Article 1° : By Jérôme ESTRADA (with the librarians of L’Est Républicain) - March 13, 2020
'L'Est Républicain' is a French regional daily founded on May 5, 1889 by Léon Goulette in Nancy. It is mainly distributed in 'Lorraine' and 'Franche-Comté' through ten local editions.
The Grégory case is not only far from over but continues to excite the public.
It strangely recalls another case, which occurred 35 years earlier, some 30 km away from the Vologne valley: the assassination on March 31, 1949, in the hamlet of Bolle, of little Jean-Claude Delaval, 6 years old. The child had been found in a river.
In the valley of the Vologne, as in 'La Bolle', one does not imagine for a moment that the two cases are connected; that the murderer of one was inspired by the other, if the comparison is not completely correct, we can only be troubled by the similarity between the assassination of Jean-Claude Delaval, 6 years old, and that of Grégory, 4 years old.
In both cases, the children were found in a river in the Vosges; in both cases the assassin did not seem to hold it against them particularly but wanted, through them, no doubt, to target their fathers; in both cases, the police arrived at the same conclusions: the culprit must be found among the relatives of the victim; in both cases a raven has raged and finally, the investigations will be marred by errors ...
Jean-Claude Delaval. "A horrible crime that the imagination can hardly imagine, caused a stir in the hamlet of Bolle, away from Saint-Dié", writes Fernand Zussy in 'L'Est Républicain' April 3/4, 1949. "A six-year-old boy, little Jean-Claude Delaval, the youngest of a family of three children, whose parents run a café-grocery store on the route de la Bolle, was brutally murdered." This case will traumatize the Vosges and, beyond, France.
This Thursday March 31, a classless day, Jean-Claude is playing with a dozen other friends in front of the family home. The national road linking Saint-Dié to Épinal runs along the grassy terrain.
At around 7:00 p.m., his mother still saw him frolicking on the meadow with some friends. Less than a quarter of an hour later, the child jumps to his father's neck when he comes home from work.
The latter, after sawing a few large logs with his eldest son, then went to the café for a drink.
However, as the sun has gone down, Mrs. Delaval, until then busy cooking, worries that she will not see him come home. It is around 8:15 pm.
She immediately goes looking for him, calls him. Finally, panicking, with her husband running, she warns the police. Commissioner Volnier arrived at the scene without delay and began to search the surrounding woods and meadows as well as the banks of the small river 'Le Taintroué'. The night does not stop the search, powerful torches being brought.
Grégory Villemin: Tuesday October 16, 1984, around 4:55 p.m., Christine Villemin, following her habits, left her job in Lépanges and picked up Grégory from his nanny. Back at the family home, the child stays outside to play in the garden on the pile of excavated gravel in front of the house. His mother does the ironing while listening to the radio.
Shortly before 5:20 p.m., she went out to ask her son to come home but received no response. Not finding him, she panics, rushes into her car and goes looking for him, thinking he may have wanted to return to his nanny or join some friends. Along the way, she questions neighbors, all of whom say they have not seen the child. The police were alerted to Grégory's disappearance around 5:50 p.m.
Jean-Claude Delaval: At 'La Bolle', around 9:30 p.m., a policeman discovered the body of the little victim in the stream.
The 'L’ Est Républicain' reporter said: “The horribly mutilated head was emerging from the water on its own. A few yards away, a puddle of blood, a compelling evidence of a crime. "
According to the first elements of the Deodatian Security, the child was killed not on the spot but a few kilometers upstream.
Grégory Villemin: the lifeless body of the little boy was found around 9:15 p.m., in Vologne, in Docelles, seven kilometers downstream from Lépanges. The body, feet and hands tied, a cord around the neck, is held by a small wall of pebbles. The child is wearing a blue anorak and a beanie covers his face. No trace of physical violence. According to Captain Etienne Sesmat, "It looked like the child had entered the water on his own, as if by play." Forensic scientists found no trace of adrenaline, a symptom of fear (the incomplete autopsy would later be added to the investigation's long list of failures).
Along the banks, the gendarmes noted the traces of tires but also of footsteps, those of woman’s shoes. Coincidence: a couple would have just been seen in a green car, which was turning near the Villemin pavilion when little Grégory was kidnapped.
