The village of Boussagues is worth the detour, especially since the roads leading to it are not very busy.
Solidly set back from the valley of the Orb, this fortified medieval city is no more than a small village dozing under the weight of its past, to which its old walls, its medieval buildings and other vestiges still bear witness, signs of a distant power and a long history.
Boussagues has two 12th century castles, a Renaissance manor, and two churches. Inside, ramparts, many typical alleys and pediments of buildings relate the past grandeur of the place. In particular, the Bailli's house which belonged to the famous painter Henri de Toulouse Lautrec.
The city of Boussagues appeared in 1117 in the foothills of the Cévennes, which protected it from the Greeks and the Tramontane. Significant mining resources (silver then coal), easy-to-work building materials, water, wood, hillsides allowed continuous growth until the middle of the 14th century. Boussagues thus counted up to 1,500 souls at its peak. The city had all the civil, religious and military organization of the Middle Ages: lords, consuls, workers, notaries, hospital, bailiff, garrison, etc., allowing it to administer the entire Upper Orb Valley. Having lost almost two thirds of its population after the great plague of 1348, it seemed to recover with more than 1000 inhabitants in 1364, but it then declined slowly to only have around 400 souls during the Revolution. Boussagues ended up losing its status as chief town of the canton in 1884 to become just a simple hamlet in the commune of La Tour sur Orb.
One of the stones embedded in the walls of the church (I haven't seen it, but maybe you can find it?) bears the following epitaph which seems to be that of the village: "O man, what are you looking at ? What I was, you are, what I am, you will be.
Translated by Google •
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