Saint Nicholas Church of Meurival dans l'Aisne

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Origin and history

The church Saint-Nicolas de Meurival is located in the rural commune of Meurival, in the department of Aisne, in the Hauts-de-France region. This village, classified as a settlement with scattered habitat, is part of the area of attraction of Reims. Although its construction period is not specified, the church is a silent witness to local history, including the upheavals of the First World War.

During the 1914-1918 war, Meurival was a strategic place: a 19th-century castle, now extinct, was transformed into a 600-bed military hospital. The wounded received first aid before being evacuated, and a temporary cemetery was set up nearby. The hospital operated almost until the end of the conflict, before the castle was destroyed in 1917. Between June and September 1918, the village was occupied by German troops and released on October 3, 1918.

The temporary cemetery of Meurival, installed during the war, housed the remains of the deceased soldiers in the military hospital. After the conflict, these bodies were transferred to the national necropolis of Pontavert, erasing some of the local traces of this dark period. Today, the funeral monument of Julie Favart D'Herbigny and her husband Adrien Aubé de Bracquemont, dated 1842, remains in front of the church, in the old cemetery now abandoned.

Meurival, with its 56 inhabitants in 2023, maintains a predominantly agricultural land use (66.6%), between arable land and forests. The village, without a monument to the dead, remains marked by its rural past and its ephemeral but crucial role during the Great War. Historical maps, such as Cassini's (18th century), allow us to trace the evolution of our territory over the centuries.

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