On October 25, 1984, the Bruyères gendarmes will carry out a first reconstruction of the crime with the help of a mannequin. After carrying out several tests, they conclude that the child would not have been thrown between Deycimont and Docelles, but probably from the center of the village of Docelles, behind the fire station, near where the body was been discovered. We don't know precisely where he was killed.
Jean-Claude Delaval. Georges Dirand explains it in 'L'Est Républicain': “Jean-Claude was, in his family, the '' ravisote '', a charming expression which designates the child of parents who have ''changed their minds '' ... 13 years younger than the other son and 16 years younger than his older sister. He was, thus, the favorite and the most spoiled but no one, it seems, had taken offense within this family where the desolation now reigns after the funeral which drew, to Saint-Dié, a considerable and moved crowd ”.
Grégory Villemin: the little boy, an only child, is also particularly pampered. There too, to attack one's life is to attack one's parents in what they hold most dear, most precious. The funeral will take place in Lépanges on Saturday October 20, 1984, attracting a crowd of nearly 700 people.
Jean-Claude Delaval. The investigation was immediately entrusted to Commissioner Démorge, of the PJ of Nancy, assisted by colleagues (Commissioners Baullenet, Comtesse and Pugnières) and about ten inspectors. All the houses in La Bolle are searched, the children who have played with Jean-Claude questioned, the timetables of each inhabitant examined. In total, 450 people are auditioned.
A couple of neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Patenotte, whose first hearing had presented errors and gray areas, are questioned on several occasions in Saint-Dié and Nancy. They are finally exonerated even if the lady admits to being the raven at the origin of the anonymous letters sent a few days before the crime, one to the mother of the little boy, accusing her husband of having a mistress, a second to the husband of the so-called mistress, also warning him that he was a cuckold. She wanted to "put certain families in front of reality," she explained.
Marie-Louise Patenotte will forever leave the region where too much wickedness was concentrated.
Grégory Villemin: the murder of the child will take unprecedented proportions, due to the entry on the scene of a character who will focus all the attention of judges, investigators, lawyers, journalists and experts for years: the crow. The assassin was not content to kill. He also premeditated and above all claimed responsibility for his crime in an anonymous letter. The day after Grégory's death, his unsigned letter arrives at the home of the little boy's parents. It is addressed more specifically to Jean-Marie Villemin: “I hope you will die of grief, the chef. It is not your money that can give you back your son. Here is my revenge, poor idiot ”.
The letter was posted in Lépanges-sur-Vologne, the day of the murder, before the mail was collected at 5.15 p.m. Already, on the day of the murder, around 5.30 pm, Michel, a brother of Jean-Marie Villemin, had received a phone call: “It does not answer next door… Tell them that I have taken revenge. I took the chief's son. I put it in the Vologne,” says a hoarse voice calmly.
The explanation ? Investigators quickly learn what the village already knows: as in 'La Bolle', it's the figure of the father that is targeted.
Jean-Marie is in the cold with several members of his family, some of whom work with him at the factory. The success of this young man of 26 stirs resentment. His two cars and the construction of his pretty pavilion feed jealousies. A "crow" has been harassing the couple and their parents for years, by mail or telephone. “Be careful, your house will burn down tonight…. The old man (Albert) is dead, hanged in his barn… ”. In these threats, Jean-Marie Villemin, the foreman, is referred to as “the leader”. He ended up getting on the red list, which explains why the news of the kidnapping of his son Gregory had been received by one of his brothers. But the threats persist. The shutters of the brand new pavilion take a few pellets. A "man with binoculars" is also wanted: he was reportedly seen observing the movements of the Villemin from a distance. The couple feel hunted down.
To this day no one knows the name of the raven or his face. On the other hand, his voice and his writing have become famous ... The Villemin family decided never to live in the Vologne valley where too much hatred had accumulated for years.
Jean-Claude Delaval. The Patenotte couple had been suspected after the testimony of their daughter, Josseline: “Dad was in the kitchen while I was doing my homework, then Jean-Claude was bothering me. First he played ball with my little brother, then he walked around the table: mum slapped him, dad kicked him with a whip; he went out. As he was tapping his foot after the door, daddy came out again with the whip”.
In 'La Bolle', soon everyone suspects everyone. An atmosphere of suspicion poisons the small hamlet.
