Barre-des-Cévennes
A rural commune in the LOZERE Department
Languedoc-Roussillon Region in Southern France
GPS 44,24°North-3,65° Est, Alt 923m
| The inhabitant Parc National des Cévennes was created in 1970. These inhabitants are engaged in farming (practicing of the pastoralism in uplands: cattle, sheep, summer transhumance) forestry, arts and craft, and tourism. Barre des Cévennes Around 190 year-round inhabitants. In summer, thanks to Village Vacances site (30 self-catering units: 120 sleeping), a 4 hectare camp site and many country or second homes: there are 1000-1200 people in summer (particularly in July-August) |
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Marseille
Montpellier
The Barre-des-Cévennes Village : In the background : the rocky bar
The Cévennes’s Bar: this name comes from a rocky bar overlooking the village built in its foothills.
Rocky Bar
Chapel’s vestige
Our house South side
On the top of this bar, some rocky blocks show you that a chapel and a warning wooden tower were erected in 11th century by a lord
Vestiges of the chapel and the wooden tower
Part of the rocky bar altitude 1100m
Background Vestiges of the chapel and the tower
The department route D983 accrosses though the village, over 600m.
Here is La Grande Rue Street. It is so narrow that truck and car drivers have to drive carefully
Rue du Théron Street
This ”Barre’s Street” is on a steep incline
At the EAST side, a Roman Gothic Catholic Church and its ancient Catholic graveyard .In the 17th-18th centuries, the Protestants were not allowed to be buried in the village’s cemetery. 
Now we can see many vestiges or ruins of graveyards in the private properties.
My neighbor has two big tombstones in his vegetable garden. His uses them as steps to access his garden (??!!)
At the WEST side, a Reform Protestant Temple erected in 1825
It is said that at the end of a meeting held in the chapel, located at the top of the bar, some Protestant leaders decided on the assassination of the Abbé of Chaila, and to revolt again the Catholic Roi Louis XIV, launching the Camisard War.
I have been told that the first mixted marriage (Catholic-Protestant) in FLORAC town was conducted in 1968
Les Camisard’s War (1702-1710)
Extract from Britanica.com
Camisard, one of the Protestant militants of the Bas-Languedoc and Cévennes regions of southern France who, in the early 18th century, organized an armed insurrection in opposition to Louis XIV’s persecution of Protestantism. Camisards were so called probably because of the white shirts (Languedocian camisa, French chemise) that they wore to recognize one another during night fighting.
Having ended religious toleration by revoking the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Louis sought to impose Roman Catholicism on all his subjects. Thousands of Protestants emigrated; those who remained were subjected to severe repression.
Extract from Wikipedia
Camisards were Huguenots (French Protestants) of the rugged and isolated Cévennes of South-Central France who raised an insurrection against the persecutions which followed the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685. The revolt by the Camisards broke out in 1702, with the worst of the fighting through 1704, then scattered fighting until 1710 and a final peace by 1715.
The name camisard in the Occitan language is variously attributed to a type of linen smock or shirt known as a camisa that peasants wear in lieu of any sort of uniform; camisada, in the sense of "night attack", is derived from a feature of their tactics.
Eventually the name Black Camisard came to refer to Protestants, while White Camisards (also known as "Cadets of the Cross") were Catholics organized to check the blacks. Both groups were known for committing atrocities.
The revolt of the Protestants followed about twenty years of persecutions. Protestant peasants of the region, led by a number of teachers known as "prophets", rebelled against the officially sanctioned dragonnades (conversions enforced by dragoons, labeled "missionaries in boots") that followed the Edict of Fontainebleau, in which soldiers were billeted in the homes of Protestants to make them convert or emigrate. Clandestine prophets and their armed followers were hidden in houses and caves in the mountains; Protestants were arrested, deported to America or turned into galley slaves; entire villages were massacred and burnt to the ground in a series of stunning atrocities. Several leading prophets were tortured and executed and many more were exiled, leaving the abandoned congregations to the leadership of less educated and more mystically-oriented preachers known as "prophets", such as the wool-comber Abraham Mazet
"Dragoons" missionaries in boots.
