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The Mangeot family of Autreville sur Moselle

About four or five years after Claude acquired his farm house, he decided to find a bride and establish a home. He went to Autreville, a village on the other side of the hill facing Bezaumont, to find a young lady worthy of his family, also a descendant from an old Lorraine family. Thus he was walking to Autreville after his day’s work, to visit Henriette Mangeot [Footnote 24] who was ten years younger than he. Henriette who was 26 years old at the time had a little sister only 11 years old, Marie who was put to bed in the alcove in the dining room where the visitor was hosted. The door was kept just a little bit open so that Marie could have some fresh air but she was told to go to sleep and not show herself when the visitor would arrive. One evening the curiosity was stronger than her parents forbidding. After the arrival of the visitor, Marie wanted to SEE. Kneeling on the edge of the bed, she thought that she could push the door a tiny little bit to “see.” She pushed a little bit more and a little bit more and suddenly, she fell out of bed very embarrassed in front of the surprised visitor. She quickly climbed back to bed and was not seen nor heard the rest of the evening.

The house of Autreville mentioned here was an old house renovated in 1861 [Footnote 25] [Footnote 25a, photos of house] [Footnote 25b, renovation] by François Charles Mangeot, Henriette’s father. It is in this house that Henriette was born after her parents returned from the farm of the Corbeau in Hadigny les Verrières, Vosges when it burned down. Why had François gone to Vosges to cultivate after his marriage? He was the oldest son and normally should have had his parent’s farm! But we must remember that his parents died of small pox three days apart, one on May 29 and the other on June 1, 1847. It was the daughter, oldest of 5 minor children who married the following spring, probably to take over the farm. This could perhaps explain why the couple François Charles Mangeot who married three years later with Jeanne Catherine Sesmat, his sister in law, had their first child in Dieulouard, the second in Autreville and the third in Vosges [Footnote 25c, marriage certificate] [Footnote 25d, portraits] [Footnote 25e, marriage photo].

François Charles Mangeot, born in Autreville November 5, 1828 was a descendant of an old Mangeot family from Sivry, a family of school teachers. Jeanne Catherine Sesmat born in Dieulouard October 21, 1829 was a descendant of several old Lorraine families but also from Jean Sesmat, born about 1671, we do not know where in France. Supposedly he was a horse merchant who came from Savoie (valley of the Maurienne), to sell horses to the cavalry of Pont à Mousson. (He died January 16, 1738, 67 years old.) When he married in Dieulouard, in 1718, he is said to be (of this parish) [Footnote 26]. Was it his first marriage at 47 years of age? His wife was 32! She died two days after her husband. They had five children but only one survive childhood.

We can guess that Jean Sesmat was perhaps a descendant of the Sesmat, (Cesmat, Ceymat) from the valley of Chorges in Hautes-alpes, where we have found a large number of Protestant Cesmat [Footnote 26a]. They seem to have moved around Isère, Savoie, Switzerland and even Germany.

Claude Thouvenin et Henriette Mangeot were married April 27, 1886 in Autreville at the town hall and then at the Church. The civil registration in France started in 1792 and since that time the state had supremacy over the church and the religious ceremony could only take place after the civil ceremony. Therefore to be well married, two ceremonies were needed [Footnote 27].

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© 2004, 2005 Jean-Marc Samson and Yvette Longstaff