Grégory Villemin: more than a month after the tragedy, Bernard Laroche, the first cousin of Jean-Marie Villemin is arrested. Confused by his handwriting, he is believed to be the "crow". This father of a 4-year-old child, Sébastien, would be one of the "envious" of Grégory's father's situation. He is also close to Jacky - Jean-Marie Villemin's half-brother - whose crow often defends. Laroche was charged with murder and imprisoned on November 5, based on the damning testimony of his sister-in-law, Murielle Bolle. The 15-year-old girl recounts, during police custody, then in front of the examining magistrate Jean-Michel Lambert a few days later, a "walk" to the Vologne with Bernard, Sébastien and Grégory :
“Bernard got out of the car with the child in his hand. He walked away. He came back alone”. The teenager will then recant, claiming to have made these remarks under duress. She will not cease, therefore, to proclaim the innocence of Bernard Laroche, who will be shot by the father of "little Grégory", Jean-Marie Villemin, in 1985. Justice will cancel in January 2020 the custody of Murielle Bolle, as well as some documents from the file, but not the statements made previously to the gendarmes nor his subsequent questioning before Judge Lambert.
Few clues in both cases
Jean-Claude Delaval: Professor Mutel of Nancy "in charge of various analyzes and
important examinations" concluded by affirming that "nothing could allow to consider that there was an act against nature, thus confirming the impression of those who had observed the perfect order of the victim's clothes when the body was discovered”. No traces of a struggle or footsteps in the grass could be found. The body having been in the water, it bears no fingerprints. The only certainty: the perpetrator used a "sharp instrument which caused wounds all over the skull, from the frontal region to the occipital region, involving the brain, of which at least four out of six were fatal". It is also noted that on the evening of the crime, “we noticed and heard a car coming back from Grandrupt, which is quite rare”.
Grégory Villemin: according to the autopsy which takes place the day after the events, Grégory's body shows no trace of apparent violence, his death "is directly and exclusively related to a vital submersion of double origin, asphyxiation and inhibitor", however there is nothing to determine whether he drowned in the Vologne or not, whether he was tied up before or after his death.
Macabre staging
Jean-Claude Delaval: strange detail during the discovery of the child's body, the little finger of the left hand was severed.
Grégory Villemin: the rescuers, when they get Grégory out of the river, are immediately struck by the macabre staging of his death: his feet, hands and head are tied with cords and his cap is pulled down over his face.
"The murderer is among us"
Jean-Claude Delaval: In the tense post-war context, against a background of prevailing racism, it is foreigners who are first suspected. “The certain analogy (and by various points extraordinary) with the crime perpetrated, a year ago, on March 17, 1948, on little Anne-Lise Schmitt, in 'Algrange', led immediately, too completely, and too long the main part of the investigation towards North Africans who, numbering 450 to 500, are working on Deodatian reconstruction”, writes Georges Dirand, the special reporter of 'L'Est Républicain' in the April 4 edition. The large police operation launched in the Saint-Roch camp, the Chérin barracks, where workers were installed, not to mention “the populous neighborhoods”, did nothing. “In Saint-Dié, we don't like North Africans and we would be happy to get rid of them in a high-profile criminal case. This is undoubtedly the reason for the insistence of the high police levels on the Nancy judicial police to push the investigation to the full. A dozen commissioners and inspectors from Nancy took care of the crime in Saint-Dié on Sunday, which is exceptional ".
Then, the investigation focuses on the inhabitants of La Bolle. All the houses were searched "with such obstinate thoroughness." "Each inhabitant has had their situation examined, their schedule verified". "In the small village "while keeping a careful silence", everyone is convinced that "the murderer is among us". The arguments put forward seem convincing: Jean-Claude would not have followed a stranger. He was thrown into the water not far from his father's house and at the deepest point of the stream, suggesting that the killer was familiar with the area. Finally, the dogs didn’t bark and the child didn’t shout… "
So what could have motivated the criminals ? Jealousy ? Grudge ? Revenge against parents ? Irrational anger ?
Grégory Villemin: uncles, aunts, nephews, cousins ... The investigators will look into the alibi of some 70 people living around, with more or less distant family ties: and "everyone is suspect. I say: everyone," said prosecutor Jean-Jacques Lecomte, of the Epinal prosecutor's office at the time. The whole family is subjected to the test of dictation and justice expects a lot from graphological analyzes. For his part, Jean-Marie Villemin initially suspects Jacky, a half-brother with whom relations are strained. He even goes home with a rifle after Gregory's death, ready to do justice himself… before turning back.
