[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":7714},["ShallowReactive",2],{"parcours-entries":3,"entry-\u002Fentries\u002F18-treignac-the-crossing":7342,"prev-\u002Fentries\u002F18-treignac-the-crossing":7497,"next-\u002Fentries\u002F18-treignac-the-crossing":7642},[4,372,546,629,755,992,1121,1234,1560,1807,1953,2193,2511,2806,3156,3390,3763,4191,4454,4700,4960,5092,5462,5718,5989,6216,6397,6763,6975],{"id":5,"title":6,"body":7,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":359,"extension":360,"gpxFile":359,"images":361,"issue":362,"kmEnd":359,"kmStart":359,"meta":363,"navigation":364,"path":365,"publishDate":366,"segment":359,"seo":367,"special":368,"stem":369,"subtitle":370,"weather":359,"__hash__":371},"entries\u002Fentries\u002Fspecial-poulidor-country.md","Poulidor Country",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":353},"minimark",[10,14,26,42,45,56,68,74,86,98,119,127,139,142,147,231,234,240],[11,12,6],"h1",{"id":13},"poulidor-country",[15,16],"inline-figure",{"alt":17,"author":18,"author-url":19,"caption":20,"license":21,"license-url":22,"lightbox-src":23,"source-url":24,"src":25},"Raymond Poulidor at a signing table in Brive, 2012","Poudou99","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FPoudou99","Raymond Poulidor in 2012, at Brive. The most famous second in the history of the Tour, and the rider the whole Limousin corridor claims as its own.","CC BY-SA 3.0","https:\u002F\u002Fcreativecommons.org\u002Flicenses\u002Fby-sa\u002F3.0","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F5\u002F53\u002FRaymond_Poulidor_-_IMG_1906_%28cropped%29_%28cropped%29.JPG","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Raymond_Poulidor_-_IMG_1906_%28cropped%29_%28cropped%29.JPG","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F5\u002F53\u002FRaymond_Poulidor_-_IMG_1906_%28cropped%29_%28cropped%29.JPG\u002F1280px-Raymond_Poulidor_-_IMG_1906_%28cropped%29_%28cropped%29.JPG",[27,28,29,30],"p",{},"Chaumeil is a small place on the western shoulder of the Monédières, granite and heather and a church, the kind of village a stage race climbs through on its way to somewhere it has decided is more important. For half a century it was the somewhere. On one afternoon each summer, from 1952 to 2002, the Bol d'Or des Monédières closed a circuit of these lanes, and the best riders in France came and rode them in front of a crowd that had walked up from the valleys. Robic came, and Coppi; Géminiani, Hinault, Fignon, the whole century of the sport passing through a village of a few hundred souls. When the 2026 Tour de France climbs the Suc au May in July, it will pass within about two kilometres of the line they finished on.",[31,32,33],"sup",{},[34,35,41],"a",{"href":36,"ariaDescribedBy":37,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":40},"#user-content-fn-bolddor",[38],"footnote-label","","user-content-fnref-bolddor","1",[27,43,44],{},"What none of them was, was from here. That is the quiet fact underneath a hundred years of cycling in this corner of the Limousin: the country has watched the sport with real devotion and has never once produced a champion of its own. It is a cycling parish, faithful and unrewarded, and the road that Stage 9 will take on its way to Ussel runs straight through the middle of it.",[15,46],{"alt":47,"author":48,"author-url":49,"caption":50,"license":51,"license-url":52,"lightbox-src":53,"source-url":54,"src":55},"Raymond Poulidor racing in the 1966 Tour de France","Eric Koch \u002F Anefo (Nationaal Archief)","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.nationaalarchief.nl\u002F","Raymond Poulidor in the 1966 Tour de France, in the years of his rivalry with Jacques Anquetil.","CC0 1.0","https:\u002F\u002Fcreativecommons.org\u002Fpublicdomain\u002Fzero\u002F1.0\u002F","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Ff\u002Ff4\u002FTour_de_France_%2C_nummer_20_Poulidor_in_aktie%2C_Bestanddeelnr_919-3002.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Tour_de_France_,_nummer_20_Poulidor_in_aktie,_Bestanddeelnr_919-3002.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Ff\u002Ff4\u002FTour_de_France_%2C_nummer_20_Poulidor_in_aktie%2C_Bestanddeelnr_919-3002.jpg\u002F1280px-Tour_de_France_%2C_nummer_20_Poulidor_in_aktie%2C_Bestanddeelnr_919-3002.jpg",[27,57,58,59,67],{},"The rider the corridor claims as its patron was not, if one is strict about it, its own either. Raymond Poulidor was born at Masbaraud-Mérignat, a little over the line in the Creuse, and he belongs to the whole of the Limousin in the way a saint belongs to a region rather than to a parish church. He started fourteen Tours de France and finished twelve. He stood on the final podium eight times, second on three occasions and third on five. He won seven stages. He never, in fourteen years, wore the yellow jersey, not for a day, not for the few minutes between a time check and its correction. The French called him L'Éternel Second and loved him past the point of reason, which is a national talent of a particular kind; and at Chaumeil, on the road the race will use, he won the Bol d'Or three times, in 1963, 1966 and 1967.",[31,60,61],{},[34,62,66],{"href":63,"ariaDescribedBy":64,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":65},"#user-content-fn-poulidor",[38],"user-content-fnref-poulidor","2"," A country that had never finished first took for its patron the most celebrated second the sport has produced. One could not have arranged it more neatly.",[69,70],"video-embed",{"attribution":71,"caption":72,"embed-url":73},"Source: YouTube channel Documentaire Histoire AMP.","A documentary portrait of Raymond Poulidor: the career behind the nickname L'Éternel Second, and the rivalry with Jacques Anquetil that defined the Tour of the 1960s.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002F6BlcxqfIHGg",[27,75,76,77,85],{},"The actual register of Corrèze professionals can be read out in a breath. Alain De Carvalho, born in Ussel, started four Tours between 1978 and 1981 and finished three of them, never higher than forty-eighth on the general classification; he is, so far as the records show, the only man born on the road Stage 9 traverses ever to have finished the race.",[31,78,79],{},[34,80,84],{"href":81,"ariaDescribedBy":82,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":83},"#user-content-fn-decarvalho",[38],"user-content-fnref-decarvalho","3"," He went home when it was over and opened a bicycle shop at Pompadour, and revived the local grand prix under his own name, which is the sort of afterlife a cycling parish offers in place of a palmarès. Before him there had been Claude Mazeaud of Vignols, who rode for Mercier in the early sixties, on Poulidor's own team, and never started a Tour at all. After both of them the regional standard passed across the departmental boundary to Luc Leblanc, out of Limoges in the Haute-Vienne, world champion in 1994 and a boy once mentored by Poulidor; in 2025 the Tour renamed the climb to Hautacam the montée Luc Leblanc, an honour the Corrèze has never been in a position to grant to one of its sons.",[27,87,88,89,97],{},"What the corridor has had instead of champions is constancy. The Bol d'Or ran for fifty years. The Tour du Limousin has come through nearly every August since, the resident race to the Tour's rare and ceremonial visit, and when Paris-Corrèze still existed it ended its years at Chaumeil too, lap after lap of the same circuit, as though the sport could not quite leave the place alone. The amateurs keep it now. In April of this year some eighteen hundred of them rode the Agglomérée over forty kilometres of the exact parcours Stage 9 will use, the Suc au May included, ninety-nine days before the professionals are due.",[31,90,91],{},[34,92,96],{"href":93,"ariaDescribedBy":94,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":95},"#user-content-fn-agglomeree",[38],"user-content-fnref-agglomeree","4"," The road is ridden hard here. It is simply ridden, for the most part, by people who will not be on television.",[27,99,100,101,109,110,118],{},"All of which goes where the stage goes, which is to Ussel. For a town of its standing, in a département the Tour has crossed a dozen times and more, Ussel carries an odd distinction: it has never once been a stage town.",[31,102,103],{},[34,104,108],{"href":105,"ariaDescribedBy":106,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":107},"#user-content-fn-ussel",[38],"user-content-fnref-ussel","5"," The race has finished at Brive and started from it, finished at Tulle and slept there; it has run its riders past the turn for Ussel and carried on. The nearest the town came was 2009, when the Tour du Limousin opened with Limoges to Ussel, a hundred and fifty-nine kilometres settled in a sprint won by a Slovenian most of the roadside had never heard of: a small rehearsal, seventeen years early, on the very same finish.",[31,111,112],{},[34,113,117],{"href":114,"ariaDescribedBy":115,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":116},"#user-content-fn-limousin",[38],"user-content-fnref-limousin","6"," On 12 July 2026 the Tour de France will come up the Avenue Thiers and decide Stage 9 in Ussel for the first time in the race's history.",[15,120],{"alt":121,"author":122,"author-url":49,"caption":123,"license":51,"license-url":52,"lightbox-src":124,"source-url":125,"src":126},"Raymond Poulidor in the 1973 Tour de France prologue time trial at Scheveningen","Bert Verhoeff \u002F Anefo (Nationaal Archief)","Raymond Poulidor in the prologue time trial of the 1973 Tour de France, at Scheveningen. It was one of the fourteen Tours he rode without ever wearing the yellow jersey.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F8\u002F86\u002FProloog_van_Tour_de_France_in_Scheveningen%2C_tijdrit%2C_Raymond_Poulidor%2C_Bestanddeelnr_926-5189.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Proloog_van_Tour_de_France_in_Scheveningen,_tijdrit,_Raymond_Poulidor,_Bestanddeelnr_926-5189.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F8\u002F86\u002FProloog_van_Tour_de_France_in_Scheveningen%2C_tijdrit%2C_Raymond_Poulidor%2C_Bestanddeelnr_926-5189.jpg\u002F1280px-Proloog_van_Tour_de_France_in_Scheveningen%2C_tijdrit%2C_Raymond_Poulidor%2C_Bestanddeelnr_926-5189.jpg",[27,128,129,130,138],{},"The jersey reached the family in the end, though it skipped a generation to do it. Poulidor's daughter Corinne married the Dutch rider Adrie van der Poel, and their son Mathieu became the champion the corridor itself never produced, a winner of Monuments and a world title, and, on the second stage of the 2021 Tour de France at Mûr-de-Bretagne, the holder of the yellow jersey his grandfather never wore.",[31,131,132],{},[34,133,137],{"href":134,"ariaDescribedBy":135,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":136},"#user-content-fn-vanderpoel",[38],"user-content-fnref-vanderpoel","7"," He took it, and pointed a finger at the sky. Van der Poel is in this year's race as well. The same Tour that will decide Stage 9 at Ussel opens on 4 July in Barcelona, with a team time trial and a finish on Montjuïc the day after, and he has said plainly that he means to take the yellow jersey again in those opening stages, on the far side of the Pyrenees, eight days before the race climbs to the town his grandfather never got to finish in.",[27,140,141],{},"The rider the parish would most have wanted to see it has been gone since 2019; Poulidor, who understood waiting better than anyone the sport has thrown up, did not live to watch the Tour finally stop where he had so often only passed. It is high country up there, the last lift of the Millevaches plateau before the land tips away toward the Dordogne, and on a July evening the light stays on the granite a long while after the valleys have gone to shadow.",[143,144,146],"h2",{"id":145},"sources","Sources",[148,149,150,169,187,195,213],"ul",{},[151,152,153,154,162,163,168],"li",{},"Raymond Poulidor's Tour record and his Bol d'Or des Monédières wins at Chaumeil: ",[34,155,161],{"href":156,"rel":157,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FRaymond_Poulidor",[158,159],"noopener","noreferrer","_blank","Raymond Poulidor, Wikipedia","; ",[34,164,167],{"href":165,"rel":166,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FBol_d%27Or_des_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res",[158,159],"Bol d'Or des Monédières, Wikipedia",".",[151,170,171,172,162,177,162,182,168],{},"The Corrèze professional riders (Alain De Carvalho, Claude Mazeaud) and Luc Leblanc of the neighbouring Haute-Vienne: ",[34,173,176],{"href":174,"rel":175,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FAlain_De_Carvalho",[158,159],"Alain De Carvalho, Wikipédia",[34,178,181],{"href":179,"rel":180,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FClaude_Mazeaud",[158,159],"Claude Mazeaud, Wikipédia",[34,183,186],{"href":184,"rel":185,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FLuc_Leblanc",[158,159],"Luc Leblanc, Wikipedia",[151,188,189,190,168],{},"L'Agglomérée 2026 and its overlap with the Stage 9 route: ",[34,191,194],{"href":192,"rel":193,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tulleagglo.fr\u002Factualites\u002Flagglomeree-revient-les-4-5-avril-2026\u002F",[158,159],"L'Agglomérée revient les 4-5 avril 2026, Tulle Agglo",[151,196,197,198,162,203,162,208,168],{},"Ussel's absence from the Tour de France host-town record, and the 2009 Tour du Limousin Limoges to Ussel precedent: ",[34,199,202],{"href":200,"rel":201,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.ledicodutour.com\u002Fdepartements\u002Fdepartements_c\u002Fcorreze.html",[158,159],"Corrèze, ledicodutour.com",[34,204,207],{"href":205,"rel":206,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.ledicodutour.com\u002Fstatistiques\u002Fvilles_etapes.html",[158,159],"Villes-étapes, ledicodutour.com",[34,209,212],{"href":210,"rel":211,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FTour_du_Limousin_2009",[158,159],"Tour du Limousin 2009, Wikipédia",[151,214,215,216,162,221,162,226,168],{},"Mathieu van der Poel's descent from Raymond Poulidor, his 2021 yellow-jersey dedication, and his stated aims for the 2026 Tour: ",[34,217,220],{"href":218,"rel":219,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.cyclingnews.com\u002Fnews\u002Fvan-der-poel-takes-tour-de-france-yellow-jersey-in-honour-of-grandfather-poulidor\u002F",[158,159],"Van der Poel takes yellow in honour of grandfather Poulidor, Cyclingnews",[34,222,225],{"href":223,"rel":224,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.cyclingnews.com\u002Fnews\u002Fvan-der-poel-i-wanted-to-win-for-grandpa\u002F",[158,159],"Van der Poel: 'I wanted to win for grandpa', Cyclingnews",[34,227,230],{"href":228,"rel":229,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.olympics.com\u002Fen\u002Fnews\u002Ftour-de-france-2026-stage-1-preview-saturday-4-july-route-profile-schedule-climbs-watch",[158,159],"Tour de France 2026 Stage 1 preview, Olympics.com",[232,233],"hr",{},[27,235,236],{},[237,238,239],"em",{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.8. Voice register: tls-essay.",[241,242,245,250],"section",{"className":243,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],"footnotes",[143,246,249],{"className":247,"id":38},[248],"sr-only","Footnotes",[251,252,253,268,283,298,310,325,337],"ol",{},[151,254,256,257,260,261],{"id":255},"user-content-fn-bolddor","The Bol d'Or des Monédières, a post-Tour exhibition criterium, was run at Chaumeil from 1952 to 2002. Among the riders who appeared on its closed circuit were Jean Robic, Fausto Coppi, Raphaël Géminiani, Bernard Hinault and Laurent Fignon. Chaumeil lies about thirty-five metres from the 2026 Stage 9 route near kilometre one hundred, and the stage climbs the Suc au May within about two kilometres of the village where the criterium finished. Source: ",[34,258,167],{"href":165,"rel":259,"target":160},[158,159],". ",[34,262,267],{"href":263,"ariaLabel":264,"className":265,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-bolddor","Back to reference 1",[266],"data-footnote-backref","↩",[151,269,271,272,162,275,260,278],{"id":270},"user-content-fn-poulidor","Raymond Poulidor (1936-2019), born at Masbaraud-Mérignat in the Creuse, started fourteen editions of the Tour de France and finished twelve, with three second places and five thirds on the general classification and seven stage wins, but never wore the yellow jersey, the record behind his nickname \"L'Éternel Second.\" He won the Bol d'Or des Monédières at Chaumeil in 1963, 1966 and 1967. Sources: ",[34,273,161],{"href":156,"rel":274,"target":160},[158,159],[34,276,167],{"href":165,"rel":277,"target":160},[158,159],[34,279,267],{"href":280,"ariaLabel":281,"className":282,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-poulidor","Back to reference 2",[266],[151,284,286,287,162,290,260,293],{"id":285},"user-content-fn-decarvalho","Alain De Carvalho (born Ussel, 1953) rode as a professional from 1977 to 1982 and started the Tour de France four times (1978, 1979, 1980, 1981), finishing three editions with a best general-classification placing of forty-eighth. He later opened a cycle shop at Pompadour and revived the Grand Prix de Pompadour as the Trophée Alain De Carvalho. Claude Mazeaud (born Vignols, 1937) rode for Mercier-BP-Hutchinson, Poulidor's team, in the early 1960s but never started a Tour. Sources: ",[34,288,176],{"href":174,"rel":289,"target":160},[158,159],[34,291,181],{"href":179,"rel":292,"target":160},[158,159],[34,294,267],{"href":295,"ariaLabel":296,"className":297,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-decarvalho","Back to reference 3",[266],[151,299,301,302,260,305],{"id":300},"user-content-fn-agglomeree","L'Agglomérée, the Tulle agglomeration's cyclosportive, was held on 4 and 5 April 2026; the organisers reported roughly eighteen hundred participants. Each timed cyclo course covered about forty kilometres of the 2026 Tour de France Stage 9 route, including the Suc au May climb. Source: ",[34,303,194],{"href":192,"rel":304,"target":160},[158,159],[34,306,267],{"href":307,"ariaLabel":308,"className":309,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-agglomeree","Back to reference 4",[266],[151,311,313,314,162,317,260,320],{"id":312},"user-content-fn-ussel","Ussel does not appear in the Tour de France host-town record before 2026. Two pages of the reference site ledicodutour.com confirm the absence: the Corrèze department page records no Ussel stage prior to 2026, and the host-city statistics table does not list the town at all. Ussel did host the Grand Prix d'Ussel in the 1950s, won by Hugo Koblet in 1955, and the Tour du Limousin on eleven occasions, but never the Tour de France itself. Sources: ",[34,315,202],{"href":200,"rel":316,"target":160},[158,159],[34,318,207],{"href":205,"rel":319,"target":160},[158,159],[34,321,267],{"href":322,"ariaLabel":323,"className":324,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-ussel","Back to reference 5",[266],[151,326,328,329,260,332],{"id":327},"user-content-fn-limousin","The 2009 Tour du Limousin opened with a stage from Limoges to Ussel of 159.6 kilometres; the Slovenian sprinter Borut Božič took the opening leader's jersey and Mathieu Perget won the overall classification. It is the closest precedent for the 2026 Tour de France finish on the same town. Source: ",[34,330,212],{"href":210,"rel":331,"target":160},[158,159],[34,333,267],{"href":334,"ariaLabel":335,"className":336,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-limousin","Back to reference 6",[266],[151,338,340,341,162,345,260,348],{"id":339},"user-content-fn-vanderpoel","Mathieu van der Poel (born 1995) is the son of Corinne Poulidor and the Dutch cyclist Adrie van der Poel, and thus Raymond Poulidor's grandson. On the second stage of the 2021 Tour de France, at Mûr-de-Bretagne, he won and took the yellow jersey, dedicating it to his grandfather, who had died in November 2019 without ever wearing it (\"I wanted to win for grandpa\"). In the 2026 Tour de France, which opens with a team time trial in Barcelona on 4 July and reaches Ussel on Stage 9 on 12 July, van der Poel rides for Alpecin-Premier Tech and has said he intends to contest the yellow jersey in the opening stages. Sources: ",[34,342,344],{"href":218,"rel":343,"target":160},[158,159],"Van der Poel takes Tour de France yellow jersey in honour of grandfather Poulidor, Cyclingnews",[34,346,230],{"href":228,"rel":347,"target":160},[158,159],[34,349,267],{"href":350,"ariaLabel":351,"className":352,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-vanderpoel","Back to reference 7",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":355},2,[356,357],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},false,null,"md",[],502,{"imagesOptional":364},true,"\u002Fentries\u002Fspecial-poulidor-country","2026-07-03",{"title":6,"description":39},"tour-history","entries\u002Fspecial-poulidor-country","A cycling corridor that has never made a champion, and the finish line it waited a century for","Ss93jGTNhbMR4ILG_UtMec3_WAqmIiObfTCLmIv5BZA",{"id":373,"title":374,"body":375,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":359,"extension":360,"gpxFile":359,"images":536,"issue":359,"kmEnd":537,"kmStart":538,"meta":539,"navigation":364,"path":540,"publishDate":541,"segment":538,"seo":542,"special":359,"stem":543,"subtitle":544,"weather":359,"__hash__":545},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F00-preview.md","Correze - A Road Less Ridden",{"type":8,"value":376,"toc":529},[377,384,387,390,393,396,400,406,409,412,416,419,425,429,432,435,462,465,469,475,478,482,485,526],[27,378,379],{},[380,381],"img",{"alt":382,"src":383},"Malemort to Ussel - Tour de France 2026 Virtual Challenge","\u002Fimages\u002Fintroduction\u002Fmarian_segment0.png",[11,385,374],{"id":386},"correze-a-road-less-ridden",[27,388,389],{},"On Sunday, July 12, 2026, the Tour de France peloton will roll out of Malemort-sur-Correze and ride 185 kilometers northeast to Ussel. It will be Stage 9 - the first time this route has ever been raced.",[27,391,392],{},"This year sees us completing Stage 9 from Malemort to Ussel. It looks like a deceptively hard day. Officially classed as hilly, it runs 185 km through Correze and packs in about 3,300 metres of climbing. It feels like classic breakaway terrain, with climb after climb gradually wearing riders down rather than one single decisive summit. The race organisation has singled out Suc au May and Mont Bessou as the points most likely to create real separation before the final rolling run into Ussel. It is also a nice piece of Tour history, since both Malemort and Ussel are first-time stage towns on the 2026 route.",[27,394,395],{},"Between now and then, we're going to ride it ourselves. Not all at once, and not at 45 kilometers an hour. Instead, we'll cover the route segment by segment, published twice a week.",[143,397,399],{"id":398},"the-location","The Location",[27,401,402],{},[380,403],{"alt":404,"src":405},"Location of Malemort-sur-Correze in France","\u002Fimages\u002Fintroduction\u002Fmalemort_map.png",[27,407,408],{},"The road climbs from the limestone lowlands around Brive-la-Gaillarde into the granite heart of the Massif Central. It passes through medieval villages built from red sandstone, descends into the valley of Tulle - the departmental capital, famous for lace and accordions - then climbs again through the wild Monedieres hills and across the vast, empty Plateau de Millevaches before dropping into Ussel.",[27,410,411],{},"Along the way: nine categorized climbs, including the fierce Suc au May at 7.7%. Two \"Plus Beaux Villages de France.