Uncovering the history of watchmaking expertise
On the 17th November 1384, Imier finally gave in. It was late, he had heard and he had listened hard.
Listened to the passionate appeals of one Jean Ruedin, come straight from Cressier – Le Landeron, on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel, to seek a tax exemption for anyone willing to undertake the task of clearing the trees up on the mountain.
A mountain, or rather a vast plateau towering 1,000 metres above sea level, covered by rugged firs which no-one had ever dared tackle.
The king of forests - as it was known to those who lived around its edges - commanded the high ground, and no tool or effort of man had thus far come close to conquering it. The fir reigned supreme, lord of the pasture, home to fox and wolf, its branches creating an arena for winds and rains. The fir was king, and none had yet ventured to challenge its supremacy atop the Hauts Plateaux of the Jura.
But Jean Ruedin and his friends had defied the decrees issued by the Bishopric of Basel. Imier de Ramstein, Prince-Bishop of this vast territory, had granted a complete tax exemption to inhabitants of the heavily forested region.
With the arrival of spring, Jean Ruedin had set out to brave the last remaining snows on the Haut Plateau. Armed with axes and saws, the adventurer set up camp on the slopes bordering the Doubs, a raging river whose course led it through a 400-metre deep canyon.
Riven by the teeth of the saws, licked and consumed by the flames of ferocious fires, the firs surrendered to the grim determination of the voyager from the lands below.
The broad trunks were used to construct the buildings that would house the very first settlers on the high terrain of the Jura, christened Les Bois (The Woods), Le Noir-Mont (Black Mountain), Les Breuleux (Burning Torches) or even Les Enfers (Hell).
Imier could not have known it, but his decree was about to set this lofty community on a great and glorious path: the pursuit of watchmaking expertise.
And so La Franche Montagne was born.
Rudis Sylva: From Jean Ruedin and Sylva, Latin for ’forest’. Rudis Sylva became Les Bois.