But Jacky has a solid alibi: at the time of the crime, he was repairing a roof at a neighbor's. A good dozen supporting witnesses. Investigators go from house to house, collecting gossip but struggling to unearth the well-buried secrets.
Sloppy investigations
Jean-Claude Delaval: "We took the start in bad conditions," laments Commissioner Demorge, who explains that when he arrived, "it was a little washed and changed body that was presented to him". No further analysis was possible. In addition, the police dog (this track and attack dog called Peter had belonged to the Feldgendarmerie of Saint-Dié before being recovered by Mr. Pzerbalsky) was not taken there until 36 hours after the discovery of the child, "that is to say that hundreds of people had circulated in the meadow and that the frost had practically annihilated all tracks".
Finally, the suspicious objects were only examined by the laboratory late, due to the Easter holidays! "No clues then. No murder weapon. No well-defined crime scene. No absolute crime hour. No witnesses. No suspects. Or, then too many suspects. And above all, no motive for the crime", the enigma is total.
Grégory Villemin: as we know, justice, police and gendarmerie have drowned in the Vologne. Judge Lambert committed procedural errors and varied in his convictions, the experts (more than a dozen), who were to make the letters of the raven speak, mainly served to muddy the waters: after accusing Bernard Laroche, they then overwhelmed Christine Villemin; finally, the investigators made technical errors, not to mention the rivalries. The gendarmes are relieved of the case, the Nancy police take over….
In 'La Bolle', public opinion is starting to get excited about this unusual news item. Journalists come from Paris and invade the hamlet. Everyone goes their own way ...
35 years later, the assassination of Grégory will become a real soap opera for the French people. The omnipresent emotion will be instrumentalized. Public opinion is racing, the ominous crow is on everyone's mind. Who is he ? Who is the murderer ? Nobody knows it but everyone has their idea. Starting with the journalists who will commit themselves, outside any ethical rule, always eager for scoops on the path to the worst.
Are the perpetrators of these two heinous crimes dead or alive ? Do they still live in the Vosges or have they moved ? Are the explanations to be found in family secrets, jealousy or worse hatred ? Both La Bolle and The Vologne fiercely keep their mystery. And the two innocent little victims remain the only beings to share the heavy and tragic secret of their assassins.
Article 2° : By Jérôme ESTRADA (with the documentation service of L'Est Républicain) - March 14, 2020
70 years later, the murder of a child in 'La Bolle' continues to haunt the Vosges
Along the departmental road which winds through the middle of the village, no more children play. The forge is no longer running. The stables were destroyed. New houses have been built. But if time has profoundly transformed the old rural village, if the café-grocery store of the parents of little Jean-Claude Delaval, murdered in 1949, has closed for ages, the house is still there. And behind still flows the Taintroué, the cursed river. The oldest inhabitants do not forget him.
A simple sketch drawn freehand by Georges Dirand "the special reporter" of 'L'Est Républicain', and a small yellowed and aged photo published in a newspaper of April 1949. It is not easy today to find the old Delaval house in 'La Bolle'. It is true that in a little over seven decades, after the assassination of their son, the hamlet, southwest of 'Saint-Dié', between 'Les Tiges' and 'Les Moîtresses', has lost its rural character.
While Jean-Claude and the other kids could easily cross the road to Épinal, along which the village was built, the exercise has become perilous today, both the old national road 420, (since 2006, departmental 420) is at certain times very busy by trucks and cars. Many pavilions have also been built since. Companies have set up shop. Only a few rare old stone houses allow us to imagine the appearance that the place must have had after the Second World War.
Fortunately, the inhabitants are affable and benevolent. Far from the clichés still conveyed by the Parisian press ! If asked, they readily respond, trying to help. And if many do not know anything about this old criminal case, too young for that, there are still a few octogenarians who remember: “The Café ? It hasn't been around for a long time. This is the yellow house, there, a little further ". At number 123 exactly.
The facade has been restored, the windows and shutters are in PVC, the signs have disappeared, and the stables and other outbuildings have been destroyed. But the appearance of this long building has not changed. Antonio Maxiano, 88, explains that he has lived there for 19-20 years. "It was my son who bought it to make housing. There was the grocery store-café," he said, pointing to the left side, "and there, in continuation, their home."
