Vuarin, clerk in Etain, the notes of Jean Conrard of Malzeville, among other,
give us a lot of living witness on the miseries of Lorraine.
The resistance: the
resistance was generally void. The scattered farmers had no arms: it was a game
for example in 1636, for 6000 to 7000 Croatians, Poles and Hungarians to burn
in a few days, 17 villages of the region of Montfaucon. However mention is made
of the revolt of some Vosgiens who were mountain men between Fraize and
Plainfaing and the heroic acts maintain in a few fortified churches in the area
of Metz (Chazelles, Semécourt, Vigy, Sainte-Barbe) by some civilians determined
to sell dearly their lives and who succeeded in tiring the assaulters. But the reprisals were
dreadful and most often a general massacre ended these few resistance.
With some good leaders, some
discipline, and especially if epidemics had not decimated the population, a
defense could have been attempted. The wife of a Colonel in the service of
Charles IV, Barbe d’Ernecourt, dame of Saint Balmont, succeeded to make of her
residence in Neuville en Verdunois a safe refuge and a center from where she
directed some brilliant successes. She succeeded to protect her land and her
flock and all those who entrusted her. Tallemand des Reaux says that “this
Christian Amazone” (took prisoners? or killed ?) 400 men by her own
hand. This energetic and Christian woman always ready to attack the enemy with
the rosary in one hand and the sword in the other retired in 1659 in the
convent of the Clarisses of Bar. Her example shows what the nobility of
Lorraine could have done if they had not given way so easily to the calls of
the duke who led them from one adventure into another, without any benefit for
their land. Another example of feminine bravery is that of Catherine de
Lorraine, sister of Charles IV abbess of Remiremont who valiantly defended this
town in 1638 against Turenne.
Desolation of the population.
Threatened by the French army
the residents of Nancy made an oath in 1633, to offer to Notre Dame de Lorette
a relief plan of the city, old city and new city, with all it’s monuments, to
renew it’s commitment and oath of fidelity.
The text of the oath was taken
to Lorette by the hermit of Sainte Geneviève, Joseph Girardin, and the silver table
was finished and sent in 1658. Unfortunately the sanctuary was ransacked by the
French in 1797 and the ex-veto of Nancy was victim 164 years later of the same
armies against which they had asked the help of Notre-dame.
The sad Charles IV, had a devotion
which appeared sincere for Notre-Dame de Sion. He went there namely in 1631,
after the Vic treaty. From Mirecourt
where he settled in 1662, he often made the pilgrimage to the hill and gave to
the sanctuary the famous ciborium in the form of a globe which is now in the
Museum of Lorraine in Nancy and in 1669, he raised a fund for Marie to which he
had entrusted his subjects.
The plague
The troubles of the thirty year
war were aggravated by epidemics which had started before. It is one more resemblance
between the XVII and the XIV century, between the thirty year war and the
hundred year war. In Lorraine the epidemics were relatively short and limited
but of an extreme violence. It is also possible that the name of plague was
given to various epidemics which were not necessarily justified by this
diagnostic. This plague is reported in 1623 in the little village of Lessy
(Moselle) where 180 people died, in 1629 in Charmes where the mortality is such
that the bodies remained 15 days without being buried. The following year is
the beginning of a general epidemic. At Easter, Nancy (Ville-vieille = old city), then Toul, are
contaminated; in Malzéville alone, 245 people die. The plague moves to the
west, Toul, then Gondrecourt (240 dead). At the same period, it moves to the
upper valley of the Moselle, Châtel for example is full of dead. After a
slowing down in the winter, the plague starts again in April 1631 in
Saint-Nicolas (351 dead.) The epidemic lasts 4 months in Reméreville, seven in
Dombasle, 3000 people die in Toul in 1631. Starting in 1633, the movements of
the troops caused the plague to spread: in Nancy (ville-neuve) there are 1720 deaths in 1635
compared with 340 in 1630. In Charmes, from August to November 1635, 370 adults
and 185 children died including the victims of the assault given by the French
to the city. In Val-d’Ajol, the plague took the life of 500 adults in 1636. In
Rambervillers, the population fell from 2,660 inhabitants in 1635 to 400 in
1643. In Metz, the years 1635-1636 were horrible and the garrison itself almost
entirely wiped out: at one time up to 300 people were buried in one day - 6000
total for the month of November alone, according to the witness of the clerk
Bauchez. The survivors ran away to
shelter themselves and from a population of 19,000 in October 1636, the
population of Metz fell to 3,000 in 1643.
The famine
The famine was a consequence
of the plague and at the same time of the war: there is nobody to cultivate the
land, no more animals, and often no more equipment. In the upper part of the
country, it is a complete return to cultivate the land with the shovel, unless
people prefer to pull the harrow with human breast-collar. There was no
more business because merchants avoided
the regions that were contaminated. In addition the army took everything to
ascertain it’s own subsistence and constitute reserves in the strong holds. The
misery was incredible because the entire population lived through the years
with soups made with grass, oatmeal,
bran and grits sold by the city mills; one knew only barley bread. This famine
raged also in
A Lazarist shows in
The depopulation
The depopulation lasted longer
than the plague and the famine. It was terrible and it has been questioned if
it did not go over 50 % of the total population of the duches which was
evalutated to a maximum of 800,000 men.
In many regions, it reached the two third.
It is thanks to the request for
tax exemptions and thanks to the lists of tax payers that we have an idea of
this monstrous depopulation of Lorraine. In 1644, in Lunéville, there remained
only 30 families. Frouard which counted 100 homes in 1633, had only 5 or 6
people in 1635. Crévic fell from 256 hearths to 10, Lay-Saint-Christophe, from
181 to 12, Laneuveville from 75 to 10, Villers-lès Nancy from 48 to 13 men “and
three poor widows”; in Flavigny disappear two thirds of the population. Thélod,
from 70 families to 25; Selaincourt, from 45 to 7; Mirecourt, from 331 to 70.
Bettoncourt and Chauffecourt, from 60 men to 17. The people of Pont-sur-Madon
died of starvation; in Chaouilley there remained only 2 people, in Mattaincourt
and in many other villages, there is not even one resident remaining, only a
few beggars searching in the ruins.
The situation is the same in
Barrois.
The recovery was extremely slow. During over
20 years, in some areas, it was impossible to even raise one cent of tax. In
1642, the village the most populated of the area of Einville had only 16
residents. In the area of Dieuze, in 1655, it was still impossible to raise any
kind of tax. In 1661, the people of Tannois (Meuse), which is desolated, are
thinking of emigrating. Châtillon, which was abandoned during 16 years in the
XVII century, had only 65 inhabitants a hundred years later, in 1750. The total
disappearance of many villages which were ruined between 1630 and 1650, and
have been definitively wiped out of the map are a witness of this desolation.
There may not be another region in France which has had such destruction - only 300 hundreds years ago -
of some 80 villages.
© 2004, 2005 Jean-Marc Samson and Yvette Longstaff