Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The monument to the dead of Royat is a group carved in Chauvigny's white stone, representing a scene of Deploring Christ adapted to the victims of the First World War. Five characters in the round-bosse surround a lying soldier: two peasants (father and mother) at his feet, and at his head, a widow and her child holding a laurel crown. The faces, deeply marked by pain, express an intense emotion, reflecting collective mourning.

The Chapel of Remembrance, built in 1876 in a neo-medieval style, was renovated in 1921 to house the remains of the dead soldiers in local hospitals and honour the natives of Royat who had fallen into combat. The tympanum and commemorative plaques, visible through a glass door protected by ironwork, recall their sacrifice. The monument, commissioned at Raoul Mabru in 1922, was inaugurated in 1925 and awarded in 1927 by the Clermont Academy for its sculptural excellence.

The project began in 1921 when the municipality asked Raoul Mabru, a local sculptor, to propose two models submitted to the vote of the inhabitants. The chosen site, facing the new cemetery, overlooks the existing chapel, creating a coherent commemorative ensemble. The grey granite base, extracted from Saint-Julien-Laveste, supports the engraved plates of the names of the dead and the great battlefields, anchoring the monument in collective memory.

Ranked a historic monument in 2019, the ensemble (monument and chapel) illustrates the funeral art of the interwar period, mixing religious symbolism and patriotism. The Chauvigny stone and the local granite underline the link between universal mourning and the Auvergne identity, while the chapel, transformed into a place of recollection, perpetuates the memory of the disappeared.

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