Charny-le-Bachot

Charny-le-Bachot is a village of 239 inhabitants (as of 2023) in the Aube département. It is neither a grand cru nor a premier cru village. Even so, anyone who wants to understand Champagne in full will find here a typical piece of the landscape that surrounds the vine slopes.

Location and landscape

The village lies about 28 kilometres north-north-west of Troyes, where the Barbuise flows into the Aube, on a bend of the river. It belongs to the Champagne sèche, the "dry Champagne", also known as Champagne crayeuse (chalk Champagne). Apart from remnants of riverside woodland, there are hardly any forests here, but wide, open fields instead. Neighbouring communes include Plancy-l'Abbaye, Méry-sur-Seine and Longueville-sur-Aube.

The figures on land use are clear: around 91 per cent of the area is agricultural, with arable land alone accounting for 87 per cent. The climate is temperate. The nearest weather station, in Romilly-sur-Seine, records a mean of 11.2 °C and just over 619 millimetres of rainfall a year for 1991 to 2020.

Charny-le-Bachot and champagne

The sources consulted name no vineyard plots or growers for the village. It therefore stands for the Champagne of the fields, not of the vineyards. The best-known sites of the Aube département lie further south, but the chalk soils of this region are also part of the overall picture of Champagne. For wine lovers, the village makes a quiet stop on a drive between Troyes and the Seine.

“Charny-le-Bachot is a village of 239 inhabitants (as of 2023) in the Aube département.

History

Charny-le-Bachot is an old village. A former Roman road, the Chemin de Troyes towards Plancy, runs through the commune. The Danton family has lived here for centuries. Among their descendants is the revolutionary Georges Jacques Danton, who was born in nearby Arcis-sur-Aube. According to Courtalon, Pierre de Charny, chamberlain to Pope Urban IV and Archbishop of Sens (1267 to 1274), is also said to have come from the village.

Chanoine Frères Champagne

The village lived through a dark day on 13 June 1940. German dive bombers attacked a barn at the Pont du Bachot in which many refugees had sought shelter. More than 40 civilians and 6 soldiers were killed. The next day the village was bombed again, and several farmsteads were destroyed.

Sights

The most important building is the parish church of Saint-Étienne, dating from the 16th century. In 1674 the bell tower collapsed and brought the nave down with it; both were rebuilt in the 17th century. The church has the following features:

• a Latin cross floor plan
• a single-aisle nave
• a double transept
• a five-sided apse
• a bell tower above the crossing

The inhabitants are known as Charnéens and Charnéennes.