Hautefaye
commune in Dordogne, France
Hautefaye (French pronunciation: [otfaj]; Occitan: Autafaia) is a commune in the Dordogne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in south-western France. It gained particular notoriety for a mob attack and murder of an innocent man, Alain de Moneys, at the time of the Franco-Prussian War, in mid-August 1870.
History
Killing of Alain de Monéys
On 16 August 1870, France was losing the war against Prussia. Within three weeks, Emperor Napoleon III would be captured by the enemy and his regime overthrown by a self-proclaimed Government for National Defence.
Rural France, which had largely been faithful to Napoleon I and welcomed his nephew, was tense. Many rural residents were illiterate and depended upon news of the war from educated, often noble residents, which they resented.
During a fair at Hautefaye, matters turned ugly when an aristocratic cousin of a young nobleman named Alain de Monéys reported the war was not going well. Many villagers had been drinking and received the news poorly. They attacked the cousin, the Vicomte Camille Maillard Lafaye, son of the mayor of the nearby town of Beaussac. Frightened, the viscount and his party fled.
The public source identifies “Hautefaye” as commune in Dordogne, France. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hautefaye, commune and Dordogne.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q471224. VIAF identifies the subject as 129038591. The Library of Congress control number is n83011331. Authority coordinates are 45.537, 0.493. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1870.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hautefaye” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.