170

Finding myself, in the month of August last, at the village of Bergères, near Montaimé, the road from Paris to Châlons-sur-Marne, I learned from the inhabitants of the country, that they were frequently finding human bones and copper ornaments on a hill in the neighborhood.

Having resolved to make an excavation there, they conducted me onto the western side of the hills of Cormont. Cormont, which, interrupted by the pass where the great road crosses, ends abruptly at Montaimé. At about 1000 meters to the north of the farm of Puy, on the right of the road from Châlons to Paris, I saw an uncultivated mound which they pointed out to me under the name of the Cemetery of Puy, as the place where I should do my research. This mound is not a fake at all, like the tumuli that I have seen myself many times in Brittany: it is composed of chalk tufa, covered over by a thin layer of sod. Instructed by my guides, I soon recognized, at first sight, the site of each tomb, by the color and by the abundance of the vegetation; that probably is not due to, after so many centuries, the existence of animal matter, but of the great depth of earth that may be filled in these parts by soil.

The bones are encountered from the level of the soil to the depth of three feet and more, according to the ability that the waters have had to carry away the earth which covers them. 171 Some graves appear to be much deeper; I have abandoned one with regret at the depth of five feet, when its extraordinary dimensions made me hope for interesting results. These tombs are all turned from the west to the east, or, more exactly, towards the rising sun. The head reposes often upon a rough stone, the hands placed against the hips; the weapons are found to the right side. A vase in crude pottery was put upon the chest, but it appeared to have been almost always crushed by the materials of which they filled the tomb, and these fragments are so much attacked by the humidity, that they crumble under the hand.

One frequently finds coal.

A sword was found in a deep tomb, near by a warrior whose height must have reached close to six feet. A necklace was on his neck, and two bracelets on his wrists, My guide assured me he has never found any of iron, while they have, to his knowledge, sold ones of copper for quite steep sums. I would be, according to that, disposed to regard this sword as a conquest taken from the Romans.

In the greatest number of these tombs, one finds only bones and fragments of pottery.

I do not know the extent of this place of burial; the bodies are very close together, and often ones are placed above others.

One sees, at the summit of the mound, the remains of one of seven altars around which the emperor of Russia, Alexander, gathered his army in 1814; for the divine office, he took his seat with his top military officers upon the summit of Montaimé.

I have said that the people have named this place The Cemetery of Puy (1); Puy is a farm situated on the site of a Roman establishment, 172 at least the fields around the farm are strewn with bricks and pottery fragments, and a Roman road passed there; one is able to observe the construction of it quite well. Opposite the same farm, this road is known to head for Soissons, and to the south-east towards Pierre-Morin, where people have found so many Roman antiquities; could this not be a communication point between Langres and Soissons?

M. BOULAYS.

Footnotes

(1)  The Celtic word Puy is applied to a mountainous country: the Puy de Dôme, the Puy St-Eusèbe, etc.

Elf.Ed. Notes

The only online reference [in English or French] that mentions this curious ceremony by Czar Alexander I is here on answers.com.