This is a commemorative cross, following the third wave of cholera in 1854, the most widespread and deadly in the département: from 5 May to 20 September 1854 alone, 30,870 people were sick throughout the département, causing 13,798 deaths. In the canton of Longeau alone, Cohons claimed the most victims (19 men and 25 women), ahead of Aprey (7 men and 16 women), Longeau (5 men, 2 women, 3 children), Brennes (2 men and 5 women) and Baissey (2 men and one woman). Curiously, the two Verseilles were spared. At the same time, the tax collector of Longeau, Edme Faure, fearing the effects of the plague, shut himself up in his attic and had meals delivered to him in a basket. But at the end of the epidemic, in order to thank God for sparing him and to commemorate the event, he had a large commemorative cross erected at his own expense on a high point overlooking Longeau, above the village of Verseilles-le-Haut, on the base of which he had the following inscription carved: "To the victims of cholera, 1854". The cross was blessed on 2 March 1861 (Rogation Monday), with a large turnout of parishioners from both Longeau and Verseilles. But on 22 June 1861, just three months after these events, a devastating hurricane toppled the cross. The generous donor had it reassembled, adding a hollowed-out stone ball to the top of the column, no doubt in the image of "the cross dominating the world", on the equator of which can be read "Hurricane of 22 June 1861". The calvary was blessed again on 26 May 1862, but was destroyed again more recently by a hurricane and restored again towards the end of the 1940s.
Croix du Choléra à Verseilles-le-Haut