\" A summit at 977 meters on Mont Bessou, the highest point in the Correze. And everywhere, the quiet green countryside that most of the world has never heard of.",[143,413,415],{"id":414},"the-route","The Route",[27,417,418],{},"The official Stage 9 parcours covers 185km with roughly 3,300 metres of climbing. The profile tells the story: a gradual ramp from the lowlands into the hills, with the hardest climbing concentrated in the second half between Tulle and Meymac.",[27,420,421],{},[380,422],{"alt":423,"src":424},"Stage 9 elevation profile - Malemort to Ussel, 185km","\u002Fimages\u002Fintroduction\u002Fstage9_profile.png",[143,426,428],{"id":427},"the-four-riders","The Four Riders",[27,430,431],{},"Our maximum daily distance that will be tracked is 2 kilometers. As per last year there will be rolling statistics for total distance covered, who is in the lead, most consistent, best 3-day average, and more. There will be biweekly updates with a smattering of local cultural and historical content.",[27,433,434],{},"The riders:",[148,436,437,444,450,456],{},[151,438,439,443],{},[440,441,442],"strong",{},"Justin"," - aiming to finish before the peloton does",[151,445,446,449],{},[440,447,448],{},"Marian"," - steady and strategic",[151,451,452,455],{},[440,453,454],{},"Nan"," - unpredictable bursts of distance",[151,457,458,461],{},[440,459,460],{},"Wally"," - the dark horse",[27,463,464],{},"Their progress will be tracked in every entry, updated with each publication.",[143,466,468],{"id":467},"a-short-introduction-to-malemort","A Short Introduction to Malemort",[27,470,471],{},[380,472],{"alt":473,"src":474},"A hilltop village in the Correze","\u002Fimages\u002Fintroduction\u002Fmalemortimage.png",[27,476,477],{},"According to the municipal history page, Malemort is a fairly new commune in its current form, created in 2016 when Malemort-sur-Correze and Venarsal were merged into a single 'commune nouvelle'. It describes itself as a 'town in the countryside'. The commune has a deeper past than expected for a suburban-looking town: Malemort still has references to Lacan caves, Gallo-Roman remains, the Saint-Xantin church, the Breniges towers, and other old sites we will be seeing along the way. The town also says that in the Middle Ages it was one of the three principal lordships of the Bas-Pays - apparently a way of saying it was locally powerful and important in medieval times, not just a small village.",[143,479,481],{"id":480},"what-to-expect","What to Expect",[27,483,484],{},"Each entry will cover one 7-kilometer segment of the route. You'll find:",[148,486,487,494,501,508,514,520],{},[151,488,489,490,493],{},"A ",[440,491,492],{},"map"," showing exactly where we are on the road",[151,495,496,497,500],{},"An ",[440,498,499],{},"elevation profile"," with gradient coloring and power estimates",[151,502,503,504,507],{},"The ",[440,505,506],{},"story"," of what's there - the history, the scenery, the people, the geology",[151,509,510,513],{},[440,511,512],{},"Rider standings"," - who's ahead, who's falling behind, who had a big week",[151,515,516,519],{},[440,517,518],{},"Weather"," at the segment's location on the day of publication",[151,521,522,525],{},[440,523,524],{},"Images"," from Wikimedia Commons and other Creative Commons sources",[27,527,528],{},"Stage 9 happens on July 12th. And so it begins. Onward!",{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":530},[531,532,533,534,535],{"id":398,"depth":354,"text":399},{"id":414,"depth":354,"text":415},{"id":427,"depth":354,"text":428},{"id":467,"depth":354,"text":468},{"id":480,"depth":354,"text":481},[],185,0,{},"\u002Fentries\u002F00-preview","2026-04-02",{"title":374,"description":39},"entries\u002F00-preview","Introducing 185km of hills, history, and four riders","oAohs097XqEk9HvmG8OdS8-_HWeYwWhL3b9o3XUPDbo",{"id":547,"title":548,"body":549,"description":609,"draft":358,"elevationData":610,"extension":360,"gpxFile":611,"images":612,"issue":359,"kmEnd":613,"kmStart":538,"meta":614,"navigation":364,"path":616,"publishDate":617,"segment":618,"seo":619,"special":359,"stem":620,"subtitle":621,"weather":622,"__hash__":628},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F01-malemort-departure.md","Malemort - Where Pain Meets Death",{"type":8,"value":550,"toc":604},[551,554,565,568,572,575,578,582,585,588,592,595,598,601],[11,552,548],{"id":553},"malemort-where-pain-meets-death",[27,555,556,557,560,561,564],{},"The name alone should give our four riders pause. ",[237,558,559],{},"Malemort"," — from the Occitan ",[237,562,563],{},"mala mort",", the bad death. It is a name that predates the Tour de France by centuries, a name born from plague or battle or some long-forgotten catastrophe that scarred this bend of the Corrèze river so deeply that the wound became the place itself.",[27,566,567],{},"And yet here we are, at kilometer zero, in a town that feels nothing like its name. Malemort-sur-Corrèze is modest, practical, suburban — a satellite of nearby Brive-la-Gaillarde, known more for its rugby club than for any medieval darkness. The river Corrèze slides quietly beneath the bridge. The morning air in early April carries the green smell of the valley.",[143,569,571],{"id":570},"the-town-at-the-start","The Town at the Start",[27,573,574],{},"Malemort sits at the western edge of the Corrèze department, where the limestone lowlands begin their slow rise toward the Massif Central. The elevation here is just 114 meters — the lowest point our riders will see all day. By the time they reach Ussel, 185 kilometers to the northeast, they will have climbed to over 600 meters, with excursions above 900.",[27,576,577],{},"But that is many hours and many hills away. For now, the road is gentle.",[143,579,581],{"id":580},"into-brive","Into Brive",[27,583,584],{},"Within the first few kilometers, the route passes through Brive-la-Gaillarde — the largest town in the Corrèze, and the only one most outsiders could name. Brive has seen the Tour before. In 1951, Hugo Koblet launched one of the greatest solo breakaways in Tour history from here — 135 kilometers alone, holding off Coppi, Bobet, Bartali, and the rest. In 2012, Mark Cavendish sprinted to victory on these streets, wearing the rainbow jersey of world champion, while Bradley Wiggins rode serenely in yellow.",[27,586,587],{},"For our riders — Justin, Marian, Nan, and Wally — there will be no sprint finish and no yellow jersey. There will be the road, the pedals, and the long climb east into the heart of the Corrèze. The first seven kilometers are a warm-up, a false kindness from a route that will show its teeth soon enough.",[143,589,591],{"id":590},"what-lies-ahead","What Lies Ahead",[27,593,594],{},"The Corrèze is not famous cycling country in the way that the Alps or Pyrenees are famous. But it is hard country — rolling, relentless, with gradients that accumulate rather than announce themselves. The department sits on the western edge of the Massif Central, a landscape of granite and chestnut, of river valleys cut deep into ancient plateau. The roads here were built for farmers and cattle, not for cyclists, and they go up and down with the land rather than around it.",[27,596,597],{},"Stage 9 of the 2026 Tour de France will be the first time the professional peloton rides through Malemort. It is a discovery stage — for the riders, for the television cameras, and for us.",[27,599,600],{},"Our four riders have their own discoveries to make. Over the coming weeks, as we follow this route segment by segment, we will see what they see: the red sandstone of Collonges, the lace workshops of Tulle, the heather-covered summit of Suc au May, the vast emptiness of the Plateau de Millevaches, the highest point in the Corrèze at Mont Bessou. We will count their kilometers, track their progress, and wonder — as one always does on a long ride — whether the legs will last.",[27,602,603],{},"For now, the legs are fresh. The road is flat. And Malemort, despite its name, is a fine place to begin.",{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":605},[606,607,608],{"id":570,"depth":354,"text":571},{"id":580,"depth":354,"text":581},{"id":590,"depth":354,"text":591},"The name alone should give our four riders pause. Malemort — from the Occitan mala mort, the bad death. It is a name that predates the Tour de France by centuries, a name born from plague or battle or some long-forgotten catastrophe that scarred this bend of the Corrèze river so deeply that the wound became the place itself.","\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-01.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-01.gpx",[],8,{"dataCutoff":615},"2026-04-04","\u002Fentries\u002F01-malemort-departure","2026-04-05",1,{"title":548,"description":609},"entries\u002F01-malemort-departure","Km 0-8: Departure from the Correze lowlands",{"fetchedAt":623,"current":624,"forecast":359},"2026-04-08",{"temp":625,"conditions":626,"wind":627},13,"Clear sky","3 km\u002Fh ESE","973R0tPGwISca2dxtIBsfsLoiJZq8oFTcjnivupCxs4",{"id":630,"title":631,"body":632,"description":639,"draft":358,"elevationData":723,"extension":360,"gpxFile":724,"images":725,"issue":359,"kmEnd":745,"kmStart":613,"meta":746,"navigation":364,"path":748,"publishDate":623,"segment":354,"seo":749,"special":359,"stem":750,"subtitle":751,"weather":752,"__hash__":754},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F02-south-of-brive.md","South of Brive",{"type":8,"value":633,"toc":717},[634,637,640,643,647,653,656,663,666,669,673,679,682,685,688,692,698,701,704,708,711,714],[11,635,631],{"id":636},"south-of-brive",[27,638,639],{},"The peloton leaves Brive at speed. Within minutes, the retail parks and roundabouts give way to open farmland, and the road tilts gently downhill. This is the Bassin de Brive - one of the warmest, most fertile lowlands in the Limousin - and in early April it is just waking up. The walnut trees that line the fields are beginning to leaf out, their branches still skeletal against the pale sky.",[27,641,642],{},"Six kilometers of descent. A net drop of 141 meters. The steepest pitch hits -6.5%, where the peloton would touch 75 km\u002Fh on the open road. The whole segment passes in under six minutes at racing speed. The riders barely pedal.",[143,644,646],{"id":645},"the-walnut-country","The Walnut Country",[27,648,649],{},[380,650],{"alt":651,"src":652},"TFM_French-Nut2","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tastefrance.com\u002Fsites\u002Fdefault\u002Ffiles\u002F2024-11\u002FTFM_French-Nut2.jpg",[27,654,655],{},"This is France's walnut heartland. The Correze and its neighbour the Dordogne produce a third of the nation's crop, and the trees are everywhere - in ordered orchards, along field boundaries, standing alone in farmyards. The Noix du Perigord holds AOP status since 2002, protecting four varieties: Franquette, Marbot, the horn-shaped Corne, and Grandjean.",[27,657,658,659,662],{},"Walnuts have shaped this landscape for centuries. In a region too far north for olives and too poor for butter, walnut oil was the cooking fat - the olive oil of the southwest. It lit church lamps when olive oil was too expensive to import. It fueled the ",[237,660,661],{},"calels"," (oil lamps) in farmhouse kitchens. Barrels of it travelled by river barge down the Dordogne to Bordeaux for export.",[27,664,665],{},"There was a tradition, in parts of the Perigord, of planting a walnut tree at a girl's birth. By the time she married, the tree would be bearing fruit - her dowry included its harvest.",[27,667,668],{},"Then came the freeze of February 1956. Temperatures plunged to -20C across the southwest. Entire orchards - trees that had stood for a century - were killed in a single night. An estimated 70 to 80 percent of walnut trees in the region were destroyed. The replanting took fifteen years, and the landscape was permanently changed: the hardy Franquette variety from the Dauphine replaced many of the traditional Perigord cultivars. Old-timers still have opinions about this.",[143,670,672],{"id":671},"first-glimpse-of-turenne","First Glimpse of Turenne",[27,674,675],{},[380,676],{"alt":677,"src":678},"Château de Turenne","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F5\u002F5a\u002FTurenne_fda.jpg\u002F500px-Turenne_fda.jpg",[27,680,681],{},"As the road curves southeast through the communes of Noailhac and Ligneyrac, something appears on the horizon - a hilltop silhouette, unmistakable even at a distance. Two towers on a rocky butte, commanding the valley. This is Turenne, and it will be the subject of the next segment, but even from here it demands attention.",[27,683,684],{},"The Viscounty of Turenne was one of the most powerful feudal territories in France. From the eleventh century until 1738, the viscounts controlled roughly 1,200 villages across the Correze, Lot, and Dordogne. They collected their own taxes, minted their own currency, maintained their own courts, and raised their own armies. The viscounty was a state within a state - exempt from royal authority by ancient privilege. It was only when the last viscount sold the territory to Louis XV for 4.2 million livres that it finally came under the French crown.",[27,686,687],{},"The most famous of the viscounts was Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Marshal of France, born in the castle in 1611. Napoleon studied his campaigns. The road our riders are descending was part of the territory he ruled.",[143,689,691],{"id":690},"the-geology-underfoot","The Geology Underfoot",[27,693,694],{},[380,695],{"alt":696,"src":697},"collonges800-640x320","https:\u002F\u002Fwoody.cloudly.space\u002Fapp\u002Fuploads\u002Fot-dordogne\u002F2020\u002F01\u002Fthumbs\u002Fcollonges800-640x320.webp",[27,699,700],{},"Something is changing in the stone. The Brive basin sits on Triassic and Permian sediments - sandstone and clay, deposited 250 million years ago. As the route heads south, the first hints of red begin to appear in farm walls and roadside outcrops. This is the iron-rich Permian sandstone that, a few kilometers further on, will colour an entire village the deep rust-red that made it famous.",[27,702,703],{},"The riders, at 70 km\u002Fh, will not notice the geology. But the geology is the reason Collonges-la-Rouge exists, and the reason this stretch of the Correze looks and feels different from the granite highlands to come.",[143,705,707],{"id":706},"from-famous-roads-to-quiet-ones","From Famous Roads to Quiet Ones",[27,709,710],{},"Segment 1 was full of history - Koblet's breakaway, Cavendish's sprint, the Edmond Michelet museum. Segment 2 has none of this. No famous rider has ever attacked on this descent. No monument marks its verges. This is anonymous countryside, and that is precisely its character.",[27,712,713],{},"In a professional stage race, this is where the peloton sits up, drinks, eats, and reorganizes. The directeurs sportifs radio instructions from the team cars. The sprinters' teams begin to move toward the front. Nobody is racing yet - the real climbing starts after Beynat, forty kilometers and several hills from here.",[27,715,716],{},"For our four riders, the descent is a gift. The legs that were fresh at Malemort are still willing. The road falls away beneath them, and through the walnut trees, the towers of Turenne grow slowly larger against the southern sky.",{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":718},[719,720,721,722],{"id":645,"depth":354,"text":646},{"id":671,"depth":354,"text":672},{"id":690,"depth":354,"text":691},{"id":706,"depth":354,"text":707},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-02.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-02.gpx",[726,733,739,741],{"src":727,"alt":728,"author":729,"authorUrl":730,"license":731,"licenseUrl":732,"sourceUrl":730},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F7\u002F71\u002FDrapeau_Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Turenne_Corr%C3%A8ze_1.jpg\u002F960px-Drapeau_Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Turenne_Corr%C3%A8ze_1.jpg","Drapeau Château de Turenne Corrèze","Selmoval","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Drapeau_Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Turenne_Corr%C3%A8ze_1.jpg","CC BY-SA 4.0","https:\u002F\u002Fcreativecommons.org\u002Flicenses\u002Fby-sa\u002F4.0\u002F",{"src":734,"alt":735,"author":736,"authorUrl":737,"license":738,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":737},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F3\u002F3c\u002FFrance_NA_19_Turenne_02.jpg\u002F500px-France_NA_19_Turenne_02.jpg","Viscounty of Turenne","Wikipedia","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FViscounty_of_Turenne","See Wikipedia article for license",{"src":678,"alt":677,"author":736,"authorUrl":740,"license":738,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":740},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FCh%C3%A2teau_de_Turenne",{"src":742,"alt":743,"author":736,"authorUrl":744,"license":738,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":744},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F2\u002F29\u002FAubazines_vue_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale.JPG\u002F500px-Aubazines_vue_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale.JPG","Aubazines","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FAubazines",14,{"dataCutoff":747},"2026-04-07","\u002Fentries\u002F02-south-of-brive",{"title":631,"description":639},"entries\u002F02-south-of-brive","Km 8-14: Walnut country and the walls of Turenne",{"fetchedAt":623,"current":753,"forecast":359},{"temp":625,"conditions":626,"wind":627},"9pWq8_iHhLsWs3TibxAIBR2imu0HS07L2KmatV24sz4",{"id":756,"title":757,"body":758,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":955,"extension":360,"gpxFile":956,"images":957,"issue":359,"kmEnd":977,"kmStart":745,"meta":978,"navigation":364,"path":980,"publishDate":981,"segment":982,"seo":983,"special":359,"stem":984,"subtitle":985,"weather":986,"__hash__":991},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F03-the-causse-between.md","The Causse Between",{"type":8,"value":759,"toc":949},[760,763,769,772,775,779,785,804,810,813,819,830,834,839,842,846,852,871,874,877,880],[11,761,757],{"id":762},"the-causse-between",[27,764,765],{},[380,766],{"alt":767,"src":768},"Causse Corrézien","https:\u002F\u002Fwoody.cloudly.space\u002Fapp\u002Fuploads\u002Fmillau-tourisme\u002F2023\u002F06\u002Fthumbs\u002FGRAVEL-WISH-ONE-@F-BOUKLA-ActivImages-1581-1-1920x960-crop-1687265123.jpg",[27,770,771],{},"The castle shrinks behind a shoulder of hill within the first kilometre, and for the rest of the day it will be a thing remembered rather than seen. Turenne stood on a Jurassic butte témoin, a witness hill left in place when the softer marls around it wore down, which is a geologist's way of saying the two towers rode out the Tertiary on a raft of limestone while the rest of the region was emptied into the Dordogne.",[27,773,774],{},"The road east of the village rises for about five kilometres through sheep country, crests a ridge at two hundred and eighty-seven metres around km twenty, and then begins a gentle, deceiving drop toward a village the cyclist has not yet seen. This is the causse corrézien, the dry limestone plateau that runs north from the Causse de Martel and stops, more or less abruptly, against the Meyssac fault. The fault itself is invisible to the traveller but almost comically clean on a geological map. To the west of it lie the sediments and the sheep; to the east, the crystalline rocks of the Massif Central begin. Turenne, in other words, was the last castle on one continent before the next one started, which is the kind of detail a medieval viscount would have understood without needing to name it.",[143,776,778],{"id":777},"a-mustard-a-marshal","A mustard, a marshal",[27,780,781],{},[380,782],{"alt":783,"src":784},"Pope Clement VI in 1351","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.lookandlearn.com\u002Fhistory-images\u002Fpreview\u002FM\u002FM847\u002FM847716_Pope-Clement-VI-commissions-the-Bishop-of-Ferrara-to-take-an-ultimatum-to-the-Viscontis-1351.jpg",[27,786,787,788,795,796,803],{},"One ought to say goodbye to Turenne with something more than just a view. A reader stocking a mental larder might take the mustard. Clement VI, born at Rosiers d'Égletons an hour up the road, became pope at Avignon in 1342 and, homesick for a particular condiment, is said to have summoned a Corrèzien moutardier to the papal court. The tradition names the man a Turennois and gives him the title Grand Moutardier du Pape. Maison Denoix, founded in Brive in 1839 and still standing,",[31,789,790],{},[34,791,41],{"href":792,"ariaDescribedBy":793,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":794},"#user-content-fn-denoix",[38],"user-content-fnref-denoix"," makes the moutarde violette to this day, a mustard the colour of a bruise, coloured by grape must rather than dye,",[31,797,798],{},[34,799,66],{"href":800,"ariaDescribedBy":801,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":802},"#user-content-fn-must",[38],"user-content-fnref-must"," and traditionally eaten with a slice of boudin.",[27,805,806],{},[380,807],{"alt":808,"src":809},"Canapes de boudin noir aux chataignes a la pomme golden et la moutard violette","https:\u002F\u002Fstorage.canalblog.com\u002F45\u002F05\u002F1168148\u002F121473145_o.jpg",[27,811,812],{},"Ten kilometres from the castle, a distillery goes on doing for tourists and for residents what is claimed to have been done in the fourteenth century for a pope.",[27,814,815],{},[380,816],{"alt":817,"src":818},"Portrait of Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (1611–1675), as Marshall of France on horseback","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fe\u002Fe8\u002FPortrait_of_Henri_de_la_Tour_d%27Auvergne%2C_Vicomte_de_Turenne_%281611%E2%80%931675%29%2C_as_Marshall_of_France_on_horseback.jpg\u002F960px-Portrait_of_Henri_de_la_Tour_d%27Auvergne%2C_Vicomte_de_Turenne_%281611%E2%80%931675%29%2C_as_Marshall_of_France_on_horseback.jpg",[27,820,821,822,829],{},"One ought also to say goodbye to Turenne's greatest son, who already left it. Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Marshal of France, was born inside those walls in 1611, converted from Protestantism at the age of fifty-seven, and was killed instantly at Sasbach in July 1675 by a stray cannonball while riding forward to reconnoitre the lines of his friendly rival Montecuccoli. His men, the story runs, opened his eyes twice and then closed them for good. Montecuccoli, hearing the news, produced the only line about a dead enemy worth keeping: that today there had died a man who did honour to mankind.",[31,823,824],{},[34,825,84],{"href":826,"ariaDescribedBy":827,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":828},"#user-content-fn-montecuccoli",[38],"user-content-fnref-montecuccoli"," The body was given a place at Saint-Denis among the kings of France, moved discreetly to the Jardin des Plantes during the Revolution to keep it from the tumbrels, and carried at last, in September 1800, to the Invalides, where it has remained. Even the castle's greatest ghost is elsewhere, and so is the cyclist, by now, and so are we.",[143,831,833],{"id":832},"the-causse-itself","The causse itself",[27,835,836],{},[380,837],{"alt":767,"src":838},"https:\u002F\u002Fhiiker-production-public.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\u002Fpsxqopyefiddgkb1us1k8mceqpxg",[27,840,841],{},"The road crosses a landscape that has been dry for a very long time. Limestone pavement shows through the grass where sheep have cropped it hardest. The walls are drystone, and the fields they enclose are smaller than the ones the peloton crossed after Brive, because stone fields, unlike walnut fields, remember every generation that farmed them. At the foot of Turenne there is a famous scatter of fossil scallop shells, a small cimetière de coquilles Saint-Jacques laid down when the Corrèze was a warm sea, which it will not be again until some other geology takes over. Two hundred and eighty-seven metres is the highest ground the stage has crossed so far. The cyclist crosses it without comment.",[143,843,845],{"id":844},"vines-below-walnuts-ahead","Vines below, walnuts ahead",[27,847,848],{},[380,849],{"alt":850,"src":851},"Queyssac les Vignes","https:\u002F\u002Ffarm66.staticflickr.com\u002F65535\u002F54357010383_061936c45d_b.jpg",[27,853,854,855,862,863,870],{},"To the south the ground falls away toward Queyssac les Vignes and Branceilles, and with it the causse lets in the light of a different country. This is vin paillé country, a tiny AOC since 2017, straw wine made by drying the grapes for weeks on racks until they concede their water and keep their sugar. Some eighteen producers make perhaps fourteen thousand bottles a year,",[31,856,857],{},[34,858,96],{"href":859,"ariaDescribedBy":860,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":861},"#user-content-fn-paille",[38],"user-content-fnref-paille"," which is barely a gesture at the scale of French viticulture and exactly the right gesture for a department that lost its vineyards to phylloxera around 1880 and only began replanting, with deliberate stubbornness, in the 1980s. The cooperative at Branceilles, which took a bronze at the 1878 Paris exposition weeks before the disease arrived, replanted in 1986 and, in time, named itself Mille et Une Pierres for the white stones in its clay.",[31,864,865],{},[34,866,108],{"href":867,"ariaDescribedBy":868,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":869},"#user-content-fn-branceilles",[38],"user-content-fnref-branceilles"," These are the details one retains: not the vintage, but the stubbornness.",[27,872,873],{},"There is also the vin de noix, which belongs to the other larder. The rule is the rule of forties: four litres of wine, one of eau-de-vie, forty green walnuts quartered, forty cubes of sugar, forty days. The walnuts must be cut at midsummer, while the shell is still soft enough that a kitchen knife goes through the whole nut like an apple. The fingers that quarter them will be black for a week, because the husk of a green walnut was once the cheap iodine of the Corrèze and the staining is what the iodine did. A jar of the stuff macerating on a kitchen windowsill on the Saint-Jean is less a recipe than an almanac; it tells the household, and whoever is passing, where it stands in the year.",[27,875,876],{},"The cyclist, now crossing the ridge at its most modest, can see no vines and no walnuts. What the cyclist sees, a kilometre ahead, is a cluster of roofs the wrong colour for limestone.",[27,878,879],{},"Those roofs are Collonges-la-Rouge. The route clips the edge of the village at the very end of this segment, just long enough to register the red sandstone — iron oxide in the local grès, the same stuff that colours the soil after rain — before the road bends east and carries on. In July the peloton will pass through here at fifty kilometres an hour, which is time enough to notice the colour and nothing else. The carved tympanum, the Maison de la Sirène, the story of how a village mayor invented the Plus Beaux Villages de France — all of it will be behind them before the television cameras have finished panning. Some places are seen; Collonges, from a bicycle at speed, is only glimpsed.",[241,881,883,886],{"className":882,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,884,249],{"className":885,"id":38},[248],[251,887,888,901,913,925,937],{},[151,889,891,892,896,897],{"id":890},"user-content-fn-denoix","Maison Denoix, ",[34,893,894],{"href":894,"rel":895,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.denoix.com\u002Fen\u002Fviolet-mustard",[158,159]," ",[34,898,267],{"href":899,"ariaLabel":264,"className":900,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-denoix",[266],[151,902,904,905,896,909],{"id":903},"user-content-fn-must","A Gardener's Table on making purple mustard from grape must, ",[34,906,907],{"href":907,"rel":908,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fagardenerstable.com\u002Fpurple-mustard-from-homemade-must\u002F",[158,159],[34,910,267],{"href":911,"ariaLabel":281,"className":912,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-must",[266],[151,914,916,917,896,921],{"id":915},"user-content-fn-montecuccoli","Musée virtuel du Protestantisme, ",[34,918,919],{"href":919,"rel":920,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fmuseeprotestant.org\u002Fen\u002Fnotice\u002Fturenne-1611-1675-2\u002F",[158,159],[34,922,267],{"href":923,"ariaLabel":296,"className":924,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-montecuccoli",[266],[151,926,928,929,896,933],{"id":927},"user-content-fn-paille","Brive Tourisme, ",[34,930,931],{"href":931,"rel":932,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.brive-tourisme.com\u002Ffr\u002Fgastronomie\u002Fproduits-locaux\u002Fvins-bieres-spiritueux\u002Fvin-paille\u002F",[158,159],[34,934,267],{"href":935,"ariaLabel":308,"className":936,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-paille",[266],[151,938,940,941,896,945],{"id":939},"user-content-fn-branceilles","The actual rename was in 2019. See ",[34,942,943],{"href":943,"rel":944,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.1001-pierres.com\u002Fnotre-histoire",[158,159],[34,946,267],{"href":947,"ariaLabel":323,"className":948,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-branceilles",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":950},[951,952,953,954],{"id":777,"depth":354,"text":778},{"id":832,"depth":354,"text":833},{"id":844,"depth":354,"text":845},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-03.