When you drive up to the small town of Clermont-Dessous, you pray you don’t come across another driver, because the room for maneuver is narrow. But in the Middle Ages, it was a different pair of clogs: there was only a vague path to go down to the Garonne, a few hundred meters away. A necessary passage, however, because if the village peaks at 112 meters, its history is closely linked to the river.
During the next Heritage Days, local storyteller Marie-Claude Didier will retrace the history and anecdotes of the commune and its four associated villages (Lapouleille, Fourtic, Puymasson and Saint-Médard). This former professor of applied physics denies being a historian, but since her arrival from Dordogne twenty-four years ago, she has been a jack-of-all-trades capable of talking about geology as well as culture. “It was the view of the church that brought us here by chance, with my husband,” she explains, “and I quickly joined the tourist office.”
Clermont because the mountain is very bright, Below because we are downstream from Agen”
Paradoxically, she begins her visit outside the village, showing the old path which has since widened, then passing through the cemetery, just below the ramparts (the castle enclosure was entirely fortified, with a drawbridge since replaced by two small bridges), which allows you to appreciate the rocky foundations of the castle (which dates from the 14th century).e century), white limestone from Agenais. A castle spared by the wars of religion, but besieged in 1221 by looters who finally freed it for ransom.
It was not until 1271 that the lordship of Clermont-Dessous was referenced. Clermont because the mountain is very bright, Dessous because we are downstream from Agen. The village was previously called Clermont-Garonne, to distinguish it from another Clermont-Dessous, today Soubiran, and built above springs, hence the presence of three wells in the town. However, there are some indications of a Roman presence.
The partly restored Château de Clermont-Dessous remains one of the jewels of the village and is privately owned.
Thierry Breton/SO
From the Mass to the Garonne
The Romanesque church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste (XXIIe century) was mainly defensive, with a crenellated tower, which has now disappeared, but the loopholes that threatened potential enemies can still be seen. “At the top of the church, you have a 360° view of the Masse valley and the Garonne valley, because we are in the Pays de Serres and Clermont-Dessous is perched on a pech, a limestone rocky spur, protected on three sides. It is attached to the Clairac abbey.” The imprint of shells can still be found in the gray or white limestone stones that were used to build the castle. Traces of a seigneurial litre have also been found there, the remains of a mourning fresco painted on the occasion of the death of the master of the place, a litre that indicates a certain notoriety of the lordship. And you have to have a trained eye to spot, on an exterior wall, a stone engraved with a sundial.
Thierry Breton/SO
The church was once at one end of the medieval block formed with the castle, and a drawbridge has given way to two bridges.
Despite its height, Clermont-Dessous therefore depended on Dame Garonne, and the local lord levied a right of passage there (until 1731), probably at the place where the remains of old slipways remain. Lower down, the associated villages were home to fishermen, and the river allowed the export of local wine, because vines were mainly cultivated here in the medieval period. And the town had up to a hundred inhabitants, including boatmasters, tailors, weavers, then the population fell massively after the phylloxera crisis, in the 19th centurye century.
In the village, three houses are built against the cliff. Another house with blue shutters seems imposing, “but it is paradoxically very small inside, because of walls 1.20 m thick: it was the old church”, explains our guide. As for the oldest house in the village, it dates from the 14th centurye century and remains typical of the Middle Ages. Enough to travel through time in a small area.
JML
The oldest house in the village dates from the 14th century.
The Heritage Days program
Saturday, September 21, meeting of painters and designers on the forecourt of the castle, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Guided tours with Marie-Claude Didier on Sunday, September 22 at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., by reservation (06 22 29 22 02). All weekend, exhibition of watercolors by Geneviève Boher-Roy and her students, at the castle, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. There will also be a demonstration of “counter counting”, similar to the abacus system, which allowed people to do their shopping without knowing how to count.
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