Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Planted Stone, also known as Peyre Plantade, is a memorial erected in 1922 in Fontrieu, Tarn, Occitanie. He paid tribute to the Protestants massacred during the religious persecutions of the 17th and 18th centuries, notably after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 by Louis XIV. This place symbolizes the resistance of the Huguenots, who organized desert assemblies to practice their worship in secret, despite the royal ban.

In 1689, a clandestine assembly at Saint Jean Del Frech (Lacaze) was betrayed and attacked by the King's dragons, sent by the Baron of Lacrouzette, Pierre III de Bayard. About 50 Protestants were killed, while four fugitives, including the predictor Corbière de la Sicardie, were caught up and executed after a five-kilometre chase. Legend has it that Corbière was beheaded on the Planted Stone, whose surface still bears reddish traces.

The monument, inscribed in the Historical Monuments in 2015, takes the form of an obelisk engraved with biblical extracts, emphasizing the importance of writing in Protestantism. Each year, on the fourth Sunday of August, a gathering is organized by the Société d'histoire du Protestantisme français, owner of the premises. This site, once a place of underground worship, today embodies the memory of religious persecutions in Haut-Languedoc.

The Planted Stone is also a memorial palimpsest: prehistoric menhir reinvested as a Protestant symbol, then transformed into a 20th century memorial. Its history reflects successive layers of meanings, from pagan practices to struggles for freedom of conscience.

The monument is located precisely at the place known as Peyre Plantade, on the town of Castelnau-de-Brassac (former municipality of Fontrieu), in a preserved forest. Its registration as the Historical Monuments in 2015 allowed to protect this historic place, while perpetuating the duty of memory around the victims of religious intolerance.

External links