Under the flickering flame of lanterns
The river where little Jean-Claude was found is behind, below, less than a hundred meters. To reach it, you have to follow a narrow path, crossing the meadows soaked in water. 'The Taintroué', swollen from recent rains, rolls under a forest. On the other side, you can see old forgotten pedal boats and meadows. The wooden walkway no longer exists, however, according to the press descriptions of the time, it is understandable that it was in this double bend tangled in trees that the body of the victim was stranded. It's hard not to be overwhelmed by intense emotion: 71 years ago, under the flickering flame of lanterns, a gendarme saw the little corpse half-submerged in water. It is also difficult not to think of little Grégory discovered in another river, the Vologne, some 30 kilometers away. There is no doubt that those who discovered them, who tore them from the cold bed of the river, then carried them in their arms must have been as much overcome by deep distress as by a multitude of questions. In either case, the crime is beyond doubt. This parallel, all the old inhabitants of 'La Bolle' do, more or less unconsciously. A lady, whose house is close to that of the Delavals, confuses the two affairs before getting back together; another neighbor evokes the similarities as numerous as they are disturbing. A few others assert, in a heard murmur, that someone close to Grégory would have frequented the café in 'La Bolle'. “By bike, it doesn't take long…”.
Mrs. and Mr. Ancel, respectively, 82 and 86 years old, do not make the connection between the two dramas. They lived in 'La Bolle'. It was they who took over the Delaval business in the 1960s. “Before us, there were two other people. We bought the coffee first, then their daughters and boys the accommodation part." Ms. Ancel remembers the case vividly: "I was also questioned by the PJ of Nancy," she confides before listing all the hypotheses that ran at the time. “We suspected everyone, starting with immigrants. Yet they are nice immigrants”.
All suspects including children
In this case, rare, in fact, are those who have escaped at one time or another suspicion,
doubts ... even accusations, delivered without any hesitation to popular vindictiveness. In total, around 450 people were interviewed.
After the immigrants, it was the turn of all suspects in 'Saint-Dié' and the surrounding area to be checked. The journalist from 'L’Est Républicain' lists the long list: "Rejected from justice, ‘tricards' unbalanced, individuals of dubious morality or morals". 'La Liberté de L'Est', after having relayed "the idea of the work of a sadist", evokes "the thesis of the atrocious revenge of a madman", the police being on the trail of a "minus habens” age 14.
An inspector believes he has discovered the culprit when "the Mimile from the station, a sort of village idiot" confessed to having made a delivery to La Bolle. It had, in fact, confused with the street 'rue De La Bolle' in Saint-Dié.
Another time, another customs, all toddlers are also questioned, by Commissioner Demorge himself, assisted by several investigators. The investigators then consider the hypothesis of a crayfish or frog fishing that would have gone wrong… “In the decor of desks and blackboard which is familiar to them, they tried to refresh their young memory, helped by all the childish psychology of a paternal investigator, knowing the question perfectly since he was a schoolteacher for five years”, we can read in 'L'Est Républicain'. Sweets for them have been planned! At the same time, the other schoolchildren were reunited in mixed lessons, their teacher and mistress, Mr. and Mrs. Clément, being instructed "to make a lot of noise" in order to prevent them "from hearing what was happening in the next room." The children will be questioned several times, in vain ...
Among the “ephemeral” suspects, we also find a girl dressed as a boy, a cyclist seen on the evening of the crime, “a phantom wanderer” and a multitude of other “prowlers”, the search radius having been extended to 'Remiremont' and 'Épinal'.
They even call a dowser for help. His trail leads investigators ... directly to the police station "where the murderer allegedly went." Here we are in the kingdom of Ubu ! Then it’s the deminers’s turn to step in. The idea is that with their equipment, they could find the weapon. "If the killer is looking at us, he must be laughing," laments a policeman.
We come to think that the criminal is among the relatives of the Delaval. The field of investigations is narrowing. The neighbors become the first suspects. Ms. Ancel, whose memory is as vivid as it is precise, quotes, one by one, all those who have been suspected, an impressive list !
The "crow" had a lover
One morning, a house was surrounded before being searched. This is a family of fish
farmers, "a little bribeurs" (poachers) and one of whose sons is "a kind of brute and heavy drinker," the local press said. "We found blood in his house ... but it was actually from the game he had killed," Ms. Ancel laughs.
