The ramparts of Dieusse

3 points of interest

• Agriculture

  The terraces of Saint-Brès

  The terraces used to be planted with grapevines, but the vines did not survive an invasion in 1880 by the phylloxera bug, which had arrived in France at the same time as new American grape varieties. The only way to rebuild the vineyards was to graft local varieties onto American ones, which were the only resistant ones. That is how the Clinton, Jaquez and Isabelle varieties appeared, which were all three originally from the US. Vinification of these was later forbidden by law in favour of varieties with a lower ethyl and especially methyl alcohol content. Many farmers were so discouraged that they abandoned grapevines altogether.

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  History

  The King’s Roads

  King’s Roads have a prestigious name, but they were built in fear and pain. By order of King Louis XIV dated 29 December 1689, they had to be improved or created “so as to allow troops to march in and disperse [Protestant] assemblies and keep the wayward population at heel”. A network of 24 King’s Roads and a great number of side roads, including this one, was therefore built to establish a grid over the region. For 10 years, the inhabitants of the Cévennes were forced under duress to construct these side roads. The ten wealthiest families of each parish had to provide the funds, and the less well-off inhabitants were made to provide the labour. Those who refused were sent to the galleys!

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• Agriculture

  A mazet (typical one-room southern house)

  This rustic little house with its single room was of unexpected social importance. The mazet appeared in the mid-19th century and corresponded to the city labourer’s deeply felt attachment to his ancestors’ land, where he would come to work in the vineyards and olive groves or to cut wood. He might keep a few rabbits at the mazet, or some fowl, and store some firewood or his tools there. The mazet was his great family project, his dream, his return to the original land, and the means of forgetting his lowly labourer’s circumstances. These buildings multiplied in the 1930s. After the war, many were extended and made more comfortable so as to become a place of rest and relaxation as a family or among friends. 

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