BIG-BOUTIQUE CIRCUIT
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A Bogny-sur-Meuse, the vallon of the "Grosse Boutique" is a unique place to rediscover the metallurgical past of the Ardennes, that of the bolts.
It was founded by two brothers, modest cloutiers, Jean-Rémi Maré (1813-1856) and Alexandre Joseph (1813-1887). Alexandre Maré (1845-1914), the boss of the second generation, developed the case considerably. On the eve of 1914, the «Grosse Boutique» is the largest in the Ardennes and even in France with more than a thousand employees. In two periods (1854-1858 and 1865-1877), she then almost acquired her final physionomie. It was even connected by a private railway, 2 km long and a tunnel passing under the Hermitage to the Charleville-Givet line.
The course takes us to the scene of the employers'castle, to the three paternalistic creations of the general stores, Alexandre Joseph crèche, or the still present of the Scale, a city comparable to that of the North where the workers were housed.