2024-01-18 10:15:05
– Savigny separated from Lutry 200 years ago
The split took place in a context of fragmentation of the Vaud communes, notes the historian Etienne Hofmann in his work. Quite the opposite of today.
Published today at 11:15 a.m.
The church and rectory of Savigny around 1830 on a watercolor aquatint by Jakob Samuel Weibel from the collection of the Lausanne Historical Museum.
Digitization workshop City of Lausanne
Who still knows that Savigny was once part of the commune of Lutry? In 1820, residents of the “Mountains” suddenly demanded separation from the lower town. But it was not until 1823 that the Grand Council decreed the detachment of the heights of Lutry. The new Savignolane authorities will be definitively installed in 1825. In a book, the historian Etienne Hofmann retraces this long process.
“I wanted to pay tribute to these unknown people, including the first trustee Jean-Pierre Décombaz, who deployed a lot of energy to create their commune,” confides Etienne Hofmann. Because the separation did not happen all at once. The procedure lasted five years. At the time, the delegates from Savigny (Jean-Etienne Décombaz and Jean-Marc Détraz, in particular) took a day to get to Lutry…”
In their remote region, the inhabitants of the Mountains, a thousand souls, lived meagerly from agriculture, forestry and little-developed crafts, providing the wood, manure and labor necessary for the vineyards. . They had the reputation of being the poorest in the canton.
“The bourgeois from the lakeside exploited the Mountains as their colony.”
Etienne Hofmann, historian, author of the book
“The bourgeois from the lakeside exploited the Mountains as their colony,” estimates Etienne Hofmann. The blatant disparities between the two regions, which were separated by geography, climate and economy, aroused the discontent of the Savignolans, who saw all the wealth benefiting those below. Without any representative in the Municipality from 1815, they felt increasingly excluded from public life.
The serious famine of 1816, after poor harvests, widened the gap between rich and poor. The latter felt they had been poorly helped. And then Lutry and Villette refused to install a clock and a second bell in the Savigny church, an anecdotal gesture which was very badly received.
“Uneducated and rude”
But the trigger for the protest was the cadastral survey of 1819. Etienne Hofmann: “It was probably by seeing the land surveyor draw up the map of the commune and note the plan of each area that the inhabitants of the Monts matured. ‘idea of separation.’
Not to the taste of the people at the bottom, who felt that the request for sharing was unfounded, that an independent commune of Savigny would run into ruin, as its inhabitants, “uneducated and crude”, were incapable of governing themselves. “The forests, then a considerable wealth, constituted the main stumbling block to the separation, with Lutry demanding his due,” explains Etienne Hofmann.
The church and the rectory of Lutry around 1830 on a watercolor aquatint by Jakob Samuel Weibel from the collection of the Lausanne Historical Museum.
Digitization workshop City of Lausanne
Trend reversal
Savigny’s split was not isolated. Around thirty Vaudois municipalities were then divided: Servion and Ferlens or even Corcelles and Payerne. In Lavaux, Saint-Saphorin gives birth to Chexbres, Puidoux and Rivaz. And Corsier splits into four with Corseaux, Chardonne and Jongny, while Villette splits into six communes, Villette, Cully, Épesses, Grandvaux, Riex and Forel. Today, it is exciting to note that Bourg-en-Lavaux once again brings together the five lakeside municipalities, except Forel, in the heights.
Why this trend reversal? “Today, practical and economic reasons have become priority,” notes Etienne Hofmann. At the time, in Lavaux, the fragmentation was due to the specific geographical and economic disparities of the region, but also to accumulated divisions, as in Lutry. In the cases of Villette and Saint-Saphorin, brotherhoods, or private associations, had appropriated public authorities. Everywhere, however, the sharing procedures were identical: complainants appealed to the State, before the Grand Council decreed the split.
“Savigny separates from Lutry, 1820-1825”, Etienne Hofmann, Vaud Historical Library, Lausanne, 2023
“Savigny separates from Lutry, 1820-1825”.
DR/Vaud Historical Library
Claude Beda is a journalist for the 24-hour Vaudois section. Passionate about social issues and the lives of people here, he covered several regions of the canton, before joining the Lausanne editorial staff. More informations
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