4 - A new civic landscape

Summary

In the closing months of 1814 the mayor of Neuviller received an administrative instruction to revert to pre-revolutionary usage as far as the name of his village was concerned. A municipal seal arrived which was inscribed ‘Chaumont-sur-Moselle’. Maurice Jordy, the mayor and new owner of the chateau, demurred, albeit circumspectly. Choosing his arguments with care, Jordy pointed out that the descendants of the Chaumont de La Galaizières no longer possessed any property in the village, which featured in all the postal directories as ‘Neuviller-sur-Moselle’. Moreover, the name ‘Chaumont’ had caused endless confusion to the authorities, with mail being misdirected to Chaumont-en-Bassigny. He did not, at this stage, explain the circumstances that had prompted the change in the first place; nor did he disclose the real reasons for his reluctance to contemplate a switch of nomenclature. With the return to power of Napoleon a few months later, the whole matter could be safely ignored, or so it seemed. The white flag of the Bourbons was lowered from the church tower and replaced with the tricolour, the seal pushed to the back of a drawer. Military defeat at Waterloo would turn the wheel of fortune in favour of the Bourbons once more, however. In the face of renewed pressure from the subprefect of Lunéville, Jordy now spelled out the reasoning behind his opposition to the proposed name change. Such a policy ‘rappelloient des temps qui doivent être oubliés’.