Because one have discovered the body of Saint Claude, died 500 years ago, in a perfect state of conservation, the town of Saint-Claude became a pilgrimage place. So the wood turners started to make rosaries. Later, they turned other objects, like pipe mouthpieces.

They finally decided to make the complete pipe, but the only fire resistant wood was box that grows naturally around Saint-Claude. This wood gives quite a bad taste to the smoke, so it is only in about 1850, when the French pipe makers discovered the briar root, coming from the Côte d’Azur, that wood pipes replaced clay pipes in the pipe smokers’ heart and mouth.