Saint-Gérand-le-Puy

Saint-Gérard-le-Puy (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ ʒeʁɑ̃ lə pɥi]; Occitan: Sant Geran del Puèi) is a commune in the Allier department in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in central France.

Much of the local rock is limestone common in the Auvergne, known as indusial, because of the cases, or indusiae, of the larvæ of Phryganea (resembling caddis-flies), which have been encrusted, as they lay, by hard travertine (a white or light-coloured concretionary limestone, usually hard and semi-crystalline, deposited from water holding lime in solution).

It was a fortified village in the Middle Ages, deriving strategic importance from its location on the route from Moulins to Lyon.

It belonged to the seigneurie of Montluçon at the beginning of the 13th century but when the le Bourbonnais (part of the Massif Central essentially co-terminous with the modern Allier) became a Duchy in 1327 it passed into of the hands of the Bourbons.

Personal problems, and the imminent German occupation, persuaded them to move to their final port of call, neutral Switzerland, where they arrived on 14 December 1940.