Florac
| Florac | ||
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Florac castle
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 Florac
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Location within Occitanie region
Florac
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| Coordinates: 44°19′38″N 3°35′57″E / 44.3272°N 3.5992°ECoordinates: 44°19′38″N 3°35′57″E / 44.3272°N 3.5992°E | ||
| Country | France | |
| Region | Occitanie | |
| Department | Lozère | |
| Arrondissement | Florac | |
| Canton | Florac | |
| Intercommunality | Haut Tarn | |
| Government | ||
| • Mayor (2001–2008) | Daniel Velay | |
| Area1 | 29.89 km2 (11.54 sq mi) | |
| Population (1999)2 | 1,996 | |
| • Density | 67/km2 (170/sq mi) | |
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | |
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | |
| INSEE/Postal code | 48061 /48400 | |
| Elevation | 522–1,141 m (1,713–3,743 ft) (avg. 542 m or 1,778 ft) |
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1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. 2Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once. |
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1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
Florac is a former commune of the Lozère department in southern France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Florac-Trois-Rivières.
Raymond of Anduze held the barony of Florac and is recorded as using the castle there in the 13th century. In 1363 local born Pope Urban V lent the town 300 florins for the construction of ramparts. Such defences were not at all unusual and offered desirable security and protection for the townspeople. These Medieval city walls finally came down in 1629 after the Edict of Alès, which despite allowing some concessions for Huguenots, insisted on the pulling down of fortifications at perceived 'strongholds'.
Florac was visited by a young Robert Louis Stevenson and features as a chapter in his droll Victorian bestseller Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879).
The French Wars of Religion resulted in the destruction of Florac's medieval catholic church in 1561 and sometime after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Florac's first Protestant church was also razed.
Today there are two fairly large churches on the respective sites of the older structures. The Protestant church has a historical information plaque bearing the date 1832, while higher up the hill towards Causse Méjean the Catholic Saint-Martin's bears the date 1833.
Situated at the end of the Esplanade, beneath Place de Souvenir (Remembrance Square). The first Protestant church on this site was destroyed after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). The present church was built by public subscription over a number of years after 1825, reaching completion in 1832. In 2011 there was a major restoration project under local architect Francois Coulomb, with the result that the interior today provides a stunning example of the ideals of the first builders.
The exterior is simple neo-classical. The stone is covered in the plain dun render common to other buildings on the esplanade. There is a small bell house on top. The overall shape is neatly echoed in a modest portico of two Roman Tuscan columns, an entablature bearing the name and a simple unadorned pediment. The dominant note of the interior is light. Firstly, the walls and columns are panelled in whitewashed pine. This gives a slightly New England flavour. Mostly though the effect of the determined simplicity is pre-Christian Roman. The only explicitly Christian decoration is the legend "Dieu est amour" painted at the 'West' end. There is a sense of civic virtue and pride in the colonnaded balconies which are a deliberate invocation of public space in Roman architecture. The space is regularly used today for services and classical music concerts.
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Wikipedia