Open hostilities began on 24 July 1702, with the assassination at Le Pont-de-Monvert ( around 20km from Barre-des-Cévennes) of a local embodiment of royal oppression, François Langlade, the Abbé of Chaila, who had recently arrested and tortured a group of Protestants accused of attempting to flee France. The abbé was quickly lionized in print as a martyr of his faith. Led by the young Jean Cavalier and Roland Laporte, the Camisards met the ravages of the royal army with irregular warfare methods and withstood superior forces in several pitched battles.
Other Protestants, like those of Fraissinet–de-Lozère, under the influence of village elites, chose a loyalist attitude and fought the Camisards. They were nevertheless equally victims of the destruction of their houses during the "Great Burning of the Cévennes" ordered in late 1703.
White Camisards, also known as "Cadets of the Cross" ("Cadets de la Croix", from a small white cross which they wore on their coats), were Catholics from neighboring communities such as St. Florent, Senechas and Rousson who, on seeing their old enemies on the run, organized into companies to hunt the rebels down. They committed atrocities, such as killing 52 people at the village of Brenoux, including pregnant women and children.
Other opponents of the Protestants included six hundred miguelet marksmen from Roussillon hired as mercenaries by the King.
In 1704, Claude Louis Hector de Villars, the royal commander, offered Cavalier vague concessions to the Protestants and the promise of a command in the royal army. Cavalier's acceptance of the offer broke the revolt, although others, including Laporte, refused to submit unless the Edict of Nantes was restored. Scattered fighting went on until 1710, but the true end of the uprising was the arrival in the Cévennes of the Protestant minister Antoine Court and the reestablishment of a small Protestant community that was largely left in peace, especially after the death of Louis XIV in 1715.
Cavalier later went over to the British, who made him Governor of the island of Jersey.
See also www.museeprotestant.org
The feature of Barre-des Cévennes : the Library
The Village’s Library name is Le Banc de l’Orient (the EAST Bench). It is run by the Barre Parallèle Association. It is located in the house situated at the EAST Gate.
The public library and the old CITROEN 2CV belonging to one of The Barre Parallèle Association’s responsible
The owner, Ericka V.M., is a Belgian citizen, 84 year-old. She is European MP since 1982. She bought in 1985 this building AU GRAND ORIENT (built in 1895) in the memory of her father. Her father was a Jewish Resistance Fighter during the WW Two) who was hidden in the basement of this building during 10 months in 1941. Then he could flee and join the Spanish Resistance.
In August 2012 Ericka showed me the trap-door leading to the secret cellar
Ericka has put the first floor at the Barre Parallèle Association’s disposal since 2000.
The principles of the lending and self-managed public library:
*Opening hours: 7/7, 24h/24h. In fact, the door is never locked.
*Self service library: no librarian. You take the books you want to read, you then put your name, date, title in the registered book which is here at your disposal. For returning your book, you try to put it in its right place on the shelves where you have found it before and you notice in the registered book the return-date
Registered book for users
It happened that we: Betty and I, borrowed some novels in August 2011 and we then returned them on July 2012
*Subscription: Users and readers of this public library: Barrois (= Barre’s Residents) and seasonal vacationists, holidaymakers pay one euro a year. You simply leave your subscription’s charge in the tin box. Otherwise, you can offer more money as donations to Barre Parallèle Association.
All the books of Le Banc de l’Orient Library (around 1300 books , some in English, some in German) has been donated by Barrois, visitors, seasonal holidaymakers..etc.
*Sometimes, when Barre Parallèle gets many copies of the same book or novel, you may buy them for one euro per copy then you put the coins in the tin box
Books for sale and the tin box
*These premises are used also as a meeting room, conference room, or an Art Gallery
An ancient postal card exhibition of Barre des Cévennes in the 1920s-1935s
