Home : History : Background History : Footnote 2

Taken from “Jean Lalance, Scarponne - Dieulouard depuis les origines jusqu’aux temps modernes” (Dieulouard from the beginning until the modern times)

p. 97 - Everyone is aware of what our poor Lorraine had to endure during the terrible thirty year war, it’s suffering from the plague, from the famine, from the violence of the warriors crossing through. Several historians and chroniclers among whom Father Abram (Jesuite from the University of Pont-à-Mousson0, have left us some very sad but true accounts of the miseries of this time period. Dieulouard had it’s share of sufferings in this terrible drama.

The plague appeared very early in the spring of 1631, and in spite of the precautions taken, it ravaged the population until 1637. We have no precise information on the number of people who died from the plague. The death records are lacking from 1630 to 1637. But we can assume there was a considerable number of deaths by the fact that in the space of five to six years, three priests in Dieulouard died of the plague. The mortality was such, that to preserve the living they had to distance the sick. Therefore at the foot of the hill of Cuite, some wooden huts were built, in which the sick were transported. This did not happen without the resistence of a part of the population who imagined that the sick people were buried alive. One day a crowd of people walked to these huts and nearly set them on fire.

To the plague must be added, pillage, massacres and requisitions from the men of war. The burg of Dieulouard which was on the main road between, Metz, Toul and Nancy, was continually occupied by the French troops, the German, Lorraines and Swedish, who requisitioned or demanded ransom without mercy, such as the armies did in those days. The company of light-horsemen of Monseigneur the king’s brother, Gaston of Orléans, established garrison during twenty three months. The Swedes went through frequently and each time left trace of their passage. The regiment of Saxe-Weimar lived there during two years. The soldiers of this regiment, almost all Protestant, exercised all sort of excess and committed all sorts of atrocities, pressuring without mercy the unfortunate inhabitants, pillaging as soon as something was refused to them, committing all sorts of atrocities, raping the women, pursuing and massacring the priests and religious people, defiling the churches, in one word, satiating their religious hatred on populations deeply Catholic.

The 8^th of January 1636, two Benedictine monks, Anselme Williams and Léandre Néville, were sent to a nearby village, towards Saint-Mihiel, to assist a dying noble lady. They were arrested by Saxe-Weimar soldiers, and hanged to trie by the road side, because of religious hatred.

We often read these words in the baptismal records: the mother of the child has declared that she was victim of the soldiers who respect absolutely nothing... Several girls from the surrounding villages made similar declarations …

Bezaumont B 5234 - (notes from Yvette taken in 1993)

1637. ... to be used in the account of Erric Hierosme - Request from the inhabitants of Loisy, Ste Genevieve, Landremont and Bezaumont, stating that they are all reduced to beg for their living, having neither horse, nor cows, not a grain planted, no means of survival, because the war people, Swedes as well as others, having taken everything ... Reduction of taxes granted to the farmer of the mill of Dieulouard because the Swedes came to his place and took everything, broke everything and returned several time, always pillaging whatever the requester had …

© 2004, 2005 Jean-Marc Samson and Yvette Longstaff