Down with Devils

The tiny village of Bessans, high in the French Alps, is famed for a peculiar manufacture: devils. Last week Bessans' devil industry was dying out. That meant the end of an ancient tradition.

One story has it that the people of Bessans began whittling devils in the 14th Century to commemorate a home-town boy named Duvallon, who sold his soul to Satan on a Christmas night. For 50 years thereafter, Duvallon was able to tote huge pine trees about on his shoulders and to float up & down the River Arc in a magic, unsinkable jacket. Satan at last came to collect, of course, suffused with devilish glee. Duvallon slipped his wife's wedding ring on his own finger for protection, jumped on his horse and galloped off to Rome. The Pope prescribed three Masses to foil Duvallon's pursuer--one in St. Peter's, one in Notre Dame, and one in Bessans' village church. With Satan hot on his heels, Duvallon hastened from Rome to Paris and home again, won the race handily and lived happily ever after. A second version goes back only to the 18th Century, when Bessans' parish priest quarreled with the village woodcarver and forbade him to enter the church. For revenge, the carver whittled a devil carrying the priest in its arms. A passing tourist snapped up the statuette. "There's money in the devil!" cried the happy woodcarver, and set about teaching his sons and grandsons to "make Satan surge out of a pine branch."

The feud between priest and whittler continues, but it has become flat, stale and unprofitable. Today Bessans' No. 1 whittler is Emile Tracq, 46, who has sold travelers some 500 devils and statuettes modeled on his wife. He prefers the devils because "I can carve one in 50 hours. It takes much longer to do the Virgin or a saint." According to the village priest, Tracq's works "lack soul."

The criticism hurts Tracq, and sales have been slipping badly anyway. Instead of retaliating by whittling the priest in Satan's arms, Tracq recently laid down his jackknife, took up the pen. Having the best handwriting in town, he landed the honorable post of secretary to the mayor. No one says the mayor's letters lack soul. Meanwhile the priest is organizing whittling classes for the village's few young boys. They will not be taught to carve devils.

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