Written in 1887 by a French soldier named Jean Baptiste Tronc, this short history of Vence was never published.
In 2005 a Vence writer named Dominique Gardan came across a remarkable find in an old bookstore in Nice: a handwritten manuscript titled “Monographie de Vence – 1887.” I recently found a copy of his transcription of this short book and immediately set about to translate it in English.
The author of this little manuscript, Jean Baptiste Tronc, was a Captain in the French Army. He was born in Vence in 1821 and died there in 1902. Not a lot is known about him, but research by Gardan did turn up some interesting details. He joined the army in 1842 and rose through the ranks to become a Second Lieutenant by 1852 when he married Jeanne Pierrette Rambaud with whom he had four children. He retired from the army in 1874 as a Captain. He appeared on the Legion of Honour register and was named a Chevalier before his retirement.
This monograph (a detailed written study of a single subject, person, place, or thing) is fairly short, just 29 handwritten pages. The handwriting is small and cramped and Gardan notes that it was sometimes difficult to decipher. Nevertheless, he has faithfully reproduced the entire work for us to enjoy.
Most of the monograph, about 80%, is devoted to the Ligurian and Roman times of Vence. The following 1400 hundred years or so is covered quickly and Tronc ends his study in 1794. In addition to a short history he provides details about several Roman artifacts still be found in the town. Tronc included two illustrations which he drew, one of the Marseille Columns and the other a map of the Vence region during Roman times.
In addition to creating a PDF of the entire original manuscript, I have recreated Dominique Gardan’s transcript of the monograph and present it here in both French and English. Sadly, I’m told that Gardan died several years ago, but I hope he would be happy to have his work digitized and available to interested readers in both French and English.
Download a high quality PDF reproduction of the original manuscript (13mb)
Download a high quality PDF transcription of the book in French (6mb)
Download a high quality PDF transcription of the book in English (6mb)
Download all thee versions (14mb)
[click on any image to see sample pages of the original version]