Mars; a bit of history

The little village of Mars, where we spent our holiday. is very small, though it does boast its own Mairie and salle de fetes. It had just 31 inhabitants in 1968 though the number had increased to 174 at the last census. It seems a thriving and go-ahead little burgh but unusually has no places of worship, either protestant or Catholic. I think I can cast some light on the above info.
  If you leave the village centre and take the mountain road leading steeply upward via some hairpin bends, you pass two other hamlets, Le Puech and Le Truel. Continuing on, you arrive at the desolate Col de Moussolé at 830 metres of elevation.
  There you will see a sad memorial to man`s inhumanity to man. A lonely column commemorates the fate of a group of Protestant worshipers, whose only crime was to be at a church service. A bit of history follows.

     In the early 1700`s Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, which gave a limited freedom of worship. This enabled a severe repression of all religions apart from Catholicism, and the King`s Dragoons were involved in brutally suppressing the local Protestants. To allow them to worship as they wished, local Protestants held open-air services in wild and desolate places, such as this Col. In April 1742 such a group was surprised by the Dragoons, due to an informer. Refusing forcible reconversion to Catholicism, the men were sent to the galleys as galley slaves, and the women sent to the notorious prison called the Tour de Constance at Aigues Mortes. Here are pictures of the memorial and the ancient dolmen around which the service was being held. If you look closely, you can see a modern Protestant peering around looking for Dragoons...
   A lonelier place could scarcely be imagined, they must surely have thought themselves in security. However, the local Protestant group caught up with the informer and invited him to dig his own grave....
    How lucky we are to live in more liberal times.
    In my next blog I hope to cover a more cheerful outing.

  Bye for now!