Last modified: 2021-02-13 by ivan sache
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Flag of Bogny-sur-Meuse - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 27 July 2020
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The municipality of Bogny-sur-Meuse (5,032 inhabitants in 2018; 2,316 ha) is located 20 km north of Charleville-Mézières. The municipality was established in 1967 as the merger of the former municipalities of Château-Regnault-Bogny, Braux and Levrézy.
Bogny-sur-Meuse is known for multiple sites linked to the medieval legend of The Four Sons of Aymon, such as the Hermitage, hte four peaks symbolizing the Four Sons, and the the statue of Horse Bayard, which was erected on the former site of the fortress of Château-Regnault.
his is the very exact site of landing of Horse Bayard rode by the four knights after he had jumped over river Meuse. Just before the jump, Bayard split the Bayard rock in Dinant.
One of the longest preserved chansons de geste (more than 18,000 verses), the Four Sons of Aymon is believed to have been originally written in the late 12th century.
The preamble of the poem explains the origin of the issue of the Four Sons with Charlemagne. Beuves, Duke of Aigremont, refused to support Charlemagne in a war, which started a long vendetta and a series of murders. The main Son, Renaud of Montauban, maintained the vendetta by killing Berthelot, Charlemagne's nephew. The Four Sons withdrew to the Montessor castle (claimed in Boigny to be Château Regnault, also claimed by other villages in the area), which was besieges and seized by treachery, forcing the Four sons to hide in the Ardenne forest. They built there the hidden castle of Montauban, which was eventually discovered and besieged by the famous Roland, Charlemagne's nephew. In Vaucouleurs, the Fours Sons were saved from death by their cousin, the magician Maugis, the son of Beuves of Aigremont and deux ex machina of the story. Maugis offerred to the Four Sons the magic horse Bayard and sword Froberge.
Decided to stop the vendetta, Maugis retired as an hermit. Peace was settled by Charlemagne under the pressure of the Twelve Peers. Renaud offerred Bayard to Charlemagne and headed to Jerusalem with Maugis. Charlemagne ordered to throw down the horse into the Meuse, with a millstone hanging to the neck, but the horse managed to escape; since then, Bayard has been rambling in the Ardenne forest, where he can be heard on 21 June.
Back to Montauban, Renaud commissoned Charlemagne to educate his children since his wife had passed away and served as a mason on the building site of the cathedral of Cologne. Murdered by jealous fellows, he was thrown into the Rhine; his unstained body was subsequently recovered and he has been since then venerated as Saint Renaud of Montauban.
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Municipal website; Les quatre filz Aymon, ù: sont adjoustées les figures sous chascun chapitre (1583 edition, Middle French)]
Olivier Touzeau & Ivan Sache, 7 August 2020
The flag of Bogny-sur-Meuse, as seen there in 2013 and 2016 (photo), is white with the municipal coat of arms, "Azure three fleurs-de-lis or a bendlet couped gules a chief gules three annulets argent interlaced in fess ", and the name of the municipality below.
The field of the arms of Boigny is composed of the arms of the Bourbon-Conti lineage, recalling that Louise-Marguerite of Lorraine, François of Bourbon-Conti's widow, sold the principality of Château-Regnault, a sovereign state since 1545, to Louis XIII in 1629. These arms are shown on the obverse of coins minted by the principality of Château-Regnault (photos)
[Municipal website]
The three annulets in chief might represent the three former municipality merged in 1967 to form Bogny-sur-Meuse.
Olivier Touzeau & Ivan Sache, 7 August 2020