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Origin and history

The Boîte à Cailloux memorial is erected in Hesbécourt, Somme, on the site of an old flint quarry that housed desert assemblies after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. This isolated place, on the border of Aisne, served as a refuge for persecuted Protestants, where the cult was celebrated clandestinely, at night and in the glow of the torches, until the French Revolution.

From 1691, Pastor Jean Gardien Givry, preacher of the Desert, organized services for the faithful of the surrounding villages. In 1695 Claude Brousson, another figure of clandestine Protestantism, visited the region. The site remained active until the establishment of freedom of worship in 1789. The current stele, built in 1934 by the Société de l'histoire du Protestantisme Français, is the only material testimony of these gatherings in Picardia.

The monument, of great simplicity (brick and commemorative plaque), has been protected since 2007 with its plot and access road. Owned by an association, it symbolises religious resistance in a context of repression, while marking the local history of the Vermandois. Its geographical isolation reflects the original clandestineity of the assemblies, held far from the eyes in this discreet valley.

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