J is for Jean Giraud – Pedlar with a secret
A contribution to the #AtoZchallenge 2024
Who would have thought a humble pedlar from the tiny village of La Grave in the Oisans region of the French Hautes-Alpes would leave a mark on history? Travelling back and forth between his home and the cities of Lyon, Grenoble, Geneva, and Turin, Jean Giraud enjoyed the unique role of what would today be called a networker. Yes, he bought and sold his wares – chests, baskets, writing implements, candlesticks, lanterns, farm implements, shoes, carpentry tools, country cloth and rolls of linen, blankets, a cabinet of drugs and medicines, carpets, tailor’s scissors, sieves, hammers and files, and numerous cauldrons – as he travelled. And he recorded such routine business transactions in his livre de raison, along with important family events like births, marriages, baptisms, and deaths.
But, like other such merchants, Giraud’s peddling connected Alpine people to larger commercial networks, bringing Alpine residents news of the outside world, and opening new markets for their village products. In his interactions with fellow villagers, Giraud communicated an appreciation for art and music, proper standards of etiquette, and the importance of reading and learning. Giraud’s inventory included many books on history and literature, but also many religious texts that he must have carefully kept hidden after the Revocation.
Jean Giraud had a young daughter named Suzon, who lends her name to the book ‘Greet Suzon for me’, which will be published in 2024. In that novel, I have him secretly leading groups of persecuted Huguenots in mule trains across the hostile passes, menacing rivers, and valleys through Savoy – “Let’s say they’re enemies of our enemies” – to Geneva. Whether it was he or other guides who performed such risky services is a matter of speculation.
But what is known from his own pen is that he, his wife, daughter Suzon, sister and her little daughter undertook such a perilous journey. After an unsuccessful attempt in April 1686 to help 240 people escape from France to Switzerland; and after horrendous pressure from the Catholic authorities, his family group made another attempt to flee. The following is a shortened extract from Giraud’s diary:
On 29th July, God sent us rain before our departure, which brought a foot and a half of new snow in the highest part of the country. About ten o’clock in the evening, a thoroughly wet Savoyard arrived, who told me that the others were waiting for us on the way. I prepared two mules, and my sister helped me to put some pieces of cloth on their feet, so that they did not make any noise on the pavement. My wife left the house with my daughter on her back. It was about eleven o’clock in the evening, and when I judged that they would be two hundred paces outside the village, I closed the doors and entrusted myself to the protection of the Good God. When I joined my wife, we dismounted and put my wife with my daughter on a mule.
Just before Clotz, my wife and daughter fell from the mule, as it was a moonless night. So my wife again took our Suzon on her back, and riding in the dark, she deviated from the way, the guides being very busy with leading the mules. By chance, my sister with her guide, who had passed another way, found them. My daughter was in such great distress that we feared she might die and we would have had to bury her in the mountains. I wrapped the poor girl in my cloak and tied it to the back of one of the guides. Halfway up the mountain, my sister lost courage because of the cruel weather – rain, snow and ice – and our clothes were frozen to our bodies. As we reached the highest point of the mountain [Col de Martignare, 2900m], we each drank half a cup of brandy from my sister’s bottle. Finally, the sun began to appear on the highest rocks; so we took courage and found ourselves on the way down.
On arriving at the first houses in Savoy, the guides said we should separate. One went with my wife and daughter, one with my sister and her daughter, and the other mule for me. We left all our supplies in Saint-Jean de Maurienne, and all left separately for Geneva. Our route would take us through Momeillan, Chambéry, Aix-les-Bains and Rumilly. We agreed that if one of us was caught (God forbid!), the others would pretend not to see it, since it is easier to rescue one than three. And if someone questioned us, we would say we were taking the sick girls to the baths of Aix. We never spent the night in the same house, but travelled separately under God’s care.
My poor sister had a bad encounter with soldiers of the citadelle, who imprisoned her in the fort, saying she was a harlot. We others knew nothing of this, believing all was well, since neither of us had had a bad encounter. And having passed everywhere separately, we spent a night in Aix and the next evening in Saint-Julien. On Thursday, the first of August, we arrived in Geneva, at eight o’clock in the morning by the Lord’s grace.
One of the guides went back for Giraud’s sister, who managed to buy herself free with her rings and 12 Louis d’or, and they also found their way to Geneva. Jean Giraud’s family later settled in Vevey.
Grateful thanks to Marisa Mercurio, PhD, Editorial Coordinator, Michigan Publishing Services for permission to extract information from Keeping the Faith: The Story of a Seventeenth-Century Peddler and his Protestant Community Also to ASSOCIATION FRENEYTIQUE for permission to extract information from LE JOURNAL DE JEAN GIRAUD DE LA GRAVE.
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