QR Veyre-Monton – Bourg 5
Saint-Menne Church
The location of the church in Monton has not changed since the Middle Ages, but it was rebuilt and enlarged at the end of the 18th century (1773-1789). Having succeeded the church of Saint-Alyre as the parish church, it was too small for the village’s population, which exceeded more than 2,000 in 1750.
Part of the bell tower was demolished during the French Revolution and rebuilt in 1822. The bells date from 1826 and 1862.
It is a church without a transept, with thick walls and round or segmental arches. Note the 18th-century decoration of the choir apse, with its two church trophies, and the painting of the Adoration of the Shepherds by Jean-Baptiste Collet (1809).
Décor and painting have recently been restored. Among the statues are the representation of the church’s extremely rare patron saint, Saint Menas, a 4th-century Egyptian martyr whose name was Frenchified to Menne by the clerics and to Mein or Men through usage, a first name that remained popular in Monton until the 19th century; a 17th-century angel with a trumpet; Saint Anne teaching the Virgin to read; and the traditional Saint Verny, honoured by the winegrowers’ brotherhoods of Limagne.
Two other objects also attract the attention: the lectern with the pelican, in the Louis XVI style, and the very realistic wax effigy-reliquary of Saint Eugene, made by the Carmelite nuns of Mende and placed under an altar in 1899.
The figurative stained glass windows were made in the 1860s by Emile Thibaud, a renowned stained glass artist from Clermont-Ferrand.
In 1822, a cistern was built under the church forecourt to collect rainwater (9 metres long, 5 to 7 metres wide, 200m3).