Le mur de la peste, la ligne de 1721 dans les monts de Vaucluse

Cabrières-d'Avignon

When the plague that landed at Marseille in May 1720 spread through Provence, the Papal States of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, enclaved within the kingdom, decided to protect themselves with a physical line. From March to July 1721, five hundred masons and labourers raised, on a line fixed by the engineer and cartographer from Carpentras Antoine d'Allemand, a dry-stone wall one to two metres high, about seventy centimetres thick, running for some twenty kilometres — twenty-seven by other counts — from the Durance, near Les Taillades, to the Monts de Vaucluse, towards Monieux and the Ventoux. Watchtowers, guard posts and food stores punctuate it; a thousand men, the king's troops and the pope's troops, mounted guard there with orders to shoot at anyone who crossed it without authorisation. When the plague reached Avignon, in August 1721, the line changed direction: it was now the people of the Comtat who were prevented from passing, and the wall was guarded from the other side. From 1723, it no longer served; the peasants took its stones back for their bories and their terraces, and it disappeared under the garrigue. Since 1986, the association Pierre sèche en Vaucluse has re-erected nearly six kilometres of it between Cabrières, Lagnes and Murs, with their sentry boxes. It is the most austere monument of the plague: a frontier of stone, without a gate, against a disease that nobody yet understood.

Wikipédia — Mur de la peste ↗

Getting there : From Cabrières-d'Avignon, leave the car below the town hall and follow the waymarked path that climbs to the wall; the circuit of the Parc naturel régional du Luberon is seven and a half kilometres, nearly three hours' walk, with panels; another access starts from Lagnes, and remains can also be seen near Murs. Walking shoes, water, and caution in summer: access to the massifs may be forbidden on days of fire risk.

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

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