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-03.gpx",[958,963,967,973],{"src":959,"alt":960,"author":961,"authorUrl":962,"license":731,"licenseUrl":732,"sourceUrl":962},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F06\u002FLigneyrac_ch%C3%A2teau_de_la_Rue_%281%29.JPG\u002F960px-Ligneyrac_ch%C3%A2teau_de_la_Rue_%281%29.JPG","Le château de la Rue, Ligneyrac, Corrèze, France.","Père Igor","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Ligneyrac_ch%C3%A2teau_de_la_Rue_(1).JPG",{"src":818,"alt":817,"author":964,"authorUrl":965,"license":966,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":965},"Circle of Charles Le Brun","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Portrait_of_Henri_de_la_Tour_d%27Auvergne,_Vicomte_de_Turenne_(1611%E2%80%931675),_as_Marshall_of_France_on_horseback.jpg","Public domain",{"src":968,"alt":969,"author":970,"authorUrl":971,"license":972,"licenseUrl":732,"sourceUrl":971},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fd\u002Fd1\u002FCollonges-la-Rouge_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29._%2828497459402%29.jpg\u002F960px-Collonges-la-Rouge_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29._%2828497459402%29.jpg","Collonges-la-Rouge (Corrèze).\n\nRue de la Barrière.","Daniel Jolivet","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Collonges-la-Rouge_(Corr%C3%A8ze)._(28497459402).jpg","CC BY 2.0",{"src":974,"alt":975,"author":970,"authorUrl":976,"license":972,"licenseUrl":732,"sourceUrl":976},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F2\u002F23\u002FCollonges-la-Rouge_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29._%2829097014801%29.jpg\u002F960px-Collonges-la-Rouge_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29._%2829097014801%29.jpg","Collonges-la-Rouge (Corrèze)\nLa porte Plate ou porte de la ville ou, à partir du XVIIIe siècle, porte de la Halle.\n\nD'après madame Guely, conférencière, la porte pourrait être \"plate\" pa","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Collonges-la-Rouge_(Corr%C3%A8ze)._(29097014801).jpg",22,{"dataCutoff":979},"2026-04-11","\u002Fentries\u002F03-the-causse-between","2026-04-12",3,{"title":757,"description":39},"entries\u002F03-the-causse-between","Km 14-22: Across the causse corrézien to Collonges-la-Rouge",{"fetchedAt":981,"current":987,"forecast":359},{"temp":988,"conditions":989,"wind":990},9,"Light rain","6 km\u002Fh W","BwgdzBlmLy6KQMOnOuOEGGpBJXCJzkvdC-iir1a0iOE",{"id":993,"title":994,"body":995,"description":1002,"draft":358,"elevationData":1087,"extension":360,"gpxFile":1088,"images":1089,"issue":359,"kmEnd":1106,"kmStart":977,"meta":1107,"navigation":364,"path":1109,"publishDate":1110,"segment":1111,"seo":1112,"special":359,"stem":1113,"subtitle":1114,"weather":1115,"__hash__":1120},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F04-the-meyssac-fault.md","The Meyssac Fault",{"type":8,"value":996,"toc":1080},[997,1000,1003,1007,1010,1013,1017,1023,1026,1029,1033,1036,1042,1045,1048,1054,1057,1061,1067,1070,1073,1077],[11,998,994],{"id":999},"the-meyssac-fault",[27,1001,1002],{},"The red drains from the walls within the first half-kilometre. The route drops steeply out of Collonges, forty metres in six hundred, the sharpest descent the stage has produced so far, and by the time the road levels in the valley, the sandstone has given way to something paler and older in a different direction. The cyclist who registered the red and nothing else now watches it give way to white, and realises they have crossed to the other side of a boundary that geologists have been arguing about for a century.",[143,1004,1006],{"id":1005},"the-fault","The fault",[27,1008,1009],{},"The Meyssac fault runs roughly north-south through the communes of Collonges, Meyssac, and Noailhac, and what it separates is not merely two kinds of stone but two intervals of deep time that have no business being neighbours. To the west lie the red sandstones of the Brive basin, Permian and Triassic sediments deposited between three hundred and two hundred and thirty million years ago as the eroding Massif Central shed its debris into a hot, semi-arid lowland; the iron oxides that give the stone its colour are, in effect, the chemical residue of a climate that ceased to exist before the first dinosaur. To the east lie Jurassic limestones, seventy to eighty million years younger, from a period when a shallow sea covered the same ground. The fault, whatever its precise tectonic origins (these remain disputed, which is the geologists' way of saying that nobody has a theory the others will accept), puts these two worlds side by side with the neatness of a museum display and none of the explanatory labelling.",[27,1011,1012],{},"What makes the Meyssac fault unusual is not the geology but the legibility. The boundary is readable in the built environment. West of the fault the villages are red; east of it they are white; and at Meyssac itself, standing directly on the line, both colours appear in the same walls, which is the sort of detail one might invent for a lecture and which happens, in this case, to be true.",[143,1014,1016],{"id":1015},"the-grain-hall","The grain hall",[27,1018,1019],{},[380,1020],{"alt":1021,"src":1022},"Meyssac Halle aux grains","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F6\u002F62\u002FHalle-%C3%A0-grains-%C3%A0-Meyssac-DSC_0817.jpg\u002F1920px-Halle-%C3%A0-grains-%C3%A0-Meyssac-DSC_0817.jpg",[27,1024,1025],{},"The halle aux grains in the centre of Meyssac is the building where the fault becomes, quite literally, architecture. Red sandstone columns, quarried from the Puy de Valege to the west, support a roof of dark Travassac slate on a frame of chestnut timber. Three materials from three geological zones, joined in a single eighteenth-century market building that was designed to store grain and stores, without any evident intention to do so, a lesson in the relationship between what lies underfoot and what gets built on top of it.",[27,1027,1028],{},"The church of Saint-Vincent stands nearby, its bell tower red sandstone and its tympanum carved in white limestone, as though the masons had wished to make the fault legible even to the faithful. The patron saint of winegrowers presides over a town that lost its vineyards to phylloxera in the 1880s and never replanted, which gives the dedication a retrospective irony that the twelfth century could not have foreseen. Meyssac is not Collonges. It is not a museum village or a candidate for anybody's list of the most beautiful anything. It is a working market town where the cattle fair still runs in the square beneath the hall, and where the architecture tells the truth about the ground because nobody saw any reason to make it do otherwise.",[143,1030,1032],{"id":1031},"puy-boubou","Puy Boubou",[27,1034,1035],{},"Beyond Meyssac the road begins to climb, and it does not stop. One hundred and ninety-four metres of elevation gain over four kilometres, at gradients that average four and a half per cent with occasional pitches above seven. This is Puy Boubou, the first categorised climb of the stage, and the landscape changes with the altitude in a manner that is by now predictable in its essentials if not in its details. The open causse gives way to chestnut forest. The walls close in. The light, which has been generous since Collonges, begins to ration itself.",[27,1037,1038],{},[380,1039],{"alt":1040,"src":1041},"Eglise Saint Pierre","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F6\u002F69\u002FNoailhac%2C_Corr%C3%A8ze%2C_%C3%A9glise_Saint-Pierre-%C3%A8s-Liens-PM_18573.jpg",[27,1043,1044],{},"The chestnuts mark the granite. They grow where the soil turns acid, where the limestone ends and the crystalline basement of the Massif Central begins, and their presence on these slopes constitutes the third geological transition the cyclist has crossed in six kilometres: red sandstone to white limestone to granite and chestnut. It is a great deal of earth history for a short afternoon. The chestnut was once the staple crop of this country, l'arbre a pain, the bread tree. By the early eighteenth century, forty per cent of Limousin land was under chestnut forest; the nuts fed the poor when the grain harvest failed, the wood built the roof frames, the husks yielded the iodine.",[27,1046,1047],{},"The old trees were Castanea sativa, the European sweet chestnut, and the varieties had local names: Bourrue, Jalade, Grosse Rouge, Vire-Vent. They grew wild or half-wild, unirrigated, on slopes that suited nothing else, and their flavour was, by all contemporary accounts, very good. What replaced them, after the ink disease and the decades of abandonment, were grafted orchards of a different character entirely. Marigoule, the most widely planted hybrid in France, is a cross between European and Japanese chestnut selected in 1986 from an orchard at Ussac, a few kilometres from the stage start at Malemort. Bouche de Betizac, its commercial partner, was bred at the INRA station at Malemort itself in 1962. Both are grafted onto ink-resistant rootstock. Bouche de Betizac is pollen-sterile, which means a Marigoule must stand nearby in every orchard to do the pollinating, and a Correze chestnut orchard is therefore a collaboration between two varieties that were both invented within sight of the departure line. The old Bourrues and Jalades are still grown, still celebrated at the chestnut festival in Beynat a few kilometres ahead, but the commercial weight has shifted to the hybrids, and the slopes the cyclist climbs through are as much laboratory as landscape.",[27,1049,1050],{},[380,1051],{"alt":1052,"src":1053},"Châtaignier greffé pour produire des châtaignier Vernaise. (grafted chestnut tree)","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F3\u002F39\u002FCh%C3%A2taignier_greff%C3%A9.jpg\u002F960px-Ch%C3%A2taignier_greff%C3%A9.jpg?_=20190717081958",[27,1055,1056],{},"The riders climb through the commune of Collonges-la-Rouge without seeing the village. The administrative boundary extends over this ridge, which means that the most famous red-sandstone village in France technically contains a hillside of chestnut forest and a categorised climb. A medieval viscount would have understood the arrangement perfectly. The land belongs to whoever holds the high ground above it.",[143,1058,1060],{"id":1059},"the-bougnats","The bougnats",[27,1062,1063],{},[380,1064],{"alt":1065,"src":1066},"Bougnat de Paris","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F0\u002F0c\u002FBougnat_de_Paris.JPG",[27,1068,1069],{},"The chestnuts did not last. In the 1880s, the decade that had already taken the vines, a fungal disease called ink disease arrived from the south and began killing the trees. Phytophthora cinnamomi turns the sap black and rots the roots; twenty thousand hectares of chestnut forest were lost within fifty years. The vines and the chestnuts collapsed together, which left the young men of the Correze with a landscape that could no longer feed them and a railway that could take them somewhere else.",[27,1071,1072],{},"They went to Paris. They carried water first, then delivered coal, then sold wine from the same premises, Vins et Charbon painted above the door, the husband hauling sacks up six flights while the wife poured glasses below. The word for them was bougnat, a contraction variously attributed to charbonnier and Auvergnat, though the etymology is contested and in any case the name stuck to people from across the Massif Central, not merely those from the Auvergne. By the middle of the twentieth century the bougnats and their descendants owned more than eighty per cent of the cafes and tabacs in Paris. Les Deux Magots, where Sartre held court. La Coupole, where Hemingway drank. Le Flore, where Beauvoir argued. The literary cafes of the Left Bank were bougnat houses, founded and run by families who had looked at precisely this landscape, these chestnut slopes, these limestone valleys, and concluded that whatever life remained in the country was not enough to hold them. That the Correze thereby furnished Paris with its intellectual infrastructure is an irony the department has learned to bear with a certain wry patience.",[143,1074,1076],{"id":1075},"the-summit","The summit",[27,1078,1079],{},"The road crests at three hundred and eighty-one metres and the country opens. The chestnut forest thins. The sky, which has been screened by branches for the better part of an hour, reasserts itself. Below and behind, the red-and-white corridor of the fault is already invisible, folded into the valley the cyclist has climbed out of. Ahead the terrain is higher, emptier, and less forgiving. The lowlands are finished. What comes next will ask more of the legs than anything the route has asked so far, and the legs, at this point, have not been asked very much.",{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":1081},[1082,1083,1084,1085,1086],{"id":1005,"depth":354,"text":1006},{"id":1015,"depth":354,"text":1016},{"id":1031,"depth":354,"text":1032},{"id":1059,"depth":354,"text":1060},{"id":1075,"depth":354,"text":1076},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-04.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-04.gpx",[1090,1095,1101],{"src":1091,"alt":1092,"author":1093,"authorUrl":1094,"license":731,"licenseUrl":732,"sourceUrl":1094},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fd\u002Fd8\u002FMeyssac_-_%C3%89glise_03.jpg\u002F960px-Meyssac_-_%C3%89glise_03.jpg","Église Saint-Vincent de Meyssac","A1AA1A","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Meyssac_-_%C3%89glise_03.jpg",{"src":1096,"alt":1097,"author":1098,"authorUrl":1099,"license":1100,"licenseUrl":732,"sourceUrl":1099},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F7\u002F70\u002FPan%C3%A8l_Mai%C3%A7ac.jpg\u002F960px-Pan%C3%A8l_Mai%C3%A7ac.jpg","Panèl d'intrada de Maiçac.","GosGroc","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Pan%C3%A8l_Mai%C3%A7ac.jpg","CC0",{"src":1102,"alt":1103,"author":1104,"authorUrl":1105,"license":731,"licenseUrl":732,"sourceUrl":1105},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F9\u002F9a\u002FMeyssac_-_Place_de_la_Halle_-_bo%C3%AEte_%C3%A0_livres.jpg\u002F960px-Meyssac_-_Place_de_la_Halle_-_bo%C3%AEte_%C3%A0_livres.jpg","Boîte à livres à Meyssac","NATHALIE FOURNIER","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Meyssac_-_Place_de_la_Halle_-_bo%C3%AEte_%C3%A0_livres.jpg",28,{"dataCutoff":1108},"2026-04-14","\u002Fentries\u002F04-the-meyssac-fault","2026-04-15",4,{"title":994,"description":1002},"entries\u002F04-the-meyssac-fault","Km 22-28: Red stone to white, Bourrue to Marigoule",{"fetchedAt":1110,"current":1116,"forecast":359},{"temp":1117,"conditions":1118,"wind":1119},11,"Scattered clouds","5 km\u002Fh N","dcdd_McKKMV8VNhcti9yILyHrYymX7qmSsLpvOBT18g",{"id":1122,"title":1123,"body":1124,"description":1131,"draft":358,"elevationData":1205,"extension":360,"gpxFile":1206,"images":1207,"issue":359,"kmEnd":1221,"kmStart":1106,"meta":1222,"navigation":364,"path":1224,"publishDate":1225,"segment":1226,"seo":1227,"special":359,"stem":1228,"subtitle":1229,"weather":1230,"__hash__":1233},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F05-lagleygeolle.md","Past Lagleygeolle",{"type":8,"value":1125,"toc":1202},[1126,1129,1132,1135,1146,1155,1158,1163,1166,1169,1172,1175,1177],[11,1127,1123],{"id":1128},"past-lagleygeolle",[27,1130,1131],{},"In the middle of a Sunday afternoon in July, or an evening in mid-April for our four riders, at the top of a climb that is technically still finishing, the road turns left around a hedge and the forest runs out. This is the summit of Puy Boubou, at four hundred and four metres, a kilometre past the point at which the climb is usually described as over. A rider on a good day would not notice the difference. The difference, on the map, is segment five.",[27,1133,1134],{},"For seven kilometres from here the road descends. Not steeply. A sustained grade of around two per cent, with stretches of four or five, nothing that asks for brakes. The chestnut forest that made the second half of segment four so dark thins within a kilometre and the sky comes back. A little to the west, across an open field, the village of Lagleygeolle sits two hundred metres from the road the Tour is about to take. The Vicomte de Turenne once held the land. A twelfth-century priory stood near where the present church stands now. The village is two hundred and twenty-two inhabitants. The road passes the village to its east and does not stop.",[27,1136,1137,1138,1141,1142,1145],{},"Lagleygeolle is an Occitan name that means \"the small church\", from ",[237,1139,1140],{},"la gleisòla","; the commune is named for the priory that became the church that became the centre of the village. The name passed into French in a Frenchified spelling that no longer looks Occitan, and into the language of cyclists who will see the commune on the road-book and, if they look left at the right kilometre, the ",[237,1143,1144],{},"gleisòla"," itself across the field. The present church, Notre Dame de la Nativité, carries vestiges of the twelfth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries; the bell tower is from 1889. The Tour will cross the commune that contains all of this in a few minutes at racing speed. Lagleygeolle and Meyssac were one commune until 1870, when a long administrative argument finally found its line; the road today crosses that line without noticing.",[15,1147],{"alt":1148,"author":1149,"author-url":1150,"caption":1151,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"source-url":1153,"src":1154},"Église Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité de Lagleygeolle","Conlinp","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Conlinp","The village church the commune is named for: Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité.","https:\u002F\u002Fcreativecommons.org\u002Flicenses\u002Fby-sa\u002F4.0","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:%C3%89glise_de_la_Nativit%C3%A9-de-Notre-Dame_de_Lagleygeolle.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fa\u002Fa2\u002F%C3%89glise_de_la_Nativit%C3%A9-de-Notre-Dame_de_Lagleygeolle.jpg\u002F960px-%C3%89glise_de_la_Nativit%C3%A9-de-Notre-Dame_de_Lagleygeolle.jpg",[27,1156,1157],{},"What the road does meet is a string of hamlets too small for any map a stage-watcher is likely to consult. The names come in order along the descent: Antignac past Lagleygeolle village, Fouilloux halfway down, and then a cluster of them, Cornilloux and Le Planchat and Le Suc and Le Faure, where the road eases toward the Beynat commune line. These are lieux-dits more than villages. A few houses, a farm, a cluster of outbuildings set back from the verge. The Tour will pass dozens of such places on its way to Ussel. Most stages, once they leave the cities, are mostly made of them. A rider on a training day, or a local on a shopping trip from Beynat, registers them the way any country road registers anything: as a change in the hedge, a new roof line, a dog that looks up and then does not bother.",[1159,1160],"street-view-embed",{"caption":1161,"embed-url":1162},"Main intersection at Le Planchat, the hamlet the road passes closest to in segment 5.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1776601427962!6m8!1m7!1s6u5Skg6XBK2JtK0367TOqQ!2m2!1d45.10663522951817!2d1.706948614352781!3f42.52766762728022!4f1.7385706322044712!5f0.7820865974627469",[27,1164,1165],{},"Around kilometre thirty-four, on a stretch that is neither memorable nor forgettable, the road leaves Lagleygeolle for Beynat. The change is invisible. There is no sign, no shift in road surface, no new cast of hedgerow. Beynat village is still more than a kilometre ahead and will not appear in this segment; the chestnut festival there, mentioned in the previous entry, waits another week of writing to arrive.",[27,1167,1168],{},"This is the first stretch of the stage that will feel, in the riding, like a transition rather than an event. The category-three climb is done. The next climb, the Côte de Lagleygeolle, starts two kilometres after segment five ends, and takes its name from the village the road just passed without seeing. The segment between these two climbs is a corridor, not a destination, and a stage is made of both. I find that I do not mind writing about a corridor. A stage with no corridors would be exhausting, and a department with no quiet communes would be smaller than the Corrèze actually is.",[27,1170,1171],{},"The four riders tracking their daily kilometres for this blog will not pass through Lagleygeolle or Beynat. They walk wherever the walking takes them, and the ledger caps their daily distance at two kilometres regardless of where they walked. The commune names do not reach them. Nothing is lost by this. The commune names do not quite reach the pro peloton either; the pro peloton will climb Puy Boubou as a dot on a profile and descend the dot until the next dot. The names on the map belong to the land, not to the race, and most of the time the race is content to borrow the land and give it back.",[27,1173,1174],{},"The descent runs out at kilometre thirty-six, on the Beynat side of an invisible line, short of the village and short of the next climb. The road turns and rises again shortly; it always does. What segment five adds to the accumulation is not a climb or a descent or a village but the small admission that the narrative summit and the actual summit were not the same place, and the smaller observation that most of the kilometres of a long stage pass through land the stage does not see. The Tour crosses more of the Corrèze than it visits, which is part of what stages are for: they are the reason the country gets written about by a blog that would not otherwise have a reason to think about a small-church commune south of Puy Boubou.",[143,1176,146],{"id":145},[148,1178,1179,1193],{},[151,1180,1181,1182,1187,1188],{},"Lagleygeolle commune history, population, and church: ",[34,1183,1186],{"href":1184,"rel":1185,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.charles-de-flahaut.fr\u002Fwordpress\u002Fhistoire-de-lagleygeolle-correze\u002F",[158,159],"Histoire de Lagleygeolle (charles-de-flahaut.fr)",", ",[34,1189,1192],{"href":1190,"rel":1191,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FLagleygeolle",[158,159],"Lagleygeolle (Wikipedia)",[151,1194,1195,1196,1201],{},"Hamlet names and positions along the route (Antignac, Fouilloux, Cornilloux, Le Planchat, Le Suc, Le Faure), and the Lagleygeolle \u002F Beynat commune boundary: ",[34,1197,1200],{"href":1198,"rel":1199,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.openstreetmap.org\u002F",[158,159],"OpenStreetMap",", queried via Overpass API within 4 km of Lagleygeolle village centre.",{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":1203},[1204],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-05.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-05.gpx",[1208,1215],{"src":1209,"alt":1210,"author":1211,"authorUrl":1212,"license":1213,"licenseUrl":1214,"sourceUrl":1212},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F1\u002F19\u002FVache-de-race-limousine-en-correze-2.jpg\u002F960px-Vache-de-race-limousine-en-correze-2.jpg","Vache de race limousine","Koakoo","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Vache-de-race-limousine-en-correze-2.jpg","CC BY-SA 2.5","https:\u002F\u002Fcreativecommons.org\u002Flicenses\u002Fby-sa\u002F2.5",{"src":1216,"alt":1217,"author":1218,"authorUrl":1219,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":1220},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fc\u002Fc4\u002FAnem_%C3%B2c_%21_Per_la_lenga_occitana_%21-2.jpg\u002F960px-Anem_%C3%B2c_%21_Per_la_lenga_occitana_%21-2.jpg","'Anem òc ! Per la lenga occitana !' demonstration for the Occitan language, Toulouse, 2012","Pierre-Selim","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:PierreSelim","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Anem_%C3%B2c_!_Per_la_lenga_occitana_!-2.jpg",36,{"dataCutoff":1223},"2026-04-18","\u002Fentries\u002F05-lagleygeolle","2026-04-19",5,{"title":1123,"description":1131},"entries\u002F05-lagleygeolle","Km 28-36: Down from Puy Boubou, across the commune line, toward the Côte",{"fetchedAt":1225,"current":1231,"forecast":359},{"temp":977,"conditions":626,"wind":1232},"10 km\u002Fh WSW","WDwQP1de4RNnJtT0RRHjtJms_WE6rUgoba8S3kHz9jU",{"id":1235,"title":1236,"body":1237,"description":1507,"draft":358,"elevationData":1508,"extension":360,"gpxFile":1509,"images":1510,"issue":359,"kmEnd":1545,"kmStart":1221,"meta":1546,"navigation":364,"path":1548,"publishDate":1549,"segment":1550,"seo":1551,"special":359,"stem":1552,"subtitle":1553,"weather":1554,"__hash__":1559},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F06-beynat.md","Beynat and the quiet corridor",{"type":8,"value":1238,"toc":1503},[1239,1242,1257,1263,1266,1269,1272,1279,1286,1289,1293,1296,1305,1308,1327,1346,1349,1351,1409],[11,1240,1236],{"id":1241},"beynat-and-the-quiet-corridor",[27,1243,1244,1245,1252,1253,1256],{},"Antoine Blondin",[31,1246,1247],{},[34,1248,41],{"href":1249,"ariaDescribedBy":1250,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":1251},"#user-content-fn-1",[38],"user-content-fnref-1"," covered the Tour de France for ",[237,1254,1255],{},"L'Équipe",", the Paris sports daily, across twenty-seven editions between 1954 and 1982. He made a career out of the segments nobody else wrote about. The corridors between climbs, the stretches where breakaways had already gone or had yet to form, the flat fields where the television cut to advertising: Blondin's columns lived there. He would have recognised the road between kilometre thirty-six and kilometre forty-two.",[1159,1258],{"caption":1259,"embed-url":1260,"attribution":1261,"title-prefix":1262},"A short video of Antoine Blondin.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FMgGoQQmqyj8","Video embedded from YouTube.","Video",[27,1264,1265],{},"Last week's entry ended at the invisible commune line; the road picks up on the Beynat side of it, rises for a short while, crosses the commune along its northern reach, and continues. The village itself sits three kilometres east of where segment six ends; the stage will reach it in the next entry. There is no categorised climb, no hilltop village on the skyline, no cathedral. The road asks nothing much of the rider and the map asks nothing much of the stage-watcher.",[27,1267,1268],{},"A rider forty kilometres into the stage knows what this stretch is for. Between the climb that was and the climb that is coming, the peloton spreads out across the road in a way it does not when the stage is being won or lost. Breakaways have gone or not gone. Sprinters' teams ride tempo. The quiet cyclist, the one who is neither winning nor losing this stage on this stretch, has space to look. To the west, low on the horizon, the limestone country of the causse corrézien is still there, ridden through the Sunday before last, the light off the plateaus lighter than the light over Beynat. The country is the country you left. The road does not return to it; the road crosses the red-sandstone line the Meyssac fault drew last Wednesday and stays east of that line now, in the country of the Tourmente valley and the softer fields that lead up to the Monédières still some hours away.",[27,1270,1271],{},"Beynat, when it arrives, is Beinat in the Occitan that spoke this country before French did. A single word to register, then the road moves on.",[15,1273],{"alt":1274,"author":1275,"author-url":1276,"caption":1277,"license":731,"license-url":732,"source-url":1276,"src":1278},"Place du Champ de Foire, Beynat","AirScott","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Beynat_-_place_du_Champ_de_Foire.jpg","The Place du Champ de Foire, the central square of Beynat village.