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The Devil of Bessans

Opening period

Open every day.

Pets allowed: Oui

Rates

Free access.

At Bessans, sculpture is a tradition that is more than four centuries old. Rouets and cattails, salt hens, wooden toys, statues, crosses ... abound. The most famous of the sculptures is the devil, the emblem of Bessans, whose origin dates from 1857.

In 1857, there was a conflict between the parish priest and a cantor, Étienne Vincendet. The latter, who must have had a rebellious and facetious spirit, sculpted a devil carrying a priest in his arms and placed the object under the window of the religious. The priest brings the work back to the window of its creator. He starts again, and the merry-go-round continues until the sculptor, weary, abandons the game. The figurine remains on a corner of the window where a tourist notices it and buys it. An unusual business had just been born.