2. Ronchamp to Héricourt

The history of this church, in the centre of the town of Ronchamp, must be told in conjunction with that of the Notre-Dame-du-Haut chapel on the Bourlémont hill.
An 11th century document attests the presence of a Notre-Dame chapel on the hill, attached to an abbey in Besançon. The Lords of Ronchamp found the place of worship too remote and were authorised by the archbishopric to build a Saint-Hubert chapel in their castle during the 15th century.
A new parish church was built in 1737 to replace the Saint-Hubert chapel.
During the 19th century, major alterations were made to the lower church, which is the building we see today. While the chapel of the upper church is subject to storms and low attendance outside the pilgrimages to Notre-Dame.

Coal mining covered a vast territory backed by the foothills of the southern Vosges mountains well beyond the town of Ronchamp. Mining began in the 18th century under the authority of the Lords of Ronchamp and the Prince Abbots of Lure Abbey, and closed in 1958. At the end of the Second World War France exploited the coal from the Saarland, a German province, which was of better quality than that of Ronchamp and easier to extract.
In the 20th century the coal seams are getting thinner and it is necessary to go deeper and deeper. At the end of the 19th century Ronchamp had the deepest mineshafts in France, more than 1000 metres. The site was hit by disasters caused by firedamp.  
More information: Wikipedia

The first mention of the castle on Etobon hill dates back to the middle of the 13th century when the fief was under the control of the Count of Burgundy. It occupied an important strategic place which allowed the circulation of goods and people in the south of the Vosges. This is why, during the Middle Ages, it suffered numerous destructions and fires by the lordships located near the lands of Étobon. In 1519 the castle is attacked again by the Lord of Porrentruy who burns it. He did not recover from this last battle and the Princes of Montbéliard authorized the population to take the stones for their personal use. During the Reformation, Protestant worship was practised in Ètobon. A pastor was installed in 1552, and the Catholic Church was assigned to Lutheran worship.
In the 18th century, the seigneury of Étobon was attached to the county of Montbéliard and was reunited with France in 1793.
To visit the site with a superb panorama in good weather, you must leave the Via Columbani when you arrive in Ètobon, stay on the D 127 and take the Rue du Château on the right with a steep slope for 800 metres.

When the German troops withdrew in 1944, the maquis of Ètobon took many prisoners and some escaped to warn their brothers-in-arms of the presence of the maquis. On 27 September 1944 a platoon of Russian mercenaries, incorporated into the German army, invaded the village. They arrested 67 men at random and shot 39 of them in front of the wall of the Protestant Temple of Chenebier and deported the other men. This act of barbarism without judgment is commemorated every year.
Next to the communal cemetery a martyrs' alley recalls the memory of the murdered civilians.
A plaque recalls the devotion of the population of Étobon to welcoming Indian and British soldiers who escaped from a camp in Épinal during a bombing raid. The maquis had organized the escape of the soldiers to Switzerland.
The villages of Ètobon and Chenebier were awarded the Croix de Guerre 1939-1945.

The patronage of the church of Chagey was given to the Abbey of Luxeuil by Pope Eugene III in 1147 and subsequently confirmed by his successors. The Abbey of Luxeuil attached the parish to the priory of Saint-Valbert d'Héricourt. At the Reformation the majority of the population embraced the Lutheran reform. The commune was part of the County of Burgundy under the authority of the Catholic Prince of Parma. The Prince of Montbéliard sent a delegation to the Prince of Parma who refused. His subjects had to practice the religion of the sovereign.
In 1561 the seigneury of Hericourt was reintegrated into the County of Montbéliard. This was the beginning of a succession of conflicts between the representatives of the two religions with hostage-taking.
In 1748 a silutaneum was envisaged between the King and the Prince of Württemberg and the seat of the Protestant parish was transferred from Couthenans to the county of Montbéliard. The discord continued until 1793 when a compromise was reached to celebrate Protestant worship in the Catholic church. In the choir of the temple of Chagey, the rails that allowed the altar to be moved to celebrate the Protestant cult are still visible. The construction of a Catholic church at the end of the 19th century put an end to the conflict.
On an industrial level, the particularity of Chagey is its forge and blast furnaces, installed in 1586 by Protestant refugees from Lorraine, and which still existed in the 20th century.

The priory of Saint-Valbert, near Héricourt, of the order of Saint-Benoît and the dependency of the seigniorial abbey of Luxeuil, was founded around the year 1120 by Count Thierry II of Montbéliard, who was considered to be a man of great devotion. He received his name from Saint Valbert, who died as abbot of Luxeuil in 665, to whom his church was dedicated. He is first mentioned in a charter of the year 1123; but, as this charter clearly announces, he goes back to an earlier time. Another document of the year 1186 shows that even before this date he had subjects of servile condition and lands consisting of fields, meadows, ponds, forests in the hamlet of Saint-Valbert, which had not long before being formed around his buildings; that he had subjects, buildings and tithes on part of the territories of Chagey and the Chapel near Granges ; tithes and pieces of land on different parts of the territory of Héricourt, as well as the patronage of the churches of Chagey and Héricourt, i.e. the right of presentation of the parish priests of these places to the confirmation of the Archbishop of Besançon, with the income attached to them...
He kept all his possessions until his suppression in the sixteenth century following the Reformation. He had lower justice and all the seigneurial rights and incomes on his subjects of Saint-Valbert and other places. Count Thierry II of Montbéliard was not content with founding the priory of Saint-Valbert; he erected the church of Saint Maimbœuf (an Irish monk of the 5th century, who died a martyr in the Montbéliard region), which was within the walls of the castle of this town, as a collegiate church around 1142, and he established a chapter of twelve Augustinian canons there.