The history begins in the year 1066 in the Champagne called "pouilleuse" (seedy), probably because of the great poverty that reigned in these times there.
Vadenay is a village of the Marne. Its Latin name is "Vaudenensis". It's composed of the Germanic name "Valdin" and the latin suffix "acum". Literally that means "the place owned by Valdin". In these years there, France and a great part of Europe was occupied by Romans. Roman soldiers carried uniforms made of leather and metal with a type of helmet also called "helmet" in latin language. One of these helmets "helmet" carried the name of "Vadenay", name given according to a place (Vadenay, canton of Suippes). The last letters ay of the name Vadenay should be pronouced ais (like in bed, removing the b and the d), because it comes from the latin termination ensis. Now that we know the origin of the surname Vadenay / Vadnais, we could move forward.
It's in Asnieres, now Asnieres-sur-Seine (see map), that we find the first traces of our ancestors. We know that people had no family name in these years there, they had a first name and the community gave their a surname according to what they were doing or the place they were from. Therefore, our distant ancestors were called "Vadenay". Return a bit backwards, the commune of Vadenay is located in Champagne near Châlon-sur-Marne. It's there that on September 20 - others will say June 20 - of the year 451 in the so called plain of the "champs cataloniques" took place one of the bloodiest battles of this period. Mongols (Huns) coming from central Asia surged on France, looting and destroying everything on their passage, slaughtering all peasants that they met. Very numerous Mongols, between 30,000 and 70,000 barbarians arrived near Châlon, others will say near Troye, where the roman army was waiting after them, with at its head the general Flavius Aetius. I leave you to read a small translated abstract from the book Les Invasions barbares :
| Choosing to crush the center of the ennemy, Attila throws his screaming cavalry against the Alains that form the weak point of the adverse line. But the former, well backed by the heavy Gallo-Roman infantry, hold the ground. Aetius, leaned to the "haricot" [bean] hill of Vadenay, stay steadfast and repels the Mongols cavalier to the hill of Piémont in the coomb Of Ahan-des-Diables (ancient name that means "the torment of demons"). On the other hand, Attila can not seize the hill of Fenoy, where Wisigoths have preceded him. Centaurs, soldered to their horses, Mongols throw arrows and brandish stone axes; Roman swords rip hearts and bellies. |
I spare you from the rest of this bloody history. Attila was the King of the Huns and the most sanguinary of all barbarians that have ravaged the roman empire.
Many years later, before the Revolution, Ange Joseph Rémy, baron of Lions, viscount of Vadenay, baron of Neuflize, was lord of Vadenay. He had acquired this land in 1773 by his marriage with Marie Françoise Éléonore Godet de Neuflize, daughter of the last Lord of Vadenay. The abbey of Avenay was also lord of Vadenay. The village will undergo three wars and invasions: 1870, 1914, 1940.
On September 23, 1792, day chosen to plant a tree of Liberty, a horde of
bandits, accompanied by several scoundrels, all disguised under the outfit of Hulans (light cavalry in eastern europe), came to despoil, the knife under the throat, the poor resident of the commune. This is only on October 28, 1792 that the ceremony could finally take place. Around 1886, Vadenay will be amputated of 1100 hectares for the creation of a military camp. It's at this period that the church was erected.
Some times later, the French Emperor Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (1852-1870), Napoléon III nephew of Napoléon the Great, came in the vicinity of the commune of Vadenay, more precisely near Châlon-sur-Marne, to settle down a military camp to entail his soldiers. The inauguration has taken place in 1857. To thank inhabitants of the village for their tolerance towards soldiers, who during their leaves came to the village to do party, and to compensate for the land that have been expropriated, the Emperor Napoléon gived them help for the construction of a stone church. During the years that the camp has remained here, given the poverty of peasants and need for the army to obtain more horses, Napoléon ordered the construction of eight "imperial" farms. The first, he named it the "Imperial Vadenay" farm. The second, the "Imperial of Piedmont" farm. The former still exists today but its vocation has changed to become a breeding farm for the army that raise there German shepherd dogs.
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