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F9\u002F90\u002FBeynat_-_place_du_Champ_de_Foire.jpg\u002F960px-Beynat_-_place_du_Champ_de_Foire.jpg",[27,1280,1281,1282,1285],{},"The village sits on the Roanne river, in a dispersed rural habitat of roughly thirteen hundred inhabitants, and has done the unobvious thing of being known for a specific small industry for the better part of three hundred years. Since the mid-eighteenth century Beynat has made ",[237,1283,1284],{},"cabas en paille",", the rye-straw baskets shoppers carried to market when shoppers carried baskets to market, and which in France still connote, for anyone old enough to remember them, a particular kind of unhurried weekly errand. Whether any workshop is still active is the kind of question a half-day visit could answer and a blog cannot. What the road sees of Beynat, on the July day the Tour passes, is none of this: the church of Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens, twelfth-century in its bones and fifteenth in its rebuild; a village square called the Place du Champ de Foire; a bar-tabac or two, the mairie, the tree-shade that small rural communes keep in the centre by habit and by law.",[27,1287,1288],{},"Between kilometre thirty-seven point five seven and kilometre thirty-eight point two six, for six hundred and ninety metres, the road clips the northeast corner of a second commune, Lanteuil, and leaves it again. Lantòl in Occitan. Five hundred and seventeen inhabitants. A church to Saints Côme and Damien. The fifteenth-century core of a village the road does not pass through, a lordship of the Faucault family from the eleventh century on, held for most of its history inside the castellany of Turenne, the same Turenne whose vicomtes shaped most of this country for a thousand years, and whose hilltop the road climbed toward ten days ago. Two Sundays back, the stage was inside Turenne territory without the commune knowing. Today it touches that same old polity at a corner, and leaves without the commune knowing.",[1159,1290],{"caption":1291,"embed-url":1292},"The D14\u002FD921 junction at the northeastern corner of Lanteuil. The stage turns right here; the village centre lies to the left.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1776759226109!6m8!1m7!1sS0RoM4-rPoKAA7j-8naMqw!2m2!1d45.12778409100453!2d1.665100093155768!3f99.84783618450714!4f0.46230620044499915!5f0.7820865974627469",[27,1294,1295],{},"Four kilometres north of the road, invisible behind the hedgerows, Aubazine keeps its twelfth-century silence. The Cistercian abbey, founded in 1135 by Étienne de Vielzot, took in a twelve-year-old orphan named Gabrielle Chanel in 1895. She spent six years under its geometric vaults; later, as a cabaret singer in Moulins, she would call herself Coco. Her biographers have long held that the intertwined lines and crosses of the abbey's stained glass found their way into the monogram she would make the most-reproduced signature of twentieth-century fashion. The stage will not pass it.",[15,1297],{"alt":1298,"author":1299,"author-url":1300,"caption":1301,"license":1302,"license-url":1303,"source-url":1300,"src":1304},"Abbey church and monastery at Aubazine, Corrèze","Babsy","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Eglise_abbatiale_d%27Aubazine-monast%C3%A8re.JPG","The twelfth-century abbey church and monastery at Aubazine, four kilometres north of the stage route.","CC BY 3.0","https:\u002F\u002Fcreativecommons.org\u002Flicenses\u002Fby\u002F3.0\u002F","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fc\u002Fc3\u002FEglise_abbatiale_d%27Aubazine-monast%C3%A8re.JPG\u002F960px-Eglise_abbatiale_d%27Aubazine-monast%C3%A8re.JPG",[27,1306,1307],{},"Our four riders will not see Beynat or Lanteuil either. The ledger of their walking, capped at two kilometres a day, does not know commune lines or castellanies. They make their road by walking it.",[27,1309,1310,1311,1318,1319,1322,1323,1326],{},"The phrase is Antonio Machado's.",[31,1312,1313],{},[34,1314,66],{"href":1315,"ariaDescribedBy":1316,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":1317},"#user-content-fn-2",[38],"user-content-fnref-2"," Machado, the Castilian poet of the Generation of '98 who wrote Spain's plateaus into the national imagination, died in 1939 on this side of the Pyrenees, fleeing. ",[237,1320,1321],{},"Caminante, no hay camino; se hace camino al andar."," You make the road by walking it. The line is from ",[237,1324,1325],{},"Campos de Castilla",", added to the 1917 edition. I come back to it on quiet stretches of road, which is most of them. The Tour passes through country that, most of the time, is just country. What makes the country into a route is the passing.",[27,1328,1329,1330,1337,1338,1341,1342,1345],{},"Roland Barthes argued, in an essay",[31,1331,1332],{},[34,1333,84],{"href":1334,"ariaDescribedBy":1335,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":1336},"#user-content-fn-3",[38],"user-content-fnref-3"," first published in ",[237,1339,1340],{},"Les Lettres nouvelles"," in the summer of 1955 and later collected in ",[237,1343,1344],{},"Mythologies",", that the Tour de France is modern epic: the riders heroes, the terrain antagonist, the race a contest of named forces. The argument comes alive where the terrain is making demands. Here the terrain is asking nothing. The epic waits.",[27,1347,1348],{},"The road rises toward kilometre forty-two. Ahead, the first of the climbs that make up the back half of the stage. The mind gathers, and the riding gets louder again. Corridors end. Most of them end with a climb starting.",[143,1350,146],{"id":145},[148,1352,1353,1369,1377,1385,1399],{},[151,1354,1355,1356,1358,1359,1187,1364],{},"Beynat commune history, population, church, and ",[237,1357,1284],{},": ",[34,1360,1363],{"href":1361,"rel":1362,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FBeynat",[158,159],"Beynat (Wikipedia, French)",[34,1365,1368],{"href":1366,"rel":1367,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002F%C3%89glise_Saint-Pierre-%C3%A8s-Liens_de_Beynat",[158,159],"Église Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens de Beynat",[151,1370,1371,1372],{},"Lanteuil commune history and population: ",[34,1373,1376],{"href":1374,"rel":1375,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FLanteuil",[158,159],"Lanteuil (Wikipedia, French)",[151,1378,1379,1380],{},"Causse corrézien geology: ",[34,1381,1384],{"href":1382,"rel":1383,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FCausse_corr%C3%A9zien",[158,159],"Causse corrézien (Wikipedia, French)",[151,1386,1387,1388,1187,1393,1398],{},"Aubazine Abbey history (founded 1135 by Étienne de Vielzot) and Coco Chanel's six years there (1895-1901): ",[34,1389,1392],{"href":1390,"rel":1391,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FObazine_Abbey",[158,159],"Obazine Abbey (Wikipedia)",[34,1394,1397],{"href":1395,"rel":1396,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.ncregister.com\u002Ffeatures\u002Fabbey-of-aubazine-coco-chanel-s-historical-refuge-soon-to-be-restored",[158,159],"Abbey of Aubazine, Coco Chanel's historical refuge (National Catholic Register)",". The interlocking-C logo attribution is a widely repeated biographer's claim rather than an established fact; the abbey curator describes it as a probable unconscious influence.",[151,1400,1401,1402,1187,1405,1408],{},"Occitan forms (",[237,1403,1404],{},"Beinat",[237,1406,1407],{},"Lantòl",") are taken from the Wikipedia infoboxes of the respective commune pages; these are generally reliable but not a scholarly toponymic source.",[241,1410,1412,1415],{"className":1411,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,1413,249],{"className":1414,"id":38},[248],[251,1416,1417,1445,1481],{},[151,1418,1420,1421,1423,1424,1431,1432,1435,1436,260,1441],{"id":1419},"user-content-fn-1","Antoine Blondin (1922-1991), French novelist associated with the post-war Hussards, and for nearly three decades the house lyricist of the Tour de France at ",[237,1422,1255],{},", where he filed 524 columns across 27 editions of the race between 1954 and 1982. His Tour writing is collected in ",[34,1425,1428],{"href":1426,"rel":1427,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.editionslatableronde.fr\u002Fsur-le-tour-de-france\u002F9782710380139",[158,159],[237,1429,1430],{},"Sur le Tour de France"," (Paris: Hachette Réalités, 1977; since reissued by La Table Ronde). For a non-sport entry point, the novel ",[237,1433,1434],{},"Un singe en hiver"," (La Table Ronde, 1959). See also a short ",[34,1437,1440],{"href":1438,"rel":1439,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fwatch?v=MgGoQQmqyj8",[158,159],"video of Blondin",[34,1442,267],{"href":1443,"ariaLabel":264,"className":1444,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-1",[266],[151,1446,1448,1449,1452,1453,1456,1457,1459,1460,1463,1464,1469,1470,260,1477],{"id":1447},"user-content-fn-2","Antonio Machado (1875-1939), Spanish poet of the Generation of '98, whose spare, meditative verse turned the austere landscapes of Castile into a moral mirror for a country in crisis. He died in Collioure, on the French side of the Pyrenees, in February 1939, days after fleeing Franco's advance with his mother; he is buried in the town cemetery there. The ",[237,1450,1451],{},"caminante"," line is ",[237,1454,1455],{},"Proverbios y cantares"," XXIX, added to ",[237,1458,1325],{}," in the 1917 ",[237,1461,1462],{},"Poesías completas"," edition (Madrid: Editorial Renacimiento, first edition 1912). ",[34,1465,1468],{"href":1466,"rel":1467,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.poetryfoundation.org\u002Fpoets\u002Fantonio-machado",[158,159],"Poetry Foundation profile","; Spanish text of ",[34,1471,1474,1476],{"href":1472,"rel":1473,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fes.wikisource.org\u002Fwiki\u002FCampos_de_Castilla",[158,159],[237,1475,1325],{}," on Wikisource",[34,1478,267],{"href":1479,"ariaLabel":281,"className":1480,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-2",[266],[151,1482,1484,1485,1487,1488,1490,1491,1498,1499],{"id":1483},"user-content-fn-3","Roland Barthes (1915-1980), French literary critic and semiologist, in \"Le Tour de France comme épopée,\" first published in ",[237,1486,1340],{}," in 1955 and collected in ",[237,1489,1344],{}," (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1957). The argument: the Tour's landscape, weather, and named climbs become mythic actors, the riders contemporary heroes in a system of bourgeois myth the essay takes as its subject. See ",[34,1492,1495,1497],{"href":1493,"rel":1494,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMythologies_(book)",[158,159],[237,1496,1344],{}," on Wikipedia"," for publication history and essay list. ",[34,1500,267],{"href":1501,"ariaLabel":296,"className":1502,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-3",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":1504},[1505,1506],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"Antoine Blondin1 covered the Tour de France for L'Équipe, the Paris sports daily, across twenty-seven editions between 1954 and 1982. He made a career out of the segments nobody else wrote about. The corridors between climbs, the stretches where breakaways had already gone or had yet to form, the flat fields where the television cut to advertising: Blondin's columns lived there. He would have recognised the road between kilometre thirty-six and kilometre forty-two.","\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-06.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-06.gpx",[1511,1516,1521,1528,1532,1533,1537,1541],{"src":1512,"alt":1513,"author":1514,"authorUrl":1515,"license":731,"licenseUrl":732,"sourceUrl":1515},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F4\u002F45\u002FVue_a%C3%A9rienne_de_lanteuil.jpg\u002F960px-Vue_a%C3%A9rienne_de_lanteuil.jpg","Aerial view of Lanteuil","Sebcosmic","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Vue_a%C3%A9rienne_de_lanteuil.jpg",{"src":1517,"alt":1518,"author":1519,"authorUrl":1520,"license":966,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":1520},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Ff\u002Ff4\u002FAntonio_Machado_hacia_1917.png\u002F960px-Antonio_Machado_hacia_1917.png","Antonio Machado, c. 1917, frontispiece of Poesías completas","Unknown","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Antonio_Machado_hacia_1917.png",{"src":1522,"alt":1523,"author":1524,"authorUrl":1525,"license":1526,"licenseUrl":1527,"sourceUrl":1525},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F5\u002F57\u002FTumba_de_Antonio_Machado_en_Colliure.jpg\u002F960px-Tumba_de_Antonio_Machado_en_Colliure.jpg","Antonio Machado's grave, Collioure","Hovallef","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Tumba_de_Antonio_Machado_en_Colliure.jpg","CC BY 4.0","https:\u002F\u002Fcreativecommons.org\u002Flicenses\u002Fby\u002F4.0\u002F",{"src":1529,"alt":1530,"author":1519,"authorUrl":1531,"license":966,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":1531},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F3\u002F3f\u002FRoland_Barthes_1969.jpg\u002F960px-Roland_Barthes_1969.jpg","Roland Barthes, 1969 (Dagens Nyheter)","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Roland_Barthes_1969.jpg",{"src":742,"alt":743,"author":736,"authorUrl":744,"license":738,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":744},{"src":1534,"alt":1535,"author":736,"authorUrl":1536,"license":738,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":1536},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F9\u002F98\u002FLanteuil.JPG\u002F500px-Lanteuil.JPG","Lanteuil","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FLanteuil",{"src":1538,"alt":1539,"author":736,"authorUrl":1540,"license":738,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":1540},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F2\u002F22\u002FCoco_Chanel_in_Los_Angeles%2C_1931_%28cropped%29.jpg","Coco Chanel","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FCoco_Chanel",{"src":1542,"alt":1543,"author":736,"authorUrl":1544,"license":738,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":1544},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F6\u002F68\u002FBeynat2.jpg\u002F500px-Beynat2.jpg","Beynat","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FBeynat",42,{"dataCutoff":1547},"2026-04-21","\u002Fentries\u002F06-beynat","2026-04-22",6,{"title":1236,"description":1507},"entries\u002F06-beynat","Km 36-42: Through Beynat, past Lanteuil's corner, toward the first climb of the back half",{"fetchedAt":1549,"current":1555,"forecast":359},{"temp":1556,"conditions":1557,"wind":1558},18,"Overcast clouds","5 km\u002Fh NNE","xeAyT4JRh-O3sg3Fzvbr44PdbhEjPo6Wnd7DwEl3cFQ",{"id":1561,"title":1562,"body":1563,"description":1570,"draft":358,"elevationData":1758,"extension":360,"gpxFile":1759,"images":1760,"issue":359,"kmEnd":1793,"kmStart":1545,"meta":1794,"navigation":364,"path":1796,"publishDate":1797,"segment":1798,"seo":1799,"special":359,"stem":1800,"subtitle":1801,"weather":1802,"__hash__":1806},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F07-road-through-beynat.md","The road through Beynat",{"type":8,"value":1564,"toc":1754},[1565,1568,1571,1574,1578,1581,1588,1607,1616,1623,1626,1628,1721,1723,1728],[11,1566,1562],{"id":1567},"the-road-through-beynat",[27,1569,1570],{},"I take up this week the seventh segment of Stage 9, which begins like the sixth on a climb already begun: the Côte de Lagleygeolle, named for a village the road passed seventeen kilometres ago and finally summiting two kilometres into the present segment, at the modest height of three hundred and ninety-seven metres. I have always thought there is something proper about a climb that does not end where it is named, proper in the sense that the geography of cycling is not, and has never been, identical to the geography of the maps from which the names are drawn, and the Côte de Lagleygeolle is, by that measure, an exemplary climb. After the categorised summit, on which the points are scored, the road continues to rise, in a fashion that goes uncategorised and unscored, for another five kilometres at a moderate gradient toward what will eventually become the Côte de Miel in segment nine. The rider does not get a break.",[27,1572,1573],{},"Two kilometres into the climb, at kilometre 44.16 by my count, a road sign on the left points north toward Brugeilles and the Cabane de la Fée. The Cabane is a Neolithic dolmen, classified historic monument by decree of 24 February 1910 and explored some forty years earlier by Philibert Lalande, founding member of the Société Historique et Archéologique de la Corrèze, whose other excavation reports do not, I confess, much trouble me. He found, when he opened the chamber, gray pottery shards and charcoal. The Neolithic does not always leave more. The chamber itself, gneiss, opening to the east, with an oval coverstone of three metres twenty by two metres fifty, has been overlooking the valley of the Roannelle since rather before any of the place-names involved had any of their present consonants. Two thousand two hundred metres north of the road. The riders will not see it; they will pass under its road sign and climb on.",[1159,1575],{"caption":1576,"embed-url":1577},"The road past the Brugeilles turn-off, looking east toward Beynat and Albussac.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1777213984423!6m8!1m7!1sAOmGwrDIOgLZnT4nNsSCkw!2m2!1d45.12536220242017!2d1.726169806991758!3f102.524294382672!4f0.5779896194385827!5f2.5683298865800186",[27,1579,1580],{},"Of the Neolithic dolmens worth standing in front of in this part of Bas-Limousin, four lie within reasonable reach of today's road: the Cabane itself; the Dolmen de Rochesseux, a few kilometres west in Aubazine; the Dolmen du Puy de la Ramière, some ten kilometres south-west of Beynat in Noailhac; and, further west still and almost at Brive, the Dolmen de la Chassagne in Saint-Cernin-de-Larche. The Cabane is the closest to the present road and, by general consent, the best preserved of the four.",[15,1582],{"alt":1583,"author":1584,"author-url":1585,"caption":1586,"license":21,"license-url":22,"source-url":1585,"src":1587},"Cabane de la Fée dolmen, Brugeilles, Beynat","Christophenoelneuffr","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Dolmen_dit_La_Cabane_de_la_F%C3%A9e.JPG","The Cabane de la Fée at Brugeilles. Classified historic monument, 24 February 1910.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F3\u002F31\u002FDolmen_dit_La_Cabane_de_la_F%C3%A9e.JPG\u002F960px-Dolmen_dit_La_Cabane_de_la_F%C3%A9e.JPG",[27,1589,1590,1591,1594,1595,1598,1599,1602,1603,1606],{},"Beynat itself, the village proper, arrives at kilometre 46.23, seventy-four metres from the road. I described, last week, the approach to Beynat through Lanteuil's corner, and I will not rehearse it; the road today reaches the village. The chestnut festival mentioned then arrives at this kilometre in October each year. The dolmen above is older than the village by some four thousand years, and the village is older than the language under which it is presently administered by a margin I have never seen attempted. Beynat in Limousin Occitan is Beinat. Albussac, the next commune east, ahead at kilometre fifty, is Albuçac; the cedilla preserves the ",[237,1592,1593],{},"Albuciacus"," first attested in 861. The dialect that would call these places by these names is one of six varieties of Occitan, the language half of medieval France actually spoke and that Dante named ",[237,1596,1597],{},"lingua d'oc"," in his ",[237,1600,1601],{},"De vulgari eloquentia",", one of three Romance literary languages identified by their words for ",[237,1604,1605],{},"yes",": òc, sì, oïl. The Limousin variety once carried particular literary weight. Today the language is critically endangered, spoken by an aging minority across a geography that includes the road the riders are climbing. The names on the signs are the residue of a tongue that once organised the country differently.",[27,1608,1609,1610,1615],{},"There is, as it happens, a son of Beynat who became, by considerably more travelling than the village has ever done collectively, a saint of the Catholic Church. Pierre-Rose-Ursule Dumoulin-Borie was born on 20 February 1808, the sixth of twelve children of Guillaume Borie and Rose Labrunie, in Beynat itself. He took orders at Bayeux in 1830, sailed for Macao in 1831 (reaching it on 18 July of that year), and was smuggled by Chinese vessel to the South Tonkin mission in what is now Vietnam, where the Nguyễn dynasty was at the moment of his arrival in the middle of one of its periodic persecutions of Christians. He was named titular bishop of Acanthus on 30 January 1836, and learned of the appointment, as such news will sometimes reach a man, in prison. He was beheaded in Tonkin on 24 November 1838. Pope Leo XIII beatified him in 1900; Pope John Paul II canonised him in 1988 alongside one hundred and sixteen other Vietnamese Martyrs.",[31,1611,1612],{},[34,1613,41],{"href":1249,"ariaDescribedBy":1614,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":1251},[38]," His remains, exhumed eleven months after his death, today rest at the Missions Étrangères de Paris, in the seventh arrondissement, a building Borie himself never saw. The world does not always come back to people in the order they leave it.",[15,1617],{"alt":1618,"author":1619,"author-url":1620,"caption":1621,"license":21,"license-url":22,"source-url":1620,"src":1622},"Mid-19th-century painting of Pierre Dumoulin-Borie at the Missions Étrangères de Paris","PHGCOM","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Pierre_Borie_MEP.jpg","Pierre Dumoulin-Borie, mid-19th-century painting at the Missions Étrangères de Paris, rue du Bac.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fb\u002Fb0\u002FPierre_Borie_MEP.jpg",[27,1624,1625],{},"The road continues to climb through Beynat and on toward the boundary with Albussac at kilometre fifty, where a hamlet called Les Quatre-Routes marks the next change of commune and the segment's end. Ahead, in segment eight, a twelfth-century Templar commandery sits four kilometres off the road in the same Albussac commune; the riders will not see that either. Roland Barthes, writing about the Tour in the summer of 1955, called the race a modern epic. I have always thought he was right in the spirit and a little high in the register; the epic is what the race becomes at the climbs that ask. Here the climbing is climbing, but the asking has not yet started in earnest. The categorised summit was the road clearing its throat. The mind, on the long pull through Beynat, is free to register what arrives: a dolmen older than every other thing in the segment, a village whose son took two centuries to come back, a language under which all of this was once spoken, and largely still is, by aging speakers along the road. The road climbs through three different distances at once.",[143,1627,146],{"id":145},[148,1629,1630,1648,1666,1673,1686,1697,1712],{},[151,1631,1632,1633,162,1638,162,1643,168],{},"Cabane de la Fée listing, dimensions, and excavation: ",[34,1634,1637],{"href":1635,"rel":1636,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fpop.culture.gouv.fr\u002Fnotice\u002Fmerimee\u002FPA00099684",[158,159],"Mérimée notice PA00099684 (Ministère de la Culture)",[34,1639,1642],{"href":1640,"rel":1641,"target":160},"http:\u002F\u002Fwww.t4t35.fr\u002FMegalithes\u002FAfficheSite.aspx?NumSite=9507",[158,159],"T4T35 megaliths database",[34,1644,1647],{"href":1645,"rel":1646,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.persee.fr\u002Fdoc\u002Fbspf_0249-7638_1905_num_2_3_11344",[158,159],"\"Le dolmen de Brugeilles\" (Persée, Bulletin de la Société préhistorique de France, 1905)",[151,1649,1650,1651,162,1656,162,1661,168],{},"Other Bas-Limousin dolmens: ",[34,1652,1655],{"href":1653,"rel":1654,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FDolmen_de_la_Chassagne",[158,159],"Dolmen de la Chassagne (Wikipédia)",[34,1657,1660],{"href":1658,"rel":1659,"target":160},"http:\u002F\u002Fwww.t4t35.fr\u002FMegalithes\u002FAfficheSite.aspx?NumSite=11312",[158,159],"Dolmen de Rochesseux (T4T35)",[34,1662,1665],{"href":1663,"rel":1664,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fnoailhacpatrimoine.fr\u002Fnotre-patrimoine\u002Fle-dolmen-du-puy-de-la-ramiere",[158,159],"Dolmen du Puy de la Ramière (Noailhac Patrimoine)",[151,1667,1668,1669,168],{},"Beynat history and demographics: ",[34,1670,1672],{"href":1544,"rel":1671,"target":160},[158,159],"Beynat (Wikipedia)",[151,1674,1675,1676,162,1681,168],{},"Pierre Dumoulin-Borie biography and canonisation: ",[34,1677,1680],{"href":1678,"rel":1679,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FPierre_Dumoulin-Borie",[158,159],"Pierre Dumoulin-Borie (Wikipedia)",[34,1682,1685],{"href":1683,"rel":1684,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Firfa.paris\u002Fen\u002Fmissionnaire\u002F0386-dumoulin-borie-pierre\u002F",[158,159],"IRFA, Missions Étrangères de Paris (entry 0386)",[151,1687,1688,1689,1691,1692,168],{},"Albussac etymology and ",[237,1690,1593],{}," (861): ",[34,1693,1696],{"href":1694,"rel":1695,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FAlbussac",[158,159],"Albussac (Wikipedia)",[151,1698,1699,1700,1358,1702,162,1707,168],{},"Occitan and Dante's ",[237,1701,1601],{},[34,1703,1706],{"href":1704,"rel":1705,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FOccitan_language",[158,159],"Occitan language (Wikipedia)",[34,1708,1711],{"href":1709,"rel":1710,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.dantepoliglotta.it\u002Fintroduction-occitan\u002F",[158,159],"Dante and Occitan (Dante Poliglotta)",[151,1713,1714,1715,1717,1718,1720],{},"Roland Barthes, \"Le Tour de France comme épopée,\" in ",[237,1716,1340],{}," (Summer 1955), collected in ",[237,1719,1344],{}," (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1957).",[232,1722],{},[27,1724,1725],{},[237,1726,1727],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.7. Voice register: saintsbury-modern (registers-framework).",[241,1729,1731,1734],{"className":1730,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,1732,249],{"className":1733,"id":38},[248],[251,1735,1736],{},[151,1737,1738,1739,1742,1743,1746,1747,1750,1751],{"id":1419},"Adrien Launay's three-volume ",[237,1740,1741],{},"Mémorial de la Société des Missions-Étrangères"," (Paris: Téqui, 1912-1916) is the canonical biographical source for the French missionaries of this period, including Borie; for English-language readers the ",[237,1744,1745],{},"Catholic Encyclopedia"," entry (now on New Advent) and the IRFA online catalogue (entry 0386) are accessible summaries. The canonisation appears in ",[237,1748,1749],{},"Acta Apostolicae Sedis"," 80 (1988); Pope John Paul II's homily of 19 June 1988 is on the Vatican website. ",[34,1752,267],{"href":1443,"ariaLabel":264,"className":1753,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":1755},[1756,1757],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-07.