Le refuge Napoléon du col du Noyer - Jean-Pierre JAUBERT

Le refuge Napoléon du col du Noyer - Jean-Pierre JAUBERT

(The Napoleon refuge of the Noyer pass)

Jean-Pierre Jaubert, a former teacher and passionate about local history, has focused on the question of the Napoleon huts in the Hautes-Alpes. After the book Histoire des Refuges Napoléon (1821-1858), here is the eventful history of the Napoleon hut at the Col du Noyer.

On March 20, 1857, the prefect Alexandre Le Peintre signed the decree of creation of the Napoleon refuges. The Col du Noyer is one of the sites where one of them will be built. In the spring of 1858, the lack of money led the prefect to simplify its construction. It would not look like the others. Life took shape at the Napoleon refuge on the Noyer Pass around the guards who succeeded one another. Deaths (the first guard was swept away by an avalanche), births (Napoleon Eugene, Marie Rose...), permanent humidity, defects, heating problems, water scarcity were the daily life of these couples and their children.

From text to text, from document to document, you will immerse yourself in these moments of life where human relations between the man on the ground and the administration are often chaotic. From the original building to the one of today, you will meet the janitor, the road-mender, the letter carrier, the gendarme, the geologist, the engineer, the mayor, the general councillor, the tourist or the restaurant owner... the life of the men around this refuge between Champsaur and Dévoluy.

Collection Mémoire des Hautes-Alpes, Éditions des Hautes-Alpes.