Another day, it is the Patenotte family who find themselves in the crosshairs of the police. A track considered very serious. The couple are suspected after the testimony of their daughter, Josseline. As the husband is quickly cleared of the issue, the noose tightens around his wife, Marie-Louise. Nancy PJ investigators have 48 hours to crack her. Her answers, either approximate, or incoherent, even contradictory, are intriguing. She ends up confessing to being the raven at the origin of the anonymous letters sent a few days before the crime, one to the mother of the little boy, accusing her husband of having a mistress, a second to the husband. warning him also that he was cuckold. She wanted to "put certain families in front of reality," she explained.
A reason to say the least surprising for this wife who will not hesitate to denounce her own lover. When questioned, she said, "Well, I'll tell you everything. The murderer is a lover of mine, a man named Albert (...). He went out at 8:10 pm behind little Jean-Claude and came back a little while later threatening us with death, my husband, my children and me if we spoke”. The man in question, a laborer from 'Maine-et-Loire' who worked on the reconstruction site, street 'rue Jacques-Delille' in 'Saint-Dié', was quickly found ... and immediately released: on the fateful evening, the man nicknamed "the tattooed man" was eating in his employer's canteen in 'Montigny-lès-Metz' ! "This is clearly an attempt by the Patenotte woman pushed to her limits and who wants to save time", writes a journalist from 'L'Est Républicain' while 'La liberté de l'Est' leans rather towards "a sickly need to telling stories and telling lies”. Be that as it may, "Commissioner Demorge's inspectors were only able to note his ease of changing lover, sometimes one, sometimes the other, but this is not sufficient to lead to court.”. Also to discharge, the blood found on a scale leaning against the barn door is not "this time goat blood, but cat blood" !
Marie-Louise Patenotte will be totally whitened after passing the truth serum test! She had asked it herself. “The injection (Editor's note: penthotal) was given to her by her attending physician who then asked her client very specific questions concerning her possible participation in the drama. But neither of these questions worked."
"The murderer is local"
During this time, the people of the village live at the windows or on the doorsteps. The air is sad, suspicious. Each curtain seems to hide a potential culprit; the wildest rumors spread, to the point that it is feared that Mr. Delaval, more and more tormented, do his own justice, like Jean-Marie Villemin later. For everyone, one thing is for sure: the killer is local.
On Saturday April 4, a huge crowd attended the funeral in Saint-Martin church. The children of 'La Bolle', all carrying white wreaths, frame the hearse, with their mistresses led by Mr. Clément. Jean Mansuy, the mayor is there. “We saw rude people wiping away tears there, both in the church and in the Foucharupt cemetery, when the coffin was discovered. So true is it that in times of misfortune good people always know how to show their sympathy ”.
The child was buried in the mass grave. He will be exhumed on June 8, 1963, to be placed in the 2039 tomb, the very one where his father Pierre Delaval, 67, and in November 1970, his mother, Mélanie Meleder Delaval, joined him in December 1967. 68 years old. “She died a day before General de Gaulle,” recalls Ms. Ancel. For her, the murderer will never be found "as for Grégory". But as for Grégory, some know: "the rumor says that the murderer went to confession with the priest of the chapel of Bihay, but he took his secret to the tomb".
Today no child plays hoop or ball in front of the houses of 'La Bolle'. The memory of Jean-Claude is forgotten by all or almost. He would be 77 years old. But if the Café has been closed for ages, the house is still there, as in the center of a gloomy picture. And, very close still flows this other cursed river, 'Le Taintroué'.
Namesake
The name of the hamlet 'La Bolle' obviously recalls that of the family of sisters Murielle and Marie-Ange Bolle (wife of Bernard Laroche), but their etymology seems different.
'La Bolle'. The name 'La Bolle' would be etymologically a fatal milestone for the sick of the forestry community to cross. There was, in fact, in the Middle Ages, in the 'Massif de la Madeleine', a leper colony.
Bolle. This last name can have several origins. The first is the variation of bol, a personal name of Germanic origin which means friend, brother. It can also represent a form of old french "bole", that is to say a deception, a ruse, and in this case designates a deceitful man. This name is found in the north and east of France. In Switzerland and in the 'Doubs', bolle is most often a variant of Bolla which comes from the Latin bulla, boule and bulle, bola; wasteland.
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