Le Mas Soubeyran et le musée du Désert, la maison de Rolland

Mialet

Pierre Laporte was born here, at the Mas Soubeyran, into a family of Cévenol peasants. He is known as Rolland. In 1702, when the revolt of the Cévennes broke out — the abbé du Chaila was killed at Le Pont-de-Montvert on 24 July — he was one of the young leaders who led, with Jean Cavalier, a few hundred men against the king's troops: peasants and carders, guided by prophets, who were called Camisards. After the burning of thirty-one parishes in the autumn of 1703 and the submission of Cavalier in May 1704, Rolland refused to negotiate; betrayed, he was killed on 14 August 1704 at the château of Castelnau-Valence, and his body was burnt at Nîmes. His house remained. In 1910, two historians of Protestantism, Edmond Hugues and Frank Puaux, founded there a museum which the Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français opened in 1911: some twenty rooms in the house and the neighbouring buildings, with the objects of the clandestine years — portable, dismantlable pulpits, small-format Bibles, baptismal registers kept in secret, hiding places in the walls — and the memory of the galley slaves and the women prisoners of the Tour de Constance. Since 1911, on the first Sunday in September, the Assemblée du Désert gathers on the slope, under the chestnut trees, several thousand Protestants for an open-air service as in the days when people prayed by night. The word Désert, taken from Exodus, designated that century of clandestinity; here it is still spoken without explanation.

Wikipédia — Musée du Désert ↗

Getting there : From Anduze, D 907 then D 50 towards Mialet; the Mas Soubeyran is signposted, car park at the bottom of the hamlet. The museum is open every day from 1 March to 30 November, morning and afternoon, without a break from 15 June to 15 September; paid entry; group visits only from December to February. Allow an hour and a half for the rooms, more on the first Sunday in September, the day of the assembly, when several thousand people gather under the chestnut trees. The Trabuc cave, a Camisard refuge, is a few kilometres away.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound