Installed near the village church, in the old cemetery, the Borne de la Terre Sacrée is the name given to a group of six markers dedicated to the French and Allied dead of the First World War. They are the brainchild of French sculptor Gaston Deblaize, a former soldier from the village of Meures.
Each of these markers contains soil from twelve different battlefields from the First World War. Five of the markers are in France, and one in the United States:
Chapelle du Simple soldat in the Eglise Saint-Louis des Invalides, Paris
Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington.
Guernic reef on the Ile de Théviec, off the Quiberon peninsula.
Village of Cinq-Mars-la-Pile in Indre-et-Loire.
Terre Sacrée beach, Vignola, Ajaccio (Corsica).
Village of Meures in Haute-Marne (Gaston Deblaize's home village) inaugurated in 1933.
Renée Deblaize, Gaston Deblaize's widow, gave the Amicale des anciens du 356 ème Régiment d'Infanterie, in which her husband had served, a seventh milestone, which was installed in the Bois le Prêtre in July 1935, a few months after Gaston Deblaize's death and where this regiment had spent two years during the war. It was vandalised in 1974 and a new marker was installed in 1976.
A replica of the one at Guernic Reef, which is difficult to access, was created at Fozo in the commune of Saint-Pierre-Quiberon in 1997.
Every year on 11 November, a small patch of wheat is planted in front of the Meures marker, and tradition dictates that it should be harvested on the 2nd Sunday in July of the following year, and that the sprays collected should be sent to and laid in front of the five other Terre Sacrée markers (sister sites).
La borne sacrée de Meures