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-07.gpx",[1761,1763,1767,1772,1777,1781,1788],{"src":1587,"alt":1762,"author":1584,"authorUrl":1585,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":1585},"Cabane de la Fée dolmen, Brugeilles, Beynat (Corrèze)",{"src":1764,"alt":1765,"author":961,"authorUrl":1766,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":1766},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fc\u002Fc0\u002FAubazines_dolmen_Rochesseux.JPG\u002F960px-Aubazines_dolmen_Rochesseux.JPG","Dolmen de Rochesseux, Aubazine (Corrèze)","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Aubazines_dolmen_Rochesseux.JPG",{"src":1768,"alt":1769,"author":1770,"authorUrl":1771,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":1771},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F8\u002F8c\u002FSaint-Cernin-de-Larche_-_Dolmen_de_la_Chassagne_01.JPG\u002F960px-Saint-Cernin-de-Larche_-_Dolmen_de_la_Chassagne_01.JPG","Dolmen de la Chassagne on its burial mound, Saint-Cernin-de-Larche (Corrèze)","Pymouss","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Saint-Cernin-de-Larche_-_Dolmen_de_la_Chassagne_01.JPG",{"src":1773,"alt":1774,"author":1775,"authorUrl":1776,"license":966,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":1776},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F5\u002F54\u002FPierre_Dumoulin_Borie%2C_PA04776.jpg","Lithograph portrait of Pierre Dumoulin-Borie, c. 1838-1900","Unknown 19th-century lithographer","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Pierre_Dumoulin_Borie,_PA04776.jpg",{"src":1778,"alt":1779,"author":1275,"authorUrl":1780,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":1780},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F5\u002F5f\u002FBeynat_-_vue_vers_le_nord_depuis_le_centre_bourg.jpg\u002F960px-Beynat_-_vue_vers_le_nord_depuis_le_centre_bourg.jpg","View north from Beynat town centre","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Beynat_-_vue_vers_le_nord_depuis_le_centre_bourg.jpg",{"src":1782,"alt":1783,"author":1784,"authorUrl":1785,"license":1786,"licenseUrl":1787,"sourceUrl":1785},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fe\u002Fe7\u002FBeynat1.jpg\u002F960px-Beynat1.jpg","Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens church, Beynat","Wester","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Beynat1.jpg","CC BY 2.5","https:\u002F\u002Fcreativecommons.org\u002Flicenses\u002Fby\u002F2.5",{"src":1789,"alt":1790,"author":1791,"authorUrl":1792,"license":966,"licenseUrl":359,"sourceUrl":1792},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fb\u002Fb7\u002FGeorge_Saintsbury_Lafayette.jpg","George Saintsbury (1845-1933), c. 1910, in whose modern register this entry is written","James Lafayette","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:George_Saintsbury_Lafayette.jpg",50,{"dataCutoff":1795},"2026-04-25","\u002Fentries\u002F07-road-through-beynat","2026-04-26",7,{"title":1562,"description":1570},"entries\u002F07-road-through-beynat","Km 42-50: Past the Lagleygeolle summit, through Beynat, on toward Albussac",{"fetchedAt":1797,"current":1803,"forecast":359},{"temp":977,"conditions":1804,"wind":1805},"Few clouds","9 km\u002Fh WNW","0Nj9R9rKK2RxvqUemaPuBvjMRnzADx_C5rZDJvCrlUA",{"id":1808,"title":1809,"body":1810,"description":1817,"draft":358,"elevationData":1921,"extension":360,"gpxFile":1922,"images":1923,"issue":359,"kmEnd":1939,"kmStart":1793,"meta":1940,"navigation":364,"path":1942,"publishDate":1943,"segment":613,"seo":1944,"special":359,"stem":1945,"subtitle":1946,"weather":1947,"__hash__":1952},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F08-cote-de-miel.md","Côte de Miel",{"type":8,"value":1811,"toc":1918},[1812,1815,1818,1825,1828,1831,1834,1837,1840,1843,1847,1854,1857,1859,1911,1913],[11,1813,1809],{"id":1814},"côte-de-miel",[27,1816,1817],{},"By kilometre fifty the road has reached the kind of country that does not, on first acquaintance, declare itself. The hamlet of Les Quatre-Routes marks the change of commune from Beynat to Albussac, and the road, having climbed in earnest through the previous segment, settles into something more equivocal: a long pull at three or four per cent over a country of mixed pasture and beech-and-oak woodland, the hedges thinning where the fields have been enlarged and thickening again where they have not. The elevation profile of the next six kilometres rises from four hundred and ninety-eight metres to a maximum of five hundred and sixty-eight and falls back to five hundred and forty-two by segment's end. It is, in net, a climb of forty-four metres over six kilometres. The Tour's organisers have given it a name and a category, and the cyclist with a head for these things will note that the name belongs to a lake the road does not pass and the category, fourth at most and possibly nothing, belongs to the part of the stage in which a breakaway is expected to form rather than the part in which the race is decided.",[27,1819,1820,1821,1824],{},"The Côte de Miel runs six and a half kilometres at three point nine per cent. ",[237,1822,1823],{},"Cyclingstage.com",", which is professionally undeceived about these things, calls the climb \"a platform for the break to establish itself\", which is the sort of remark that translates, in the actual mechanics of a stage race, into eight or ten riders agreeing in real time to go up the road together and the peloton agreeing, equally in real time, to let them. None of this is decisive. The decisive climbing of the day lies an hour ahead. What this segment offers, in cycling terms, is the conditions under which the day's narrative gets written: a gradient gentle enough to permit conversation, sustained enough to enforce it.",[27,1826,1827],{},"By the twenty-sixth of April all four riders had, for the first time in the project's run, walked an average of two kilometres or more on every previous day taken together: the threshold beyond which the daily cap stops rewarding additional distance. The effect is a kind of levelling. At fifty kilometres of capped progress, just over a quarter of the way to Ussel, the four are level on the only number that ranks them, though Justin's uncapped daily average runs at four point seven kilometres and Wally's just above two. Marian's single longest day, at nine point one kilometres, is the high mark of the project to date. The projections, computed from the capped numbers alone, finish them at Ussel on the third of July, nine days before the real peloton arrives on the twelfth.",[27,1829,1830],{},"By the twenty-eighth of April the levelling has held. The four stand together at fifty-six capped kilometres apiece, just under a third of the way to Ussel, and the projected finish date, computed from the capped numbers alone, holds at the third of July, nine days before the peloton arrives. The uncapped numbers, which do not rank the riders, have moved. Justin's recent five-day average is 5.27km a day, his project longest day eight and a half; Marian's 9.1, set on the fourteenth, remains the high mark of the run; Nan's recent five-day average is 4.4; Wally's, 3.26. The cap is still the great equaliser.",[27,1832,1833],{},"The geology has changed under the wheels and the riders, attending to gradient and wind, will not have noticed. Until the Meyssac fault, four segments back, the road ran on Permian and Triassic sandstones, the red of Collonges drained from the walls within half a kilometre. From the fault to roughly the previous segment's summit it ran on Jurassic limestones, the white country of Beynat and Lanteuil. Here the limestones too are gone. The road is now on the crystalline basement of the Massif Central, the Variscan granitoids and micaschists laid down some three hundred million years ago when the collision of two supercontinents threw up a mountain range to rival the present Himalaya. Almost everything that has happened since, geologically, has been the slow business of taking that range apart. What the riders are climbing through is the worn-down core of it. The remainder of Stage 9 to Ussel will be ridden on these rocks. The lowland sediments of the Brive basin are finished for the day.",[27,1835,1836],{},"The stone itself does not advertise its identity at this gradient and this speed. There is no road cut to read. What the riders see, if they see, is the change of country that crystalline basement supports: heavier soils where the granite has weathered, chestnut and beech in preference to the oak-and-walnut hedgerows of the limestone, and the small straight-walled granite barns that have replaced the dressed-limestone byres of the segments behind. Rural vernacular is the petrology of the patient observer.",[27,1838,1839],{},"A few kilometres into the segment the road passes, off to the east, a sign the riders will not turn aside for. Four kilometres east, in the same Albussac commune, on a small wooded hill near a stream that feeds the Cascades de Murel, stand the ruins of the Commanderie de Puy de Noix. The commandery is first documented in 1291, though the buildings may be older; it was a Templar property until the suppression of the order at the Council of Vienne on 22 March 1312, and passed shortly afterward to the Hospitallers of Saint John, who held it until the Revolution. Its last Templar commander, Raynaud de Bort, had been received into the order around 1276 by his uncle Franco, a major Limousin Templar who served as commander of Aquitaine, then of Provence, then of Auvergne and Limousin, in successive postings between 1261 and 1289. Raynaud was commandeur of Puy de Noix in 1307, the year Philippe le Bel's commissioners moved on the Templars across France. What became of him personally is among the things the available materials do not say.",[27,1841,1842],{},"What survives, on the wooded hill, are vestiges and broken walls and the ruin of a chapel dedicated to Saint Jean-Baptiste, an annex once of the parish of Beynat. The Beynat commune signposts the site as the Espace historique de Puy de Noix, and a footpath, the GR de pays, will take a walker there from the road in something under an hour. Four thousand two hundred and sixty-five metres east of the race route, by the only measurement that matters today. The Tour will not turn aside. There is a kind of medieval France that survives in the form of a white sign at a junction, and the bicycle, at racing speed, is not the vehicle that reads white signs.",[1159,1844],{"caption":1845,"embed-url":1846},"A junction on the route in Albussac. The white sign points east toward the Commanderie de Puy de Noix, four kilometres away.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1777537287857!6m8!1m7!1sr4XBs9UVmleLC_JDCdW0Gw!2m2!1d45.15883277566768!2d1.757948272556571!3f189.78194953495043!4f5.291902308263886!5f2.318119078313677",[27,1848,1849,1850,1853],{},"The lake the climb is named for, Lac de Miel, sits at five hundred and twenty metres in the Beynat commune, surrounded by the Hameaux de Miel and the campsite that will not appear in any race coverage. ",[237,1851,1852],{},"Miel"," is the modern French word for honey. Whether the toponym derives from the substance, or from a mediaeval place-name that found its way to that spelling for unrelated reasons, is a question on which the available sources are silent and the cyclist will not pause to settle.",[27,1855,1856],{},"By kilometre fifty-six the road has crested its small high point and begun a gentle decline toward the kilometre that, in the segment ahead, will commit it to the descent into Tulle. None of that is yet evident. The country is open, the wind from the west, the granitic underlay continuing in its discreet way to support the broom and the bracken and the small road. The next decision belongs to a country the road has not yet entered.",[143,1858,146],{"id":145},[148,1860,1861,1869,1877,1885,1898],{},[151,1862,1863,1864,168],{},"Côte de Miel categorisation and stage role: ",[34,1865,1868],{"href":1866,"rel":1867,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.cyclingstage.com\u002Ftour-de-france-2026-route\u002Fstage-9-tdf-2026\u002F",[158,159],"Cyclingstage.com, Tour de France 2026 Stage 9",[151,1870,1871,1872,168],{},"Lac de Miel altitude: ",[34,1873,1876],{"href":1874,"rel":1875,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.hameauxdemiel.com\u002Fen\u002Fhome\u002F",[158,159],"Camping Hameaux de Miel",[151,1878,1879,1880,168],{},"Massif Central crystalline basement: ",[34,1881,1884],{"href":1882,"rel":1883,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FG%C3%A9ologie_du_Limousin",[158,159],"Géologie du Limousin (Wikipédia)",[151,1886,1887,1888,162,1893,168],{},"Commanderie de Puy de Noix, Raynaud and Franco de Bort, Templar suppression: ",[34,1889,1892],{"href":1890,"rel":1891,"target":160},"http:\u002F\u002Fwww.templiers.net\u002Fhospitaliers-saint-jean\u002Fcommanderies\u002Findex.php?page=Puy_de_Noix",[158,159],"Templiers.net, Commanderie du Puy de Noix",[34,1894,1897],{"href":1895,"rel":1896,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FListe_des_commanderies_templi%C3%A8res_en_Corr%C3%A8ze",[158,159],"Liste des commanderies templières en Corrèze (Wikipédia)",[151,1899,1900,1901,162,1906,168],{},"Espace historique de Puy de Noix and the GR de pays footpath: ",[34,1902,1905],{"href":1903,"rel":1904,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.beynat.fr\u002Fdecouvrir\u002F8806",[158,159],"Beynat: Espace historique de Puy de Noix",[34,1907,1910],{"href":1908,"rel":1909,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.guide-de-la-correze.com\u002Fen\u002Ftourism\u002Fdiscover\u002Fhiking-itineraries\u002Fbeynat-2\u002Fle-territoire-de-l-ancienne-commanderie-de-puy-de-noix-232.html",[158,159],"Guide de la Corrèze: Le territoire de l'ancienne Commanderie de Puy de Noix",[232,1912],{},[27,1914,1915],{},[237,1916,1917],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.7. Voice register: tls-essay (registers-framework).",{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":1919},[1920],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-08.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-08.gpx",[1924,1929,1935],{"src":1925,"alt":1926,"author":1927,"authorUrl":1928,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":1928},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F6\u002F65\u002FLa_Franche_Valeine_aux_cascades_de_Murel.jpg\u002F960px-La_Franche_Valeine_aux_cascades_de_Murel.jpg","La Franche Valeine descending the Cascades de Murel, Albussac (Corrèze)","Avocat jean","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:La_Franche_Valeine_aux_cascades_de_Murel.jpg",{"src":1930,"alt":1931,"author":1932,"authorUrl":1933,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":1934},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F00\u002FRoute_des_H%C3%AAtres%2C_Puy_de_Noix.jpg\u002F960px-Route_des_H%C3%AAtres%2C_Puy_de_Noix.jpg","Route des Hêtres near Puy de Noix, Beynat (Corrèze) — diverted portion of the former RN 140","Lucas Destrem","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:LucasD","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Route_des_H%C3%AAtres,_Puy_de_Noix.jpg",{"src":1936,"alt":1937,"author":1275,"authorUrl":1938,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":1938},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fa\u002Fa1\u002FBeynat_-_mont%C3%A9e_de_la_place_du_Champ_de_Foire.jpg\u002F960px-Beynat_-_mont%C3%A9e_de_la_place_du_Champ_de_Foire.jpg","Climb to the place du Champ de Foire, Beynat — the seg 8 narrative opens just east at the Les Quatre-Routes commune boundary","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Beynat_-_mont%C3%A9e_de_la_place_du_Champ_de_Foire.jpg",56,{"dataCutoff":1941},"2026-04-28","\u002Fentries\u002F08-cote-de-miel","2026-04-29",{"title":1809,"description":1817},"entries\u002F08-cote-de-miel","Km 50-56: Across the plateau, past a ruin the riders will not see",{"fetchedAt":1948,"current":1949,"forecast":359},"2026-04-30",{"temp":1950,"conditions":1557,"wind":1951},16,"5 km\u002Fh SW","U15lHriyla3CJ1iph5NeaRGXp5uPuWD2NOlyRQoIaRQ",{"id":1954,"title":1955,"body":1956,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":2164,"extension":360,"gpxFile":2165,"images":2166,"issue":359,"kmEnd":2180,"kmStart":1939,"meta":2181,"navigation":364,"path":2183,"publishDate":2184,"segment":988,"seo":2185,"special":359,"stem":2186,"subtitle":2187,"weather":2188,"__hash__":2192},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F09-descent-to-the-correze-valley.md","Descent to the Correze Valley",{"type":8,"value":1957,"toc":2160},[1958,1965,1968,1971,1992,2001,2010,2013,2021,2029,2032,2035,2039,2042,2045,2048,2051,2054,2061,2063,2133,2135,2139],[15,1959],{"alt":1960,"author":1961,"author-url":1962,"license":21,"license-url":22,"source-url":1963,"src":1964},"Tulle, in the Corrèze valley","Pascalou petit \u002F Inkey (banner)","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Pascalou_petit","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Tulle_banner.JPG","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F7\u002F71\u002FTulle_banner.JPG\u002F1280px-Tulle_banner.JPG",[11,1966,1955],{"id":1967},"descent-to-the-correze-valley",[27,1969,1970],{},"By the early afternoon, where the road comes off the plateau and the woods on either side begin to thicken against it, the gradient changed. It did so without ceremony, in the way the gradients of plateau roads do, by failing first to climb any further and then failing to stay level. Two hundred and fifty-two metres of elevation lost over the next eight kilometres, against twenty-one regained: a sustained three per cent, the steady-tilting kind rather than the spectacular. The country here is wooded and farmed in roughly equal parts, neither giving way to the other for long. The descent had its own weather, in the small way that descents do: a coolness off the river that arrived before the river did.",[27,1972,1973,1974,1979,1980,1985,1986,1991],{},"The basement under all this is the same one that surfaced in the previous segment: Variscan ",[34,1975,1978],{"href":1976,"rel":1977,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FGranitoid",[158,159],"granitoids"," and ",[34,1981,1984],{"href":1982,"rel":1983,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMica_schist",[158,159],"micaschists",", shouldered up some three hundred million years ago in the Hercynian collision. The continents involved would later separate into western Europe and North America. The road no longer runs across that basement; it cuts down into it, by way of valleys the rivers spent the intervening epochs carving. ",[34,1987,1990],{"href":1988,"rel":1989,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FCorr%C3%A8ze_(river)",[158,159],"The Corrèze"," has been at this work patiently. Tulle, ahead in the next segment, occupies one of the narrower stretches of the gorge the river has so far managed.",[27,1993,1994,1995,2000],{},"The road's lineage on this stretch is older than the asphalt. A Gallo-Roman network ran through here, and the commune sits on one of its traces; the local historian Jean-Marie Courteix, who has spent forty-five years on the village's archaeology, calls it part of a route from Armorica to the Mediterranean.",[31,1996,1997],{},[34,1998,41],{"href":1249,"ariaDescribedBy":1999,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":1251},[38]," The sanctuary at Tintignac, two segments ahead, is the more famous remnant the route will meet.",[27,2002,2003,2004,2009],{},"A little less than halfway through, the road meets Sainte-Fortunade. One thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight people lived there at the last count, about nine kilometres south of Tulle by road. The village has a square, a ",[34,2005,2008],{"href":2006,"rel":2007,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.frenchentree.com\u002Fliving-in-france\u002Flocal-life\u002Fthe-role-of-the-mairie-in-france\u002F",[158,159],"mairie"," housed in a fifteenth-century château, and a parish church older still that holds a bone fragment of its eponymous saint. The story of how the bone arrived is the kind that survives because it is too specific to invent.",[27,2011,2012],{},"In the year 894, a man said to be her brother was carrying Fortunade's remains north through the Limousin toward Autun in Burgundy, where she had been born, sent by the Duke of Gascony to put the relics out of reach of the Norse. Fortunade had been martyred near Agen in the third century; her remains had been kept since by a community no longer safe to keep them. The brother stopped to rest near the fontaine de Chabrignac, on what is now the village's eastern edge, where a chapel still stands above the spring; its waters were once held to cure childhood illnesses. In the morning, when he tried to lift the sack, he could not. The local population, reading providence in the matter, took the relics into the parish church and renamed the place. It had been called Saint-Martial-le-Noir until that morning. It has been Sainte-Fortunade since.",[27,2014,489,2015,2020],{},[34,2016,2019],{"href":2017,"rel":2018,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.liturgicalartsjournal.com\u002F2021\u002F03\u002Fthe-reliquary-bust.html",[158,159],"reliquary bust",", dated 1405 on the base, made to hold the bone, sits in the church still. It is small and ornamented and carries the saint's face in the abstract way that reliquaries of the period do, which is to say not as a portrait but as a kind of receipt. Eleven hundred and thirty-two years separate the morning the brother could not lift the sack from the morning the riders pass through; the name has held across all of them, the spring is in the same place, the bone is in the church, and for the last six centuries the bust has held the bone. Continuity of this duration is rare anywhere, rarer still in a country whose form of government has been repeatedly remade since the Revolution. The riders, however, will not be pausing. They will descend through the village in something under a minute.",[15,2022],{"alt":2023,"author":2024,"author-url":2025,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"source-url":2026,"src":2027,"caption":2028},"Église Saint-Martial de Sainte-Fortunade","Marianne Casamance","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Marianne_Casamance","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:02-26_Sainte_Fortunade_-_%C3%A9glise_3.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F9\u002F94\u002F02-26_Sainte_Fortunade_-_%C3%A9glise_3.jpg\u002F960px-02-26_Sainte_Fortunade_-_%C3%A9glise_3.jpg","Église Saint-Martial de Sainte-Fortunade. The reliquary bust has held the bone for around six centuries.",[27,2030,2031],{},"The château that now houses the mairie sits on what may be an earlier feudal motte at the village's edge. Built in the fifteenth century, remodelled in the nineteenth, bought by the commune in 1952 and put to municipal duty since, it retains a round tower. From the road called the rue du Barry Bas, near the route, the tower is briefly visible through the trees on the left.",[27,2033,2034],{},"Past the church wall, the road comes to a junction. The signposts have it in from Les Quatre-Routes and Beynat, and going on to Tulle.",[1159,2036],{"caption":2037,"embed-url":2038},"The junction by the church in Sainte-Fortunade. The route arrives from Les Quatre-Routes and Beynat to the south and continues toward Tulle.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1777740477066!6m8!1m7!1sCAoSFkNJSE0wb2dLRUlDQWdJRGFxWWVaYmc.!2m2!1d45.20732620507727!2d1.770926378717151!3f43.29044934146662!4f5.028452216905237!5f1.5975802834955743",[27,2040,2041],{},"This department, the Corrèze, is full of small infrastructural second acts of this kind. East of here in the Xaintrie, a fromagerie ages its Pavé Corrézien in a former railway tunnel — built for one of the rural lines that did not survive the mid-twentieth century's road competition (most of the Corrèze's regional rail closed between the 1930s and 1970), eventually given over to the cheesemakers, for whom its constant temperature and humidity had been a feature all along. Tunnels become cellars, viaducts become cycle paths, station buildings become tourist offices. The route does not pass it; the pattern does.",[27,2043,2044],{},"After Sainte-Fortunade the road continues to drop, the woods thicken, the gradient steadies, and somewhere ahead and out of sight the river gathers itself. The valley arrives by implication before it arrives by sight. The trees on the right begin to give way; the air, even in late spring, takes on the slight coolness of damp ground; the road, which has been running on a slope, finds itself running at the foot of one. By the segment's end the elevation is three hundred and eight metres, more than two hundred lower than at the start, and the surrounding hills are no longer hills the road is on but hills the road is between. Tulle is not yet in view. What is in view is the shape of the country into which Tulle has had to fit.",[27,2046,2047],{},"Meanwhile, on the project's slower clock: the four amateur riders simulating the stage one cycling day at a time are bunched at the daily cap. Justin, Marian, and Wally are at sixty-four kilometres of the route's hundred and eighty-five — exactly two a day, the cap, every day. Nan sits at sixty-three point two, behind the others by less than a rest day. The April that produced these numbers was not the same April for any of them: Marian's longest day was nine point one kilometres, Wally's was four point four, and the totals came out within a kilometre of each other anyway. All four project a finish by the fourth of July, before stage 9 happens in the Tour.",[27,2049,2050],{},"The peloton will arrive in the city in the next segment. What it has descended through in this one is, in effect, the approach: the geological fact of the basement narrowing into a gorge, the human fact of a small commune that has kept a saint and her name for a thousand years, the agricultural fact of cheese in a tunnel that used to carry trains. None of these will reach the television feed. The riders will simply have come down off the plateau and into the river valley, in the way pelotons do, and the commentary will already be turning toward the city.",[27,2052,2053],{},"The road, as it happens, has been turning that way for some time.",[15,2055],{"alt":2056,"author":2057,"author-url":2058,"license":21,"license-url":22,"source-url":2058,"src":2059,"caption":2060},"Tulle theatre at the river, evening","Gilles Guillamot","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Tulle_-_panoramio.