QR Veyre-Monton – Hameaux 4
Veyre and its coaching inns and mills
The Great Royal Road from Paris to Languedoc
Veyre is located on a very old road linking Paris to Languedoc. In the Middle Ages, the « Chemin Français » was used by pilgrims on their way to Le Puy. Under the Ancien Régime, it became the Great Royal Road from Paris to Languedoc, with six coaching inns between Saint-Flour and Clermont.
Until the Revolution, Veyre, one of the stops along the route, had a modest coaching inn for weary where travellers where the three local horsemen of the Maréchaussée stayed.
Image captions
- The Veyre (Vaire) coaching inn on the Carte particulière des postes de France by Alexis-Hubert Jaillot, 1695.
- Extract from Trudaine’s Atlas of the Generalitaté of Riom (1745-1780), showing a section of the Great Road from Paris to Languedoc. On the right, the villages of Monton, Saint-Alyre, Soulasse and Veyre.
- Mail, goods and people were transported by horse-drawn carriage until the early 20th century. Note the gendarme on the pavement, whose barracks were nearby.
The mills of Veyre
The village today is located on both banks of the Veyre, which are linked by a bridge dating back to the 13th century, for which a toll was charged. There were two mills on the river, formerly known as the Monne, which were the origin of the village itself. By the 19th century, there were as many as six mills in the commune, including three in Veyre. The cadastral map from 1821 shows how they operated. Unlike many mills in Limagne, which were built on the banks of slow-flowing streams, these mills were driven by vertical wheels. The grindstones, cut from sandstone or arkose, were sourced from local quarries, whose names, such as les Molières, are sometimes evocative.
Image captions
- Below, the three mills of Veyre that appear on the cadastral map of 1821