IL ÉTAIT UNE FOIS LA PLUS BELLE VALLÉE DU MONDE - Hautes Alpes

The Clarée Valley, located in the Hautes-Alpes department, is near Montgenèvre and Briançon. It borders the French-Italian border. It is a protected natural site, offering exceptional landscapes, unspoiled nature, and a rich heritage. The Clarée River flows through it. Between 1,400 and 2,000 meters, the valley, which is heavily snow-covered in winter, is a patchwork of alpine pastures and larch forests. Émilie Carles, born Émilie Allais on May 29, 1900, in Val-des-Prés, near Briançon (Hautes-Alpes), and died on July 29, 1979 (at the age of 79), in Val-des-Prés, was a French schoolteacher and writer. She is the author of the autobiographical novel "A Soup of Wild Herbs" (1977, translated into several languages), and later of the posthumous book "My Ribbons of Saint-Claude" (1982). Her life was a succession of joys, sorrows, work, and efforts to help her family, protect her environment, and lead a life in accordance with her libertarian and pacifist ideals. Émilie Carles was born into a family of small farmers in a mountain village. She had five siblings. Working the farm required a great deal of labor for a meager yield. Her mother died at the age of thirty-six, struck by lightning while working in a field during the summer of 1904. Émilie was just four years old.