Le Pont-de-Montvert

French commune
nomcommune=Le Pont-de-Montvert
View of Le Pont-de-Montvert
région=Languedoc-Roussillon
département=Lozère
arrondissement=Florac
canton=Le Pont-de-Montvert
insee=48116
cp=48220
maire=Gérard Mersadier
mandat=2001-2008
intercomm=Communauté de communes des Cévennes au Mont Lozère
longitude=3.74444
latitude=44.36417
alt moy=875 m
alt mini=665 m
alt maxi=1,699 m
hectares=9,025
km²=90.25
sans=272
date-sans=1999
dens=3
date-dens=1999

Le Pont-de-Montvert is a French commune in the "département" of Lozère ("région" Languedoc-Roussillon), located in the heart of the Parc National des Cévennes in south-central France which groups more than a dozen scattered hamlets. The inhabitants of Le Pont-de-Montvert are called "Pontoises", or even "Montvertipontains".

ights

The main village, Pont-de-Montvert (870 m. altitude) at the base of the south-facing slopes of Mont Lozère, is a village in the region of the Cévennes that has retained the stony granite-built traditional aspect of its closely-built centre, surrounding by outlying hamlets. The village is named for its hump-backed bridge ("en dos d'âne") that spans in a single arch the swift-flowing Tarn— here near its source. The bridge is guarded by a defensive tower at the village end, now with a more amiable function: village clock. Medieval in aspect, bridge and tower date to the 17th century.

The open air museum Ecomusée du Mont Lozère sited here presents the ecology of the region. A feature is the traditional "Ferme de Troubat", with its threshing-floor and its flour mill.

History

Late Neolithic standing stones called the menhirs of the Cham des Bondons, the largest concentration of menhirs in the south of France, bear mute witness to the long prehistory of human occupation here. The village was a fief of the Knights Hospitaller. Guillaume de Grimoard, future pope under the name of Urban V, was born in the Château de Grizac here in 1309. The picturesquely-sited structure, no larger than a farm, reveals its defensive nature by its narrow windows, perched high in its granite walls, and its four-square tower, now topless. Charles V exempted the "seigneurie de Grizac" from all taxes, a privilege its lords maintained until the Revolution.

In the 17th century it remained a local center of ardent French Protestants ("Huguenots") in a traditionally highly independent region; an incident in the village, the assassination on 24 July 1702 of the repressive abbé de Chayla, sparked the rebellion of the Camisards. The Protestant "Temple de Vialas" survives in the hamlet of Vialas nearby. The cattle market still held at Easter also has a long history.

Robert Louis Stevenson passed through Pont-de-Montvert on the ramble narrated in his "Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes" (1879), one of the first books to present hiking and camping as recreational activities. Today Stevenson fans retrace the "route Stevenson" on hiking paths (GR 70) some of which are transhumance routes taken annually by shepherds and their flocks.

Miscellaneous

Pont-de-Montvert still follows its traditional rhythms: at the two small inns, midday fare is provided only on Wednesdays, following the village market, and Sundays, the two occasions that have drawn together the outlying villagers for centuries.

Further reading

*Patrice Higonnet, 1971. "Pont-de-Montvert: Social Structure and Politics in a French Village" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press)

External links

* [http://le.pont48.free.fr/ Pont-de-Montvert] : (separate texts in English, Dutch and German; photographs)
* [http://www.cevennes-montlozere.com/sivom_tarn_mtlozere/ Sivom Sources du Tarn]
* [http://lepont.lozere-online.com/ Lozère on-line:] Le Pont de Montvert
* [http://www.mescevennes.com/decouvertes/ecomusee_loz.htm Ecomusée du Mont Lozère] (in English)
* [http://we239.lerelaisinternet.com/f/b_loureiro.htm Sarl Loureiro Frères] : Photo gallery of traditional masonry, including the Château de Grizac