Roc Troué

4 points of interest

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  Architecture

  Le Flaquier

  (Private property) You enter the ruins via a staircase chiselled into the rock. All the buildings - sheepfold, bread oven, clède (building for drying chestnuts) – are built on the bare rock. Long ago, a spring above them was tapped and fixed for the hamlet's needs. The large water retention basin carved into the rock has since dried out. (B. Mathieu)

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  Flora

  Maquis

  This is a scrubland of tree heaths, evergreen (mock) privets, sage-leaved rock roses and strawberry trees, between which frolic two-tailed pashas. This butterfly can be identified by its tan and brown colour, its underside which is ocellated black and white, and by the two tails it has at the bottom of its wings. It can only be found where there are strawberry trees, and for a good reason: they are the only plants that host its eggs, nourish its larvae and provide twigs for its chrysalis to hang from. The pasha likes to feed on ripe fruit as well as fermented and even alcoholic matter! It is also known as the foxy emperor. (B. Mathieu)

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  History

  Roc Troué

  The repeated passage of flocks of sheep over the millennia – first wild, then domesticated – has dragged a path to this summit. Under the impetus of the monks of Cendras, humans enlarged the path by hand to make it easier to use by convoys of saddled mules and by sheep. In 1689, the King's Intendant in Languedoc, Monsieur de Basville, implemented a royal order to organise the road network in the Cevennes in such a way that canons could be pulled along it and enable troops to hunt down Protestant rebels more easily. […] The dry-stone retaining walls and especially the giant breach cut into the rock that gives it its name – Roc Troué or Notched Rock – showcase the colossal efforts of our ancestors. The track is now in such a bad state that it is hard to imagine it was ever suitable for carts! (B. Mathieu)

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  Archaeology

  The Roc Troué dolmen

  Complexes of dolmens were built 4,000 years ago; the ones that collapsed were re-used up to the 6th century BC to deposit the ashes of the deceased and a few last offerings [dolmens furent bâtis il y a 4 000 ans puis effondrés et re-employés DONC, on les a effondres expres avant de les re-utiliser? Un peu bizarre comme formulation/idee ? Revoir la V.O.)]. Some seem to have been more elaborate, such as this one: a round base supports a dolmen built like a small house with a rock table for a “roof”. In fact, it is not certain that, in the Cevennes, prehistoric tombs were covered in this way. Archaeological excavations have uncovered pottery shards, bronze bracelets, hewn flints, a few cremation deposits or, in some cases, nothing at all! (B. Mathieu)