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F8\u002F82\u002FTulle_-_panoramio.jpg\u002F1280px-Tulle_-_panoramio.jpg","Tulle in the evening, by the Corrèze. The riders descend into the city in the next segment.",[143,2062,146],{"id":145},[148,2064,2065,2078,2090,2098,2111,2125],{},[151,2066,2067,2068,162,2073,168],{},"Sainte-Fortunade church, reliquary, and 894 translation: ",[34,2069,2072],{"href":2070,"rel":2071,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002F%C3%89glise_Saint-Martial_de_Sainte-Fortunade",[158,159],"Église Saint-Martial de Sainte-Fortunade (Wikipédia)",[34,2074,2077],{"href":2075,"rel":2076,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fnominis.cef.fr\u002Fcontenus\u002Fsaint\u002F12988\u002FSainte-Fortunade.html",[158,159],"Sainte Fortunade (Nominis, CEF)",[151,2079,2080,2081,168],{},"Burgundy birth, Norse-invasion motive, fontaine de Chabrignac, Gallo-Roman network, and J.-M. Courteix's local-history work: ",[34,2082,2085,2086,2089],{"href":2083,"rel":2084,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.lamontagne.fr\u002Fsainte-fortunade-19490\u002Factualites\u002Fsainte-fortunade-regorge-de-sites-empreints-dhistoire-de-quoi-satisfaire-la-passion-de-j-m-courteix_11115177\u002F",[158,159],"Anne-Laure Baumard, \"Sainte-Fortunade regorge de sites empreints d'histoire\", ",[237,2087,2088],{},"La Montagne",", 20 août 2014",[151,2091,2092,2093,168],{},"Château de Sainte-Fortunade and 1952 commune acquisition: ",[34,2094,2097],{"href":2095,"rel":2096,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FCh%C3%A2teau_de_Sainte-Fortunade",[158,159],"Château de Sainte-Fortunade (Wikipédia)",[151,2099,2100,2101,162,2106,168],{},"Crystalline basement and the Corrèze valley near Tulle: ",[34,2102,2105],{"href":2103,"rel":2104,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FG%C3%A9ographie_de_la_Corr%C3%A8ze",[158,159],"Géographie de la Corrèze (Wikipédia)",[34,2107,2110],{"href":2108,"rel":2109,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FTulle",[158,159],"Tulle (Wikipedia)",[151,2112,2113,2114,2119,2120,168],{},"Closures of the Corrèze's regional rail network (1930s-1970): ",[34,2115,2118],{"href":2116,"rel":2117,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FTramways_de_la_Corr%C3%A8ze",[158,159],"Tramways de la Corrèze (Wikipédia)","; the Tulle-Argentat line (PO-Corrèze, 1904-1970) per ",[34,2121,2124],{"href":2122,"rel":2123,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FArgentat-sur-Dordogne",[158,159],"Argentat-sur-Dordogne (Wikipédia)",[151,2126,2127,2128,168],{},"Fontaine de Chabrignac, the chapel above it, the 1405 reliquary-bust dating, the saint's relics carried from Agen toward Autun, and the local cure-tradition: ",[34,2129,2132],{"href":2130,"rel":2131,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.fontainesdefrance.info\u002Ffontaines\u002Fla-fontaine-sainte-fortunade-a-chabrignac\u002F",[158,159],"La Fontaine Sainte-Fortunade à Chabrignac (Fontaines de France)",[232,2134],{},[27,2136,2137],{},[237,2138,1917],{},[241,2140,2142,2145],{"className":2141,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,2143,249],{"className":2144,"id":38},[248],[251,2146,2147],{},[151,2148,2149,2150,1187,2154,2156,2157],{"id":1419},"Jean-Marie Courteix (\"Yanny\"), local historian of Sainte-Fortunade since 1979 and former president (twenty years) of the Société historique et archéologique d'Argentat. The Armorica-Mediterranean Gallo-Roman trunk route ran from the Atlantic coast at Nantes to the Mediterranean coast at Narbonne, passing east through the Massif Central; the Sainte-Fortunade commune sits on one of its traces and Courteix's local-history project has been to replant the wayside crosses that historically marked the road every five hundred metres. Source: Anne-Laure Baumard, ",[34,2151,2153],{"href":2083,"rel":2152,"target":160},[158,159],"\"Sainte-Fortunade regorge de sites empreints d'histoire, de quoi satisfaire la passion de J.-M. Courteix\"",[237,2155,2088],{},", 20 août 2014. ",[34,2158,267],{"href":1443,"ariaLabel":264,"className":2159,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":2161},[2162,2163],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-09.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-09.gpx",[2167,2171,2175],{"src":2168,"alt":2169,"author":2024,"authorUrl":2025,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":2170},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Ff\u002Ff0\u002F02-26_Sainte_Fortunade_-_%C3%A9glise_2.jpg\u002F960px-02-26_Sainte_Fortunade_-_%C3%A9glise_2.jpg","Église Saint-Martial de Sainte-Fortunade, the parish church that holds the eponymous relic","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:02-26_Sainte_Fortunade_-_%C3%A9glise_2.jpg",{"src":2172,"alt":2173,"author":2024,"authorUrl":2025,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":2174},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F2\u002F24\u002F02-26_Sainte_Fortunade_-_chateau_1.jpg\u002F960px-02-26_Sainte_Fortunade_-_chateau_1.jpg","Château de Sainte-Fortunade, fifteenth-century château bought by the commune in 1952, now housing the mairie","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:02-26_Sainte_Fortunade_-_chateau_1.jpg",{"src":2176,"alt":2177,"author":2178,"authorUrl":2179,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":2179},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fc\u002Fc7\u002FSainte-Fortunade_book_exchange.jpg\u002F960px-Sainte-Fortunade_book_exchange.jpg","Boîte à livres (book-exchange box) in Sainte-Fortunade","Elgaard","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Sainte-Fortunade_book_exchange.jpg",64,{"dataCutoff":2182},"2026-05-02","\u002Fentries\u002F09-descent-to-the-correze-valley","2026-05-03",{"title":1955,"description":39},"entries\u002F09-descent-to-the-correze-valley","Km 56-64: Off the plateau through Sainte-Fortunade, toward the river",{"fetchedAt":2184,"current":2189,"forecast":359},{"temp":2190,"conditions":1557,"wind":2191},17,"9 km\u002Fh SSE","t9CVj1uUvpAaGhuyXcsSJst_8dyOTgnmj1q0B4wNMUM",{"id":2194,"title":2195,"body":2196,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":2479,"extension":360,"gpxFile":2480,"images":2481,"issue":359,"kmEnd":2497,"kmStart":2180,"meta":2498,"navigation":364,"path":2500,"publishDate":2501,"segment":2502,"seo":2503,"special":359,"stem":2504,"subtitle":2505,"weather":2506,"__hash__":2510},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F10-tulle-lace-accordions-and-memory.md","Tulle - Lace, Accordions, and Memory",{"type":8,"value":2197,"toc":2473},[2198,2205,2208,2212,2215,2223,2238,2246,2255,2270,2276,2280,2283,2286,2289,2292,2300,2303,2311,2315,2318,2324,2334,2340,2343,2346,2349,2351,2466,2468],[15,2199],{"alt":2200,"author":2201,"license":21,"license-url":22,"source-url":2202,"src":2203,"author-url":2204},"Tulle from above the southern slope: the Corrèze under the Pont Choisinet, the théâtre des Sept Collines on the right, the Tour des Cèdres above them","Sail over","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Tulle_18.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fd\u002Fd1\u002FTulle_18.jpg\u002F1280px-Tulle_18.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Sail_over",[11,2206,2195],{"id":2207},"tulle-lace-accordions-and-memory",[143,2209,2211],{"id":2210},"a-town-between-the-river-and-the-lampposts","A town between the river and the lampposts",[27,2213,2214],{},"The road comes off the descent at Souilhac and meets the river it has been hearing for the last kilometre. The Corrèze runs here through what the town's geographers call, with a certain dryness, a very narrow strip several kilometres long. There is room, on the valley floor, for the river, the road, the railway, and the town, in roughly that order from south to north; there is not, by any honest measure, room for much else. The walls of the gorge rise on either side. The town fits itself between them lengthwise. It is the largest town the route has touched since Brive at the start, and the only prefecture on the course.",[15,2216],{"alt":2217,"author":2218,"license":966,"license-url":2219,"source-url":2220,"src":2221,"caption":2222},"Engraved portrait of Étienne Baluze, Tulle-born scholar and librarian to Colbert","Étienne-Jehandier Desrochers","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FPublic_domain","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:%C3%89tienne_Baluze_par_Desrochers.png","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fb\u002Fbb\u002F%C3%89tienne_Baluze_par_Desrochers.png\u002F960px-%C3%89tienne_Baluze_par_Desrochers.png","Étienne Baluze (1630–1718), engraving by Étienne-Jehandier Desrochers.",[27,2224,2225,2226,2233,2234,2237],{},"A place hemmed in like this acquires its trades from what the country can carry in and what its people can carry out. Tulle would, over the next three centuries, acquire three. The lace came first, in the form of a needle technique called ",[34,2227,2230],{"href":2228,"rel":2229,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fdentelles-confederees.fr\u002F2024\u002F04\u002F16\u002Fle-tulle-et-le-poinct-de-tulle\u002F",[158,159],[237,2231,2232],{},"point de Tulle",", a fine square mesh, which the town gave its name to and which the language of dressmaking has kept ever since. By 1667 a Tulle-born scholar named Étienne Baluze, librarian to Colbert and one of the formidable archive minds of the century, had reached the court of Louis XIV; tradition has him carrying samples north. The lace did well at court. It did better still in the histories that followed, where the noun ",[237,2235,2236],{},"tulle"," outlived its town in any number of European languages, and now turns up in wedding-dress catalogues that have no idea where the word came from. Baluze, for his part, kept cataloguing manuscripts in Paris and writing histories of the dukes of Auvergne. The town remembers him with a street and the quiet pride of a place that occasionally exports a mind.",[15,2239],{"alt":2240,"author":2241,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"source-url":2242,"src":2243,"caption":2244,"narrow":2245},"Early-20th-century border in machine embroidery on cotton tulle, MoMu Antwerp collection","Stany Dederen \u002F MoMu Antwerp","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Border_(ST425)_-_Embroidery-Embroidered_Tulle_-_MoMu_Antwerp.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F9\u002F95\u002FBorder_%28ST425%29_-_Embroidery-Embroidered_Tulle_-_MoMu_Antwerp.jpg","Border in machine embroidery on cotton tulle, c. 1900–1920 — the noun outlived the town. MoMu Antwerp, accession ST425.","true",[27,2247,2248,2249,2254],{},"The arms came next. The ",[34,2250,2253],{"href":2251,"rel":2252,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FManufacture_Nationale_d%27Armes_de_Tulle",[158,159],"Manufacture d'Armes de Tulle"," was founded in 1690, on the river at Souilhac, where the same water-driven hammers that had worked iron for centuries could be turned to musket barrels. The factory was raised to royal manufactory status under Louis XVI; it survived the Revolution, the Empire, and the long nineteenth century, and made the rifles French infantry carried at Sedan, on the Marne, and at Verdun. By 1939 it employed several thousand. Of the three trades, it was the one that gave the town its industrial spine, the wages that filled the houses up the slopes, the male population that the morning shift counted in and out.",[27,2256,2257,2258,2265,2266,2269],{},"The accordions came last, and almost as a postscript. In 1919, returning from a war the arms factory had been busy supplying, a young craftsman named Jean Maugein opened a small workshop with his brothers and began making ",[34,2259,2262],{"href":2260,"rel":2261,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FAccord%C3%A9on_diatonique",[158,159],[237,2263,2264],{},"accordéons diatoniques",". The factory grew. By the middle of the twentieth century Maugein was making the instruments the ",[237,2267,2268],{},"bal-musette"," dance halls of Paris ran on, and the name was, for a particular generation, what one meant by an accordion in France. Three trades, three centuries, one ribbon of the same town between Souilhac and the centre. The riders pass through the lower of the two, on the valley floor, in something under five minutes.",[69,2271],{"attribution":2272,"caption":2273,"embed-url":2274,"title-prefix":2275},"Source: YouTube compilation by Sir Sway.","Bal-musette in Paris, 1910–1930 — period film and recordings of the dance halls Maugein's instruments would soon come to fill.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FmlGT489IUkw","Bal-musette video",[143,2277,2279],{"id":2278},"the-ninety-nine","The ninety-nine",[27,2281,2282],{},"What follows belongs to the same ribbon of street.",[27,2284,2285],{},"On the morning of 9 June 1944, three days after the Allied landings in Normandy, the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, withdrawing under Maquis attack from the previous days, ordered the men of Tulle aged eighteen to sixty to assemble at the Manufacture d'Armes. The factory yard at Souilhac, which had been making rifles for two and a half centuries, took in nearly three thousand men that morning. From them, one hundred and twenty were chosen. In the afternoon, ninety-nine were hanged from the lampposts and balconies of the central streets of the town, along several hundred metres of pavement the Tour will ride through this afternoon at racing speed.",[27,2287,2288],{},"A further one hundred and forty-nine men were deported in the following days. One hundred and one would not return from the camps. Counting also those killed by other means in the days around the hangings, the Comité des Martyrs records more than three hundred victims in all. The next day, 10 June, the same division crossed into the Haute-Vienne and committed at Oradour-sur-Glane the larger atrocity by which the war remembers it. Tulle, the day before Oradour, is the lesser-known of the two.",[27,2290,2291],{},"The town keeps the day in its place-names. The Rue du 9-Juin-1944 runs through what was the centre of the killing. Outside the city, on a slope above the valley, the Champ des Martyrs at Cueille holds the mass grave and the annual ceremony, which is held without speeches. Wreaths are laid; the names are not read out; the silence does the work the speeches would do badly. The convention is that the ninety-nine are spoken of as the ninety-nine, and not as anyone in particular. A cyclist riding through the centre of Tulle on a July afternoon will not see any of this unless they are looking. The streets carry the date and the title; the rest is in the town's keeping.",[2293,2294],"press-card",{"headline":2295,"publication":2296,"summary":2297,"url":2298,"kind":2299},"The high place of Cueuille","Comité des Martyrs de Tulle","The Comité's own page on the Cueille mass grave: the burial in 1944, the exhumation in October of that year, the handover to the city of Tulle in 1950, and the annual ceremony.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.comite-des-martyrs-de-tulle.com\u002Fen\u002Fthe-high-place-of-cueuille\u002F","Memorial site",[27,2301,2302],{},"That the men of the town that built the factory were assembled at the factory by an army using the rifles the factory made, before being hanged in the streets the rifles had been carried out into, is a symmetry the town has had eighty-two years to make sense of. It has not arrived at sense. The annual ceremony continues to register, instead, what cannot be made into sense, which is its discipline.",[15,2304],{"alt":2305,"author":2306,"license":1526,"license-url":2307,"source-url":2308,"src":2309,"caption":2310,"author-url":2308},"A chromatic accordion from Manufacture Maugein, Tulle","Richard Brandao","https:\u002F\u002Fcreativecommons.org\u002Flicenses\u002Fby\u002F4.0","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:MAUGEIN_-_Photo_couleur_Maugein.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F7\u002F7a\u002FMAUGEIN_-_Photo_couleur_Maugein.jpg\u002F1280px-MAUGEIN_-_Photo_couleur_Maugein.jpg","A chromatic accordion from Manufacture Maugein, Tulle.",[143,2312,2314],{"id":2313},"the-accordion-came-back","The accordion came back",[27,2316,2317],{},"I came down through Tulle on a cold Tuesday in early April, two days after L'Agglomérée. The cyclosportive had run on 4-5 April 2026, organised by Tulle Cyclisme Compétition, with eighty-five and one-hundred-and-five-kilometre routes that both took in forty kilometres of the actual Stage 9 road, the Suc au May climb included. It was, by arithmetic, the hundred-days-before. The town had its barriers half-down by Tuesday morning and the bakery on the Avenue Victor-Hugo was selling the leftover sportif rolls at half-price. I bought two and walked down to the river.",[2293,2319],{"headline":2320,"publication":2088,"summary":2321,"url":2322,"date":2323},"Retour en images sur la 4e édition de l'Agglomérée de Tulle Agglo","Local-press photo gallery of the 5 April 2026 cyclosportive, riding 40 km of the Stage 9 road including Suc au May.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.lamontagne.fr\u002Ftulle-19000\u002Fsports\u002Fretour-en-images-sur-la-4e-edition-de-l-agglomeree-de-tulle-agglo_14949875\u002F","April 2026",[27,2325,2326,2327,2329,2330,2333],{},"The accordion factory is two streets back. In September 2024 Maugein went into judicial liquidation, after a hundred and five years of continuous production and a succession of corporate owners who had each in turn failed to reckon with the long slow contraction of the ",[237,2328,2268],{}," market. The town treated it as a death; the national press wrote the obituaries. Then, in January 2025, a former employee named Christophe Sirgues, with three associates, took the manufacture over and reopened the workshop. By 4 March the doors were open to the public again. By the end of 2025 the reduced team of five had made over seventy instruments. They are now one of the last accordion manufacturers in France. ",[237,2331,2332],{},"L'un des derniers fabricants d'accordéons en France"," is the phrase the local press uses, and it is the kind of phrase that means more, in the place that produces it, than translation can quite carry.",[69,2335],{"attribution":2336,"caption":2337,"embed-url":2338,"title-prefix":2339},"Source: France 3, Météo à la carte, 7 February 2020 (via YouTube).","The Maugein workshop in winter, four years before the closure: cabinetmaker, tuner, sculptor preparing the next summer's bals. The phrase the segment uses for the factory — la dernière manufacture d'accordéons — is the same one the local press would use again after the 2025 reprise.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FwGtmT4zCy4I","Maugein 2020 video",[27,2341,2342],{},"I had thought, walking past the workshop window with my bakery rolls, that I would write something about endurance here, and then thought better of it. The Maugein reprise is not endurance; it is three people choosing, in a particular January, to put their savings into something the market had given up on. The distinction is not small. Endurance is what some Limousin crafts have done by inertia. What Maugein did in January 2025 is something else, and the right word for it has not, I think, settled yet.",[27,2344,2345],{},"The other thing the town has, as of 2024, is its former mayor back as deputy. François Hollande, first elected deputy of Corrèze in 1988, mayor of Tulle from 2001 to 2008, President of the Republic from 2012 to 2017, returned in the 2024 legislatives as Socialist candidate for the first constituency of Corrèze and won. He lives in a nineteenth-century house in central Tulle with a 2,800-square-metre garden, a detail that belongs to an older idea of what political life is for. He attends the 9 June commemoration every year, and has done since 1988, which is to say across his whole adult career, including the five he was head of state. The deputy walks up to Cueille; the deputy lays the wreath; the deputy goes home to the garden.",[27,2347,2348],{},"The Baluze pattern, lightly drawn, has not gone away. A Tulle mind goes to Paris; a Tulle mind comes back. I would not push the parallel any further than that. But the through-line is honest in this much: a town that lays its dead without speeches, that has remade its accordion factory because three people decided it should be remade, and that received its mayor back from the Élysée without remarking on the round trip, is a town that knows what continuity is for. The Tour comes through this afternoon at racing speed. The town will be standing where it is standing when it leaves.",[143,2350,146],{"id":145},[148,2352,2353,2359,2367,2375,2382,2389,2397,2405,2413,2421,2428,2436,2444,2451,2458],{},[151,2354,2355,2358],{},[34,2356,2110],{"href":2108,"rel":2357,"target":160},[158,159]," - town geography, industries, demographics",[151,2360,2361,2366],{},[34,2362,2365],{"href":2363,"rel":2364,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FTulle_massacre",[158,159],"Tulle massacre (Wikipedia)"," - 9 June 1944 events and casualty figures",[151,2368,2369,2374],{},[34,2370,2373],{"href":2371,"rel":2372,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.comite-des-martyrs-de-tulle.com\u002Fen\u002Fjune-9-1944-the-events\u002F",[158,159],"June 9, 1944: The Events (Comité des Martyrs de Tulle)"," - Tulle Martyrs Committee account",[151,2376,2377,2381],{},[34,2378,2380],{"href":2298,"rel":2379,"target":160},[158,159],"The high place of Cueuille (Comité des Martyrs de Tulle)"," - history of the Cueille mass grave site, exhumation, and handover to the city in 1950",[151,2383,2384,2388],{},[34,2385,2387],{"href":2251,"rel":2386,"target":160},[158,159],"Manufacture Nationale d'Armes de Tulle (Wikipedia)"," - MAT founding (1690) and history",[151,2390,2391,2396],{},[34,2392,2395],{"href":2393,"rel":2394,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fpop.culture.gouv.fr\u002Fnotice\u002Fmuseo\u002FM1191",[158,159],"Musée de la Mémoire et des Industries Tullistes (POP — Plateforme Ouverte du Patrimoine)"," - Tulle museum holding MAT firearms, machine tools, apprenticeship pieces, and Resistance\u002FDeportation collections",[151,2398,2399,2404],{},[34,2400,2403],{"href":2401,"rel":2402,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMaugein",[158,159],"Maugein (Wikipédia)"," - Maugein founding (1919) and accordion production",[151,2406,2407,2412],{},[34,2408,2411],{"href":2409,"rel":2410,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.francebleu.fr\u002Finfos\u002Feconomie-social\u002Ftulle-la-reprise-de-la-manufacture-d-accordeons-maugein-a-ete-validee-8315640",[158,159],"Tulle: la reprise de la manufacture d'accordéons Maugein a été validée (France Bleu)"," - 2025 reprise, Christophe Sirgues, three associates as co-shareholders",[151,2414,2415,2420],{},[34,2416,2419],{"href":2417,"rel":2418,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourismecorreze.com\u002Fen\u002Ftourisme_detail\u002Fdiffusion_et_renouveau_du_poinct_de_tulle_-_atelier_du_poinct_de_tulle.html",[158,159],"Diffusion et renouveau du poinct de Tulle (Tourisme Corrèze)"," - point de Tulle history",[151,2422,2423,2427],{},[34,2424,2426],{"href":2228,"rel":2425,"target":160},[158,159],"Le tulle et le Poinct de Tulle (Dentelles Confédérées)"," - lace-research article on the relationship between tulle (the fabric) and the Poinct de Tulle technique",[151,2429,2430,2435],{},[34,2431,2434],{"href":2432,"rel":2433,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFran%C3%A7ois_Hollande",[158,159],"François Hollande (Wikipedia)"," - political career",[151,2437,2438,2443],{},[34,2439,2442],{"href":2440,"rel":2441,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.francebleu.fr\u002Finfos\u002Fpolitique\u002Flegislatives-2024-l-ancien-president-francois-hollande-candidat-dans-la-premiere-circonscription-de-la-correze-3449221",[158,159],"Législatives 2024: l'ancien président François Hollande candidat (France Bleu)"," - 2024 candidacy",[151,2445,2446,2450],{},[34,2447,2449],{"href":192,"rel":2448,"target":160},[158,159],"L'Agglomérée revient les 4-5 avril 2026 (Tulle Agglo)"," - cyclosportive, dates, routes",[151,2452,2453,2457],{},[34,2454,2456],{"href":2322,"rel":2455,"target":160},[158,159],"Retour en images sur la 4e édition de l'Agglomérée de Tulle Agglo (La Montagne)"," - local-press photo coverage of the 5 April 2026 sportif",[151,2459,2460,2461,168],{},"Etymology of \"tulle\" (the fabric, named after the town) and the word's spread into other European languages: ",[34,2462,2465],{"href":2463,"rel":2464,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wiktionary.org\u002Fwiki\u002Ftulle",[158,159],"Wiktionary entry for \"tulle\"",[232,2467],{},[27,2469,2470],{},[237,2471,2472],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.7. Voice registers: tls-essay + madrid-review (registers-framework).",{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":2474},[2475,2476,2477,2478],{"id":2210,"depth":354,"text":2211},{"id":2278,"depth":354,"text":2279},{"id":2313,"depth":354,"text":2314},{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-10.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-10.gpx",[2482,2487,2493],{"src":2483,"alt":2484,"author":1299,"authorUrl":2485,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":2486},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F3\u002F3f\u002FLa_Corr%C3%A8ze_%C3%A0_Tulle.JPG\u002F1280px-La_Corr%C3%A8ze_%C3%A0_Tulle.JPG","The Corrèze flowing through Tulle, with the quai G. Péri on the left and the théâtre des Sept Collines on the right","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Babsy","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:La_Corr%C3%A8ze_%C3%A0_Tulle.JPG",{"src":2488,"alt":2489,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":2492},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F8\u002F89\u002FTulle_Panorama_10.jpg\u002F1280px-Tulle_Panorama_10.jpg","Rooftops of Tulle from above the gorge — the valley floor at centre, the river hidden among the buildings","René Hourdry","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Renhour48","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Tulle_Panorama_10.jpg",{"src":2494,"alt":2495,"author":2306,"authorUrl":2496,"license":1526,"licenseUrl":2307,"sourceUrl":2496},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F6\u002F63\u002FMaugein_-_accord%C3%A9ons_Diatonique.jpg\u002F1280px-Maugein_-_accord%C3%A9ons_Diatonique.jpg","Two diatonic accordions made by Manufacture Maugein in Tulle","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Maugein_-_accord%C3%A9ons_Diatonique.jpg",70,{"dataCutoff":2499},"2026-05-05","\u002Fentries\u002F10-tulle-lace-accordions-and-memory","2026-05-06",10,{"title":2195,"description":39},"entries\u002F10-tulle-lace-accordions-and-memory","Km 64-70: South to north along the Corrèze",{"fetchedAt":2501,"current":2507,"forecast":359},{"temp":2502,"conditions":2508,"wind":2509},"Broken clouds","4 km\u002Fh E","9QO_sDq7gTUsPGTIq5X4OI5gfXzlEmNAiKcxrldFig0",{"id":2512,"title":2513,"body":2514,"description":2521,"draft":358,"elevationData":2769,"extension":360,"gpxFile":2770,"images":2771,"issue":359,"kmEnd":2794,"kmStart":2497,"meta":2795,"navigation":364,"path":2797,"publishDate":2798,"segment":1117,"seo":2799,"special":359,"stem":2800,"subtitle":2801,"weather":2802,"__hash__":2805},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F11-cote-des-naves.md","Auzelou and the Côte de Naves",{"type":8,"value":2515,"toc":2765},[2516,2519,2522,2529,2536,2540,2547,2551,2569,2584,2591,2602,2608,2611,2613,2713,2715,2720],[11,2517,2513],{"id":2518},"auzelou-and-the-côte-de-naves",[27,2520,2521],{},"The Boulevard Auzelou begins where the descent through Tulle stops being a descent. The Corrèze runs on the right; the Stade Alexandre-Cueille sits on the left; the road, which has been falling for the better part of an hour, levels for the stadium and turns its attention to going north. The stadium was inaugurated on the eighteenth of August 1929 and would later take its present name in tribute to the secretary general of the Sporting Club Tulliste who would die in May 1940 in a German bombing of the town. It is rugby country here. Two and a half centuries of arms-making at Souilhac and a hundred and seven years of accordion manufacture at the centre of town have not made Tulle a cycling place; the morning shifts went into the factories, and the Saturdays went, and still go, to the fifteen. The Tour has visited the town before, on Bastille Day 1996 and as a stage start in 1976, but it has not previously rolled past the door of the Cueille on its way out. Boulevard Auzelou northbound is a road the race has not used.",[2293,2523],{"headline":2524,"kind":2525,"publication":2526,"summary":2527,"url":2528},"Stade Alexandre-Cueille","Reference","Ville de Tulle","The municipal listing for the stadium on Avenue Lieutenant-Colonel Faro, the home ground of the Sporting Club Tulliste.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.ville-tulle.fr\u002Fsortir\u002Fsport-et-nature\u002Fequipements-sportifs\u002Fstade-alexandre-cueille",[27,2530,2531,2532,2535],{},"It is, however, a road another race has used recently. On the fourth and fifth of April, ninety-eight days before Stage 9 will pass through, the cyclosportive ",[237,2533,2534],{},"L'Agglomérée",", organised by the Tulle Cyclisme Compétition club, departed from the same Boulevard Auzelou with eighteen hundred amateur riders and three hundred and fifty volunteers. The Sunday route shared forty kilometres with the actual Stage 9 road, the Suc au May climb included. The organisers had pitched the whole weekend, in the regional press, as the dress rehearsal at a hundred days out, which is the kind of round number a press release is allowed and a calendar is not. The amateurs went up the road first. The professionals are coming in July. What the cyclosportive's Sunday morning produced, in the local paper's gallery, were photographs of the front of the field at the foot of the climb our riders are about to ride; what it left behind on the boulevard, by the time our segment opens, were the barriers half-down and the bakery on Avenue Victor-Hugo selling its leftover sportif rolls at half-price.",[69,2537],{"attribution":1261,"caption":2538,"embed-url":2539},"Agglomérée 2026 — retour en images. Highlights from the 4-5 April 2026 cyclosportive whose Sunday route shared forty kilometres with Stage 9.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002Ffo2LFyuIizk",[2293,2541],{"headline":2542,"kind":2543,"publication":2544,"summary":2545,"url":2546},"L'Agglomérée 2026 — official photo album","Photo album","SportPxl \u002F Tulle Agglo","Photographs from the 4-5 April 2026 cyclosportive, whose Sunday route shared forty kilometres with Stage 9 including the Suc au May climb.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.app.sportpxl.com\u002Fphotographs\u002Ftulle-agglo\u002Falbums\u002F3450\u002Fphotos",[1159,2548],{"caption":2549,"embed-url":2550},"9 Avenue Victor-Hugo, Tulle — Pâtisserie Rochais, in business at this address since 1983.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1778444843941!6m8!1m7!1sZnYQ4l47pwJlCKD1aTmiBw!2m2!1d45.26373548703059!2d1.764788398766748!3f163.52114084320516!4f18.467946239451294!5f0.4000000000000002",[27,2552,2553,2554,2557,2558,2561,2562,168],{},"The road climbs from the boulevard in earnest within the first kilometre. The Côte de Naves, two and eight tenths of a kilometre at six point three per cent by the project's own profile, is the day's first categorised climb and the road's exit from the river valley. Tulle north sits at something over two hundred metres; the village of Naves, four kilometres up the road and one ridge higher, sits at three hundred and twenty; the surrounding farms are higher again. The climb takes the road up onto the granite plateau the route will hold until it descends to Ussel six hours of riding from now. The country at this elevation is what the granite supports: the bocage hedgerows holding their cattle, the small straight-walled granite barns standing in for the dressed-limestone byres of the south. ",[237,2555,2556],{},"Un paysage bocager par excellence",", the regional atlases call it: hedgerow-and-pasture country that has kept its shape better than most parts of France because the post-war ",[237,2559,2560],{},"remembrement"," passed it lightly",[31,2563,2564],{},[34,2565,41],{"href":2566,"ariaDescribedBy":2567,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":2568},"#user-content-fn-bocage",[38],"user-content-fnref-bocage",[27,2570,2571,2572,2575,2576,2583],{},"The plateau the climb arrives at holds, off the route to the west, a thing the riders will not see and the helicopters will not show. At the top of the climb, on a low rise within the Naves commune, lies the Gallo-Roman site of Tintignac. It is a ",[237,2573,2574],{},"fanum"," sanctuary with a double-cella temple, a hemicycle temple, a temple known locally as the \"tribunal\", and a small theatre. The site was excavated in the nineteenth century and re-excavated in the modern campaigns under Christophe Maniquet of INRAP",[31,2577,2578],{},[34,2579,66],{"href":2580,"ariaDescribedBy":2581,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":2582},"#user-content-fn-maniquet",[38],"user-content-fnref-maniquet",", and it would have remained, like a great many provincial Gallo-Roman sites, a matter of regional academic concern, had it not been for what was found in a small pit in September 2004.",[27,2585,2586,2587,2590],{},"The pit, a Gallic ritual deposit, contained roughly five hundred fragments of iron and bronze. Among them, the excavators reassembled seven ",[237,2588,2589],{},"carnyces",": the Iron Age Celtic war trumpet, an upright bronze instrument approximately one and four fifths of a metre tall, the bell shaped as an animal's head and held above the player so the head appeared to bellow over the line of battle. Six of the Tintignac carnyces had boar's heads; the seventh had the head of a serpent-like monster. Polybius, who described a Celtic army at the Battle of Telamon in 225 BC, recorded the sound of the instruments at scale as a thing that unsettled disciplined troops. World archaeology, before Tintignac, had recovered fragments of perhaps five carnyces. Tintignac yielded seven more, including one almost complete. The find, in the technical sense the word will bear, rewrote the corpus.",[27,2592,2593,2594,2597,2598,2601],{},"What had happened in the pit was a deliberate deposition. The instruments, the helmets, the swords and scabbards, the cauldron, the swan-crested helmet: all had been broken before being buried, ritually killed, in the formal language of the discipline. The find passed from the soil to the conservation laboratory of Materia Viva at Toulouse, then to a sequence of international exhibitions opening at Bern, then in April 2022 home to Naves itself, where four of the most spectacular pieces sit in dedicated cases in a small heritage building on the Place de l'Église. A Scottish musician, John Kenny, had begun playing reconstructed carnyces in 1993, in something close to the silence the instrument had kept for two thousand years; the instrument has since been heard at the Stade de France, in the opening battle scene of ",[237,2595,2596],{},"Gladiator",", and on the Pixar soundtrack of ",[237,2599,2600],{},"Brave",". None of which a rider on the climb will know, or need to.",[2293,2603],{"headline":2604,"kind":2525,"publication":2605,"summary":2606,"url":2607},"The Tintignac Carnyx","Carnyx & Co","The reconstruction-and-performance project's page on the Tintignac instruments — John Kenny and the European Music Archaeology Project's work since the 2004 find.","https:\u002F\u002Fcarnyx.org.uk\u002Fthe-tintignac-carnyx\u002F",[27,2609,2610],{},"The road, having taken its riders out of the river valley and onto the plateau, levels and turns north-west toward Naves. The wind, on the higher ground, is from somewhere west of south. The kilometre marker shows seventy-seven and a half; the next village and the next climb belong to the segment ahead. Behind, lower and already out of sight, the rugby ground sits beside the river it has sat beside for almost a century, and the boulevard the amateurs of the cyclosportive left from in April runs back the way it came. Somewhere west, on its low rise inside the Naves commune, the small Gallic pit has been empty for a very long time.",[143,2612,146],{"id":145},[148,2614,2615,2623,2636,2645,2651,2669,2683,2696],{},[151,2616,2617,2618,168],{},"Stade Alexandre-Cueille (inauguration 18 August 1929; Boulevard de l'Auzelou; Sporting Club Tulliste rugby; tribute to Cueille, victim of the bombing of 11 May 1940): ",[34,2619,2622],{"href":2620,"rel":2621,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FStade_Alexandre-Cueille",[158,159],"Stade Alexandre-Cueille (Wikipédia)",[151,2624,2625,2626,162,2631,168],{},"Tour de France previous Tulle visits — 1976 Stage 20 start to Puy-de-Dôme (won by Joop Zoetemelk; Lucien Van Impe finished 12 seconds back and went on to win the overall Tour) and 1996 Stage 14 Bastille Day finish from Besse-en-Chandesse (Abdoujaparov sprint, Bjarne Riis in yellow): TV broadcast archives on YouTube — ",[34,2627,2630],{"href":2628,"rel":2629,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fwatch?v=m6aqnivWlCI",[158,159],"1976 Stage 20",[34,2632,2635],{"href":2633,"rel":2634,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fwatch?v=3WUztWV7_tQ",[158,159],"1996 Stage 14",[151,2637,2638,2639,162,2642,168],{},"L'Agglomérée 2026 (4-5 April, departure Boulevard Auzelou, eighteen hundred riders, three hundred and fifty volunteers, Sunday route sharing 40 km of Stage 9 including Suc au May, organised by Tulle Cyclisme Compétition): ",[34,2640,2449],{"href":192,"rel":2641,"target":160},[158,159],[34,2643,2456],{"href":2322,"rel":2644,"target":160},[158,159],[151,2646,2647,2648,168],{},"Limousin granitic basement and the Variscan \u002F Carboniferous emplacement: ",[34,2649,1884],{"href":1882,"rel":2650,"target":160},[158,159],[151,2652,2653,2654,162,2659,162,2664,168],{},"Tintignac archaeological site (fanum and temples; modern excavations under Maniquet; September 2004 ritual pit; ~500 fragments; seven carnyces; April 2022 return of four pieces to Naves): ",[34,2655,2658],{"href":2656,"rel":2657,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSite_arch%C3%A9ologique_de_Tintignac",[158,159],"Site archéologique de Tintignac (Wikipédia)",[34,2660,2663],{"href":2661,"rel":2662,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FTintignac",[158,159],"Tintignac (Wikipedia, EN)",[34,2665,2668],{"href":2666,"rel":2667,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.inrap.fr\u002Fles-arenes-de-tintignac-fouille-2004-naves-correze-710",[158,159],"Les Arènes de Tintignac, fouille 2004 (INRAP)",[151,2670,2671,2672,2674,2675,2677,2678,168],{},"Carnyx instrument (~1.8 m bronze, six boar-headed and one serpent-headed at Tintignac; Polybius on the Battle of Telamon, 225 BC; John Kenny 1993 reconstruction; Stade de France performance 2003; ",[237,2673,2596],{}," opening battle 2000; ",[237,2676,2600],{}," 2012): ",[34,2679,2682],{"href":2680,"rel":2681,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FCarnyx",[158,159],"Carnyx (Wikipedia)",[151,2684,2685,2686,162,2691,168],{},"Pâtisserie Rochais on Avenue Victor-Hugo (Tulle bakery referenced in the narrative; family business at 9 Avenue Victor-Hugo, Tulle, since 1983): ",[34,2687,2690],{"href":2688,"rel":2689,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tulle-en-correze.com\u002Fservices\u002Fpatisserie-rochais\u002F",[158,159],"Office de Tourisme de Tulle en Corrèze listing",[34,2692,2695],{"href":2693,"rel":2694,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fpatisserie-rochais.eatbu.com\u002F?lang=en",[158,159],"Eatbu page",[151,2697,2698,2699,2702,2703,162,2708,168],{},"Bocage limousin and the post-1950 national hedgerow loss (70 % lost since 1950 nationally; Limousin density 60 m\u002Fha regionally and 31 m\u002Fha in Corrèze; phrase ",[237,2700,2701],{},"paysage bocager par excellence","): ",[34,2704,2707],{"href":2705,"rel":2706,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fagriculture.gouv.fr\u002Fla-haie-levier-de-la-planification-ecologique",[158,159],"La haie, levier de la planification écologique (Ministère de l'Agriculture \u002F CGAAER, April 2023)",[34,2709,2712],{"href":2710,"rel":2711,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.nouvelle-aquitaine.developpement-durable.gouv.fr\u002FIMG\u002Fpdf\u002Favenir_espaces_bocagers_cle031bf2.pdf",[158,159],"Quel avenir pour le bocage en Limousin? — Hippolyte, Bossis & Burel, ONCFS \u002F Rennes I, July 2008",[232,2714],{},[27,2716,2717],{},[237,2718,2719],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.7. Voice register: tls-essay (scholarly sub-mode) (registers-framework).",[241,2721,2723,2726],{"className":2722,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,2724,249],{"className":2725,"id":38},[248],[251,2727,2728,2749],{},[151,2729,2731,2732,2735,2736,2738,2739,2742,2743,260,2745],{"id":2730},"user-content-fn-bocage","A 2023 mission report from the Conseil général de l'alimentation, de l'agriculture et des espaces ruraux (CGAAER no. 22114, ",[237,2733,2734],{},"La haie, levier de la planification écologique",", April 2023) puts the linear length of hedgerow lost from French bocages since 1950 at 70 %, with current losses around 23,500 km per year against an IGN-estimated 1.55 million km still standing. The phrase ",[237,2737,2701],{}," comes from S. Hippolyte, A. Bossis and F. Burel, ",[237,2740,2741],{},"Quel avenir pour le bocage en Limousin?"," (Office national de la chasse et de la faune sauvage \u002F Université de Rennes I, July 2008), an aerial-photogrammetry-and-fieldwork study of the regional bocage. It records average hedgerow densities of 80 m\u002Fha in Creuse, 51 m\u002Fha in Haute-Vienne and 31 m\u002Fha in Corrèze (regional mean 60 m\u002Fha), attributing Limousin's retention to a livestock-dominated agriculture and the comparative absence of major ",[237,2744,2560],{},[34,2746,267],{"href":2747,"ariaLabel":264,"className":2748,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-bocage",[266],[151,2750,2752,2753,2756,2757,260,2761],{"id":2751},"user-content-fn-maniquet","Christophe Maniquet, lead archaeologist of the modern Tintignac campaigns and ",[237,2754,2755],{},"responsable scientifique"," of the site, working under the Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives (INRAP). His team's 2004 excavation of the ritual pit and its contents was published in successive INRAP and academic notices through the late 2000s; an acoustical study of one of the carnyces and a helmet, conducted with the laboratory TRACES (UMR 5608, Toulouse), is among the technical work to follow. See the institutional record at INRAP, ",[34,2758,2760],{"href":2666,"rel":2759,"target":160},[158,159],"Les Arènes de Tintignac, fouille 2004",[34,2762,267],{"href":2763,"ariaLabel":281,"className":2764,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-maniquet",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":2766},[2767,2768],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-11.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-11.gpx",[2772,2779,2784,2788],{"src":2773,"alt":2774,"author":2775,"authorUrl":2776,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":2777,"objectPosition":2778},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F3\u002F3d\u002FCarnyxDeTintignac1.jpg","One of the Tintignac carnyces, photographed at the Les Gaulois exhibition at the Cité des Sciences, Paris, 2012","Claude Valette","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Claude_Valette","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:CarnyxDeTintignac1.jpg","top",{"src":2780,"alt":2781,"author":1770,"authorUrl":2782,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":2783},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fb\u002Fb9\u002FNaves_19_-_Site_arch%C3%A9ologique_de_Tintignac_20130804-08.JPG\u002F1280px-Naves_19_-_Site_arch%C3%A9ologique_de_Tintignac_20130804-08.JPG","Foundation traces of the Gallo-Roman sanctuary at Tintignac, on the plateau above the Côte de Naves","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Pymouss","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Naves_19_-_Site_arch%C3%A9ologique_de_Tintignac_20130804-08.JPG",{"src":2785,"alt":2786,"author":1299,"authorUrl":2485,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":2787},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F1\u002F11\u002FPaysage_de_semi-bocage_en_Limousin.JPG\u002F1280px-Paysage_de_semi-bocage_en_Limousin.JPG","Semi-bocage landscape near Landouge (Limoges, Haute-Vienne): hedgerow and pasture, locally called campagne-parc","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Paysage_de_semi-bocage_en_Limousin.JPG",{"src":2789,"alt":2790,"author":2791,"authorUrl":2792,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":2793},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F5\u002F5f\u002FCascades-de-Gimel_%283%29.JPG\u002F1280px-Cascades-de-Gimel_%283%29.JPG","The Redole waterfall and bridge at Gimel-les-Cascades, east of Tulle in the Corrèze","Accrochoc","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Accrochoc","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Cascades-de-Gimel_(3).JPG",78,{"dataCutoff":2796},"2026-05-11","\u002Fentries\u002F11-cote-des-naves","2026-05-10",{"title":2513,"description":2521},"entries\u002F11-cote-des-naves","Km 70-78: out of Tulle, onto the plateau",{"fetchedAt":2796,"current":2803,"forecast":359},{"temp":1117,"conditions":2508,"wind":2804},"4 km\u002Fh WNW","-paN1kIFmBu1Axbf3lcW_iz54stpSbMMp7b8oFfPmYM",{"id":2807,"title":2808,"body":2809,"description":2816,"draft":358,"elevationData":3120,"extension":360,"gpxFile":3121,"images":3122,"issue":359,"kmEnd":3143,"kmStart":2794,"meta":3144,"navigation":364,"path":3146,"publishDate":3147,"segment":3148,"seo":3149,"special":359,"stem":3150,"subtitle":3151,"weather":3152,"__hash__":3155},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F12-naves-coming-home.md","Naves, Coming Home",{"type":8,"value":2810,"toc":3116},[2811,2814,2817,2824,2853,2860,2867,2874,2882,2888,2891,2895,2902,2906,2909,2911,3040,3042,3047],[11,2812,2808],{"id":2813},"naves-coming-home",[27,2815,2816],{},"The road comes onto the plateau the previous segment opened, and almost at once goes looking for a way down. Segment 12 begins at four hundred and six metres, three hundred and seventy metres east of the Naves bourg the riders will not enter, and rises gently for two kilometres through hedge-lined pasture to the segment's high point at four hundred and forty-nine. From there it falls. By kilometre eighty-two and a half it is at two hundred and sixty-two, almost two hundred metres lost in two and a half kilometres of road, with stretches at minus ten and minus twelve and at one notch minus thirteen per cent. The road does not so much descend as fall through the bocage. Then, in the bottom of a small valley you cannot quite see from anywhere along it, the Vimbelle slips under, the road turns north, and the gradient comes back the other way. The next climb has begun. Its summit, the one called Puy de Lachaud, sits three and a half kilometres further on, in segment thirteen.",[27,2818,2819,2820,2823],{},"This is the segment as a piece of geometry. As a piece of country, it is something different: a bowl. The bourg sits on the western lip; the road takes the eastern lip; the floor is a quiet four-river basin (the commune is ",[237,2821,2822],{},"traversée par la Corrèze, la Solane, la Vigne, la Vimbelle et la Céronne",", the official presentation says, with a four-river precision the landscape mostly carries by feel) and the climbs that bracket it (Côte de Naves behind, Puy de Lachaud ahead) are the bowl's two rims. A rider who is paying attention to the gradient will know the bowl through the legs. A rider who is paying attention to the country will know it through the hedgerows, which thicken at the lip and thin in the floor where the cattle pasture opens out.",[27,2825,2826,2827,2834,2835,2838,2839,2842,2843,2845,2852],{},"Something the earlier writing on this route has been circling tightens here, in a small specific way. The road through Beynat opened the question",[31,2828,2829],{},[34,2830,41],{"href":2831,"ariaDescribedBy":2832,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":2833},"#user-content-fn-naves-reading",[38],"user-content-fnref-naves-reading",": how to read a country whose argument is being made in its own use rather than in its monuments or its viewpoints. The climb out of Tulle, onto the granite plateau, gave that country its name (",[237,2836,2837],{},"bocage",") and the phrase the regional atlases attach to it (",[237,2840,2841],{},"un paysage bocager par excellence","). The bocage of the Naves bowl is the tightening. It is not picturesque country, not background, not the tourism brochure's bocage. It is working country, kept its shape because the cattle still need shelter and the slopes are too small for the machinery the ",[237,2844,2560],{},[31,2846,2847],{},[34,2848,66],{"href":2849,"ariaDescribedBy":2850,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":2851},"#user-content-fn-remembrement",[38],"user-content-fnref-remembrement"," would have wanted to put on them. The country reads as country because it is being used as country. The bowl makes the point by being a bowl. You cannot live in a bowl by accident.",[27,2854,2855,2856,2859],{},"The village the riders do not enter is the bowl's working centre. Naves bourg is a few hundred metres of houses around the church of Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens, on a small rise inside the four-river basin. It is the village Laurent Koscielny is from. He was born in Tulle in September of 1985, on a Polish-miner family line that came south through the French coalfields and settled in the Corrèze; the family is here; he came home, on the twentieth of June 2015, to be married to Claire Beaudouin in this bourg, in a wedding the regional press covered. By then he was an Arsenal centre-back with a long England career ahead of him and most of fifty caps for France behind him. The wedding was in Naves because Naves is where the family still is. This is the ",[237,2857,2858],{},"come back to"," part. There is a kind of footballer who is identifiable by where they go in the summer, and a smaller kind who is identifiable by where they were married; Koscielny is in the second group. Centre-backs of his generation did this work without theatre, and the wedding had the texture of the work: it took place where it took place because that was the place.",[2293,2861],{"headline":2862,"kind":2863,"publication":2864,"summary":2865,"url":2866},"La Corrèze se prépare à accueillir le mariage de Laurent Koscielny","Local press","France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine","Coverage of the village's preparations for the 20 June 2015 wedding of Laurent Koscielny, then Arsenal and France centre-back, in Naves.","https:\u002F\u002Ffrance3-regions.franceinfo.fr\u002Fnouvelle-aquitaine\u002Fcorreze\u002Fcorreze-naves-se-prepare-accueillir-le-mariage-du-footballeur-de-l-equipe-de-france-laurent-koscielny-750855.html",[27,2868,2869,2870,2873],{},"The church the wedding was in is the same church that holds the Retable de Naves, which is the bourg's other public surprise. The retable is a baroque altarpiece in walnut, twelve metres high and fourteen wide, programmed across some twenty panels with scenes from the life of Saint Peter; it was carved over the second half of the seventeenth century and completed in 1704, the date inscribed on a panel near the tabernacle. The work is attributed to the Duhamel brothers (Pierre, Jean-François, Léger), master sculptors of nearby Tulle, though only Pierre's signature appears on the Adoration of the Magi panel. It has been classed ",[237,2871,2872],{},"monument historique"," since March 1890. It was disassembled piece by piece for anti-parasite treatment in 1984 and reassembled. Twelve metres of walnut by fourteen metres of walnut, in a country church on a four-river plateau, is a thing the inventory cannot quite account for; it is what the village had instead of an opera house, and it kept the same hand at it across two generations.",[15,2875],{"alt":2876,"author":2877,"author-url":2878,"caption":2879,"license":21,"license-url":22,"source-url":2880,"src":2881},"The Retable de Naves, 1704 walnut Baroque altarpiece in the Église Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens","Cummins","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Cummins~commonswiki","The Retable de Naves: fourteen metres wide by twelve high, programmed across twenty panels with scenes from the life of Saint Peter, completed 1704.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Alter_Carved_in_Wood_-_Saint_Peter%27s_Church_-_Village_of_NAVES_in_France..jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fe\u002Fe8\u002FAlter_Carved_in_Wood_-_Saint_Peter%27s_Church_-_Village_of_NAVES_in_France..jpg\u002F1280px-Alter_Carved_in_Wood_-_Saint_Peter%27s_Church_-_Village_of_NAVES_in_France..jpg",[2293,2883],{"headline":2884,"kind":2525,"publication":2885,"summary":2886,"url":2887},"Retable de Naves","Wikipédia","The 1704 walnut retable in the Église Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens, attributed to the Duhamel brothers of Tulle. 14 m × 12 m. Classed monument historique since March 1890; restored 1956 and 1984.","https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FRetable_de_Naves",[27,2889,2890],{},"What the bourg cannot keep out of itself, in the present, is the motorway. The A89 came through this part of the Corrèze in 2002, on the Viaduc du Pays de Tulle south of the village (eight hundred and fifty-four metres of deck, one hundred and sixty above the floor of the Corrèze valley, which puts it among the higher bridges in France by pier height), and is visible from the small belvédère the bourg keeps on its eastern edge. Naves grew, after 2002, by something like twelve per cent in fifteen years, a quiet unanchored growth tied to the new exit at Tulle Est, which puts the village inside an hour of Brive and inside two of Limoges and inside three of Bordeaux, depending on traffic. The growth has slowed since. The viaduct is still there. From the belvédère it is a long flat line in the middle distance, going east, and the traffic on it makes a sound that is not quite the same as the wind. It is the line on which the village joined the rest of the country, and on which the country, in the same gesture, came in. The bowl is not a closed bowl. It has a road in the floor, a viaduct on the rim, and a centre-back who got married here twenty-three years after the road in the floor opened.",[69,2892],{"attribution":1261,"caption":2893,"embed-url":2894},"Drone view of the Viaduc du Pays de Tulle (a.k.a. Viaduc des Angles), the A89 crossing south of Naves bourg: 854 m of deck and 160 m above the Corrèze valley, built 2000-2002.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FZN8SlliQfbA",[27,2896,2897,2898,2901],{},"The road our riders are on falls now toward the Vimbelle, picks up the gradient on the other side, and starts climbing again. The polka-dot board takes no notice of the next crest. At the bottom of the descent, where the road bridges the river and turns north, a white ",[237,2899,2900],{},"panneau"," at the verge points back to Naves and ahead to Orliac-de-Bar and Saint-Augustin: the country has finished with the bowl, and the road has its next destinations.",[1159,2903],{"caption":2904,"embed-url":2905},"The bottom of the descent off the Naves bowl, where the road bridges the Vimbelle and turns north. The white panneau at the verge points back to Naves and ahead to Orliac-de-Bar and Saint-Augustin.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1778621609020!6m8!1m7!1sqxAow9AP035uaXomQWHEaw!2m2!1d45.33828842733281!2d1.792217846272367!3f249.47197221297014!4f8.701827119321607!5f0.4000000000000002",[27,2907,2908],{},"Behind, lower and out of sight, the carnyces of the climb out of Tulle are still in their cases on the Place de l'Église; ahead, the day's hard middle is still some hours off. The bowl is a shape that takes a real angle on the descent and an honest line on the climb; it does not flatter the rider who pretends the country is more or less than it is. The country has been carrying that point quietly all morning. The bowl is where it becomes the shape of the road.",[143,2910,146],{"id":145},[148,2912,2913,2939,2959,2972,2980,2998,3010,3030],{},[151,2914,2915,2916,2919,2920,2923,2924,162,2929,162,2934,168],{},"Naves (Corrèze), commune presentation: etymology (",[237,2917,2918],{},"Navea"," → ",[237,2921,2922],{},"Navas","), four-river basin, A89 viaduct visible from village belvédère, post-2002 demographic growth, Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens church medieval origins. ",[34,2925,2928],{"href":2926,"rel":2927,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FNaves_(Corr%C3%A8ze)",[158,159],"Naves (Corrèze) – Wikipédia",[34,2930,2933],{"href":2931,"rel":2932,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.naves19.fr\u002Fla-commune\u002Fpresentation-generale\u002F",[158,159],"Présentation générale (commune)",[34,2935,2938],{"href":2936,"rel":2937,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.naves19.fr\u002Fla-commune\u002Fle-patrimoine\u002Feglise-saint-pierre-es-liens\u002F",[158,159],"Église Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens (commune)",[151,2940,2941,2942,2944,2945,162,2949,2953,2954,168],{},"Retable de Naves (1704 walnut Baroque, 14 × 12 m, Duhamel brothers of Tulle, Pierre's signature on the Adoration of the Magi panel, ",[237,2943,2872],{}," since March 1890, restorations 1956 and 1984, Saint Peter programme): ",[34,2946,2948],{"href":2887,"rel":2947,"target":160},[158,159],"Retable de Naves – Wikipédia",[34,2950,2952],{"href":2936,"rel":2951,"target":160},[158,159],"Église Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens (Naves19 commune page)"," (gives the construction span 1652-1704 and the Duhamel-as-Tulle-master-sculptors framing); ",[34,2955,2958],{"href":2956,"rel":2957,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourismecorreze.com\u002Fen\u002Ftourisme_detail\u002Fretable_de_l_eglise_saint-pierre_es_liens.html",[158,159],"Tourisme Corrèze visitor listing",[151,2960,2961,2962,2967,2968,168],{},"Laurent Koscielny (born 10 September 1985 in Tulle; Polish-miner family on his paternal line; centre-back; Tours \u002F Lorient \u002F Arsenal \u002F Bordeaux; 51 caps France; married Claire Beaudouin): ",[34,2963,2966],{"href":2964,"rel":2965,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FLaurent_Koscielny",[158,159],"Laurent Koscielny (Wikipedia)",". For the wedding date (20 June 2015) and place (Naves): ",[34,2969,2971],{"href":2866,"rel":2970,"target":160},[158,159],"La Corrèze se prépare à accueillir le mariage de Laurent Koscielny – France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine",[151,2973,2974,2975,168],{},"A89 motorway in Corrèze (Tulle Est-Naves exit, opened 2002 in this section): commune presentation page (above) and ",[34,2976,2979],{"href":2977,"rel":2978,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FAutoroute_A89",[158,159],"A89 (Wikipédia)",[151,2981,2982,2983,162,2988,162,2993,168],{},"Viaduc du Pays de Tulle (a.k.a. Viaduc des Angles), the A89 viaduct south of Naves bourg, built 2000-2002, 854 m deck, 160 m above the Corrèze valley, on the communes of Les-Angles-sur-Corrèze and Naves: ",[34,2984,2987],{"href":2985,"rel":2986,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FViaduc_du_Pays_de_Tulle",[158,159],"Viaduc du Pays de Tulle (Wikipédia)",[34,2989,2992],{"href":2990,"rel":2991,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fstructurae.net\u002Fen\u002Fstructures\u002Ftulle-viaduct",[158,159],"Tulle Viaduct (Structurae)",[34,2994,2997],{"href":2995,"rel":2996,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourismecorreze.com\u002Fen\u002Ftourisme_detail\u002Fviaduc_du_pays_de_tulle.html",[158,159],"Viaduc du Pays de Tulle (Tourisme Corrèze)",[151,2999,3000,3001,3003,3004,168],{},"Bocage limousin densities and the post-war ",[237,3002,2560],{}," (Limousin regional mean 60 m\u002Fha, Corrèze 31 m\u002Fha): S. Hippolyte, A. Bossis and F. Burel, ",[34,3005,3007,3009],{"href":2710,"rel":3006,"target":160},[158,159],[237,3008,2741],{}," (ONCFS \u002F Rennes I, July 2008)",[151,3011,3012,3015,3016,3021,3022,3025,3026,3029],{},[237,3013,3014],{},"Remembrement"," in France (Code civil 1804 inheritance fragmentation; loi Chauveau 1918; law of 9 March 1941; ordonnance of 7 July 1945; Loi d'orientation agricole 1960; ~18 million ha cumulatively redistributed 1946-2006; ~750,000 km of hedgerow eliminated nationally; ~70 % national reduction in hedge length since 1950): ",[34,3017,3020],{"href":3018,"rel":3019,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FRemembrement",[158,159],"Remembrement (Wikipédia)","; for the longer historical view of bocage, Annie Antoine, ",[237,3023,3024],{},"Le paysage de l'historien: archéologie des bocages de l'Ouest de la France à l'époque moderne"," (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2002). On the Scottish Highland Clearances parallel: T. M. Devine, ",[237,3027,3028],{},"The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed, 1600-1900"," (Allen Lane, 2018).",[151,3031,3032,3033,1979,3037,168],{},"Puy de Lachaud climb (3.6 km @ 3.2%, summit km 87.54, segment 13; not on the official ASO 2026 Stage 9 categorised-climb list): tdf26 ",[3034,3035,3036],"code",{},"data\u002Fcompetition\u002Fpoints-config.json",[3034,3038,3039],{},"data\u002Ftown-coords.json",[232,3041],{},[27,3043,3044],{},[237,3045,3046],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.7. Voice register: madrid-review (simpson-registers).",[241,3048,3050,3053],{"className":3049,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,3051,249],{"className":3052,"id":38},[248],[251,3054,3055,3092],{},[151,3056,3058,3059,3062,3063,3066,3067,3069,3070,3072,3073,3075,3076,3079,3080,3083,3084,3087,3088],{"id":3057},"user-content-fn-naves-reading","The argument was first opened back in Beynat: a country whose argument is being made in its own use rather than in its monuments or its viewpoints. The phrasing leans on Roland Barthes's use of ",[237,3060,3061],{},"lecture"," in ",[237,3064,3065],{},"Le Plaisir du texte"," (Seuil, 1973), not as decoded meaning but as the reader's working presence in the text. Above the Côte de Naves last week, on the climb out of Tulle, the regional landscape was named ",[237,3068,2837],{}," and given the phrase the atlases attach to it, ",[237,3071,2841],{},": S. Hippolyte, A. Bossis and F. Burel, ",[237,3074,2741],{}," (Office national de la chasse et de la faune sauvage \u002F Université de Rennes I, July 2008), recording average hedgerow densities of 80 m\u002Fha in Creuse, 51 m\u002Fha in Haute-Vienne and 31 m\u002Fha in Corrèze (regional mean 60 m\u002Fha). The 'tightening' here picks up that frame and joins it to the strand of French rural geography that reads inhabited landscape as ",[237,3077,3078],{},"paysage habité",": see in particular Augustin Berque, ",[237,3081,3082],{},"Écoumène: introduction à l'étude des milieux humains"," (Belin, 2nd ed. 2009), and Pierre Donadieu, ",[237,3085,3086],{},"Les paysagistes ou les métamorphoses du jardinier"," (Actes Sud, 2009). ",[34,3089,267],{"href":3090,"ariaLabel":264,"className":3091,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-naves-reading",[266],[151,3093,3095,3097,3098,3100,3101,3105,3106,3108,3109,3111,3112],{"id":3094},"user-content-fn-remembrement",[237,3096,3014],{},", in French agricultural-policy vocabulary, is the legal-administrative consolidation of fragmented rural parcels into larger, machinery-friendly fields. The fragmentation it consolidates is itself a legacy of the Code civil of 1804, which divided property equally among heirs and produced, by the early twentieth century, a countryside of microscopic and non-contiguous parcels. The legal framework was built across the loi Chauveau of 27 November 1918, the wartime law of 9 March 1941, the post-Liberation ordonnance of 7 July 1945, and most consequentially the Loi d'orientation agricole of 1960. Peak activity in the late 1960s redistributed more than five hundred thousand hectares a year; by 2006 the cumulative reach was approximately eighteen million hectares out of an agricultural total of twenty-nine. The transformation that mattered for the country one rides through was hedgerow loss: an estimated seven hundred and fifty thousand kilometres of hedge cleared at the national scale to permit larger fields and tractor work, and the seventy-per-cent national reduction in hedge length since 1950 traceable to the same policy. The Limousin's bocage survives in greater part because livestock-pasture economics gave the regional remembrements less to consolidate, and because slopes like this one are inhospitable to the machinery the policy was designed to admit. The transformation is not the Scottish Highland Clearances of 1750-1860 (those were evictions of tenants by aristocratic landlords for sheep pasture, and produced an emptied Highland landscape; ",[237,3099,2560],{}," reshuffled property among existing smallholders, on paper without depopulation, and in practice often with it), but the rhyme is worth noting: in both cases a rural pattern that took centuries to assemble was unmade in a generation by policy choice, and what disappeared from the country disappeared from the country's legibility too. Entry points: ",[34,3102,3104],{"href":3018,"rel":3103,"target":160},[158,159],"Remembrement — Wikipédia","; Annie Antoine, ",[237,3107,3024],{}," (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2002); on the Clearances, T. M. Devine, ",[237,3110,3028],{}," (Allen Lane, 2018). ",[34,3113,267],{"href":3114,"ariaLabel":281,"className":3115,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-remembrement",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":3117},[3118,3119],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-12.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-12.gpx",[3123,3127,3131,3135,3139],{"src":3124,"alt":3125,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":3126},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Ff\u002Ff6\u002FNaves_Panorama.jpg\u002F1280px-Naves_Panorama.jpg","Panorama of the Naves bourg from the eastern slope, with the Église Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens visible on the village rise","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Naves_Panorama.jpg",{"src":3128,"alt":3129,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":3130},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F4\u002F44\u002FNaves_Eglise_1.jpg\u002F1280px-Naves_Eglise_1.jpg","The Église Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens at Naves: the parish church where the Retable de Naves is housed and where Laurent Koscielny was married in June 2015","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Naves_Eglise_1.jpg",{"src":3132,"alt":3133,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":3134},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F00\u002FNaves_Place.jpg\u002F1280px-Naves_Place.jpg","The village square at Naves bourg, the working centre of the four-river bowl","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Naves_Place.jpg",{"src":3136,"alt":3137,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":3138},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F0d\u002FNaves_Viaduc.jpg\u002F1280px-Naves_Viaduc.jpg","A viaduct in the Naves commune (likely the A89 motorway viaduct that came through south of the bourg in 2002 and is visible from the village's eastern belvédère)","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Naves_Viaduc.jpg",{"src":3140,"alt":3141,"author":2791,"authorUrl":2792,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":3142},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fd\u002Fde\u002F2607Naves_%2813%29.JPG\u002F1280px-2607Naves_%2813%29.JPG","The Retable de Naves from inside the nave (alternate angle): walnut, twenty panels with scenes from the life of Saint Peter, completed 1704","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:2607Naves_(13).JPG",84,{"dataCutoff":3145},"2026-05-15","\u002Fentries\u002F12-naves-coming-home","2026-05-13",12,{"title":2808,"description":2816},"entries\u002F12-naves-coming-home","Km 78-84: a bowl, a retable, a viaduct, and the road begins to climb again",{"fetchedAt":3145,"current":3153,"forecast":359},{"temp":3148,"conditions":2508,"wind":3154},"10 km\u002Fh NNW","25WHfYbSGNrH3eZn3QsXO82_SZPCSPX-5fEOaCGGLrE",{"id":3157,"title":3158,"body":3159,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":3355,"extension":360,"gpxFile":3356,"images":3357,"issue":359,"kmEnd":3379,"kmStart":3143,"meta":3380,"navigation":364,"path":3382,"publishDate":3381,"segment":625,"seo":3383,"special":359,"stem":3384,"subtitle":3385,"weather":3386,"__hash__":3389},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F13-puy-de-lachaud-uncounted.md","Puy de Lachaud, Uncounted",{"type":8,"value":3160,"toc":3350},[3161,3164,3170,3175,3186,3199,3204,3208,3211,3214,3217,3220,3226,3233,3236,3238,3299,3301,3306],[11,3162,3158],{"id":3163},"puy-de-lachaud-uncounted",[15,3165],{"alt":3166,"author":3167,"caption":3168,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"src":3169},"The Bassin de la Villette, Paris, looking south toward la Rotonde de la Villette","Justin Simpson","The Bassin de la Villette looking south toward la Rotonde de la Villette — the OSFS conference venue at the south end of the basin — on the morning of 17 May 2026, fifty-six days before Stage 9 finishes in Ussel.","\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-13\u002Fcanal-bassin-villette.jpg",[27,3171,3172],{},[237,3173,3174],{},"A note from outside the entry. Justin is writing from Paris this week, between London and the start of June, and inside walking range of both the canals and the Gare du Nord. The four photographs woven through this entry are from those walks: the Bassin de la Villette looking south toward la Rotonde de la Villette at the top of the page, and the lock on Quai de la Loire just beside la Rotonde in the gallery below; the Boutique Officielle of the Tour de France set up under the iron of the Gare du Nord through July; and an aisle of Lay's flavours from the Franprix near the Gare de l'Est. None of this is in Corrèze. The photographs are here to mark that the Tour is no longer a distant event the project is building toward — Stage 9 finishes in Ussel fifty-six days from today, and Paris is already starting to remember.",[27,3176,3177],{},[237,3178,3179,3180,3185],{},"From Monday Justin is at the ",[34,3181,3184],{"href":3182,"rel":3183,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002F05f5.com\u002F",[158,159],"Open Source Founders Summit"," — three days on commercial models for open-source software, held inside la Rotonde de la Villette at the south end of the basin pictured above.",[27,3187,3188],{},[237,3189,3190,3191,3198],{},"La Rotonde itself is one of four Ledoux barrières still standing in Paris — survivors of the wall of the Farmers-General, the tax ring that Claude-Nicolas Ledoux designed in some sixty neoclassical pavilions between 1784 and 1791. The wall's octroi on goods entering Paris produced the contemporary quip \"le mur murant Paris rend Paris murmurant\"",[31,3192,3193],{},[34,3194,41],{"href":3195,"ariaDescribedBy":3196,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":3197},"#user-content-fn-mur-murant",[38],"user-content-fnref-mur-murant","; the Revolution abolished the octroi within months, and the buildings came down in stages through the nineteenth century. What remains of Ledoux's gates can be counted on one hand. The basin came later, under Napoleon, whose 1802 decree set up the Canal de l'Ourcq and the basin that opened in 1808, bringing drinkable water into a city the wells could no longer supply. The 19th arrondissement that grew up around all of this was not Paris when Ledoux drew the building — it was the villages of La Villette, La Chapelle, and Belleville, annexed in Haussmann's expansion of 1860, with their working-class textures (the great abattoirs of La Villette, the canal docks, the immigrant streets) kept after the annexation. The 19th today is still the dense, working-class, North African and West African and Chinese arrondissement that la Rotonde's grand neoclassicism sits inside almost without acknowledgement. Justin is in the 19th for a week, and there will be more of it — more photographs, more notes — in segment fourteen.",[15,3200],{"alt":3201,"author":3167,"caption":3202,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"src":3203},"The Tour de France Boutique Officielle inside the Gare du Nord, Paris","The Boutique Officielle of the Tour de France inside the Gare du Nord, on the way back to the trains.","\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-13\u002Ftdf-boutique-gare-du-nord.jpg",[143,3205,3207],{"id":3206},"back-to-corrèze","Back to Corrèze",[27,3209,3210],{},"The Vimbelle slips under the road at the foot of the descent the previous segment ended on, and the gradient comes back the other way at kilometre eighty-three and nine tenths. From there to the next crest is three and six tenths of a kilometre at three point two per cent on average, with a short pitch inside the second kilometre at eleven point seven per cent. The crest at kilometre eighty-seven and a half is one of several Puy de Lachauds in the Massif Central; the better-known of them stands well over a thousand metres, while the one our riders climb tops out, by the project's elevation profile, at something just over five hundred and thirty.",[27,3212,3213],{},"The road climbs through the upper part of the Naves commune and into the southern apron of the granite plateau the route will hold until it falls toward Ussel late in the afternoon. The basement rock under this country is Carboniferous, emplaced as a series of granitic plutons three hundred and sixty to two hundred and ninety million years ago, in the Variscan orogeny that built the Massif Central before the Alps existed. The cover at this elevation is oak and chestnut and pine; the country it shelters has been pastured by hill cattle without much interruption since the place-names settled into anything like their present spelling. The bocage thins as the road climbs. Where the road levels for a hundred metres around kilometre eighty-six, the hedge lines stand further apart and the pasture opens; by the time the riders reach the crest, the proportion of fence to hedge has shifted, and the country is on its way to being plateau country.",[27,3215,3216],{},"At the crest the country opens. To the east the road has come up from the Vimbelle valley; to the west, off the route and out of the bunch's sight-lines, lies the Naves bowl the previous segment held. Ahead and to the north-east the ground rises again in dark blue ridges, the granite reading itself further across the horizon than the granite at the foot of the climb had any way of knowing. The ridges are the Monédières. The stage's hardest climbing is inside them. The road, having reached the day's third high point, levels for a kilometre and then begins to fall toward the next commune line.",[27,3218,3219],{},"The polka-dot board takes no notice of the crest. The Tour's King of the Mountains accounting on Stage Nine recognises four climbs, all categorised by the ASO ahead of the race: the Côte de Naves at kilometre seventy-seven and a half (Category Two, six points to the leader); the Suc au May at one hundred and five, the day's defining climb at seven point one per cent over three and eight tenths kilometres (Hors Catégorie, ten points); the Côte de la Croix de Pey at one hundred and twenty-nine (Category Three, four points); and the Mont Bessou at one hundred and fifty-two, the highest point in Corrèze at nine hundred and seventy-seven metres (Category Four, two points; the road passes under the summit, not over it). Four climbs, twenty-two points. The hill at kilometre eighty-seven and a half does the work of a categorised climb (three and six tenths of a kilometre, an honest average, a short steep ramp inside it) but earns no number on the day's sheet. The project's internal accounting marks it a Cat-2; the official board treats it as terrain.",[2293,3221],{"headline":3222,"kind":2525,"publication":3223,"summary":3224,"url":3225},"Tour de France 2026: A 100% Corrèze stage","Tourisme Corrèze","The official summary of Stage 9 with the four categorised climbs the polka-dot competition will recognise: Côte de Naves, Suc au May, Côte de la Croix du Pey, Mont Bessou.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourismecorreze.com\u002Fen\u002Fevents\u002Ftour_de_france_2026_a_100_correze_stage",[27,3227,3228,3229,3232],{},"The cycling logic of the stage shifts here. From the start in Malemort the day has been climbing out of the Brive basin, threading the ",[237,3230,3231],{},"plus beaux villages"," of the southern Corrèze, and at Tulle settling into the river valley before lifting onto this plateau. From the next crest the day stops being about Tulle. The bunch is strung and warm; the camera helicopter pulls higher; the road runs north-east toward the Suc au May, which is two segments and roughly seventeen and a half kilometres ahead. What sits between the day's two halves is country read through its use. The villages along the road from here to Chaumeil are hamlets of Naves and of Chamboulive. The local-history beat thins. The hedge-lines hold the cattle; the granite barns are working barns; the slow attrition of the chestnut craft has not yet emptied the hamlets along the road. The density of hedgerow in Corrèze, by the most recent regional survey, is thirty-one metres of hedge per hectare, about half the Limousin regional mean and less than half the densities recorded in neighbouring Creuse. What the road crosses here is the thinning end of the bocage.",[27,3234,3235],{},"The road begins to fall. The crest of the puy is behind, the next commune line is ahead, and the long horizon of the higher ground keeps its distance. The wind on the upper plateau is from somewhere west of north. Ahead the road turns its first quiet attention toward the ridges that will hold the rest of the day.",[143,3237,146],{"id":145},[148,3239,3240,3251,3259,3265,3276],{},[151,3241,3242,3243,162,3247,3250],{},"Stage 9 route and categorised climbs (Côte de Naves at km 77.45 Cat 2, Suc au May at km 105.15 HC, Côte de la Croix de Pey at km 128.99 Cat 3, Mont Bessou at km 152.31 Cat 4; the four climbs total twenty-two KOM points): ",[34,3244,3246],{"href":3225,"rel":3245,"target":160},[158,159],"Tour de France 2026: A 100% Corrèze stage (Tourisme Corrèze)",[34,3248,1868],{"href":1866,"rel":3249,"target":160},[158,159]," (third-party stage profile of the route data ASO published in October 2025).",[151,3252,3253,3254,168],{},"Mont Bessou as the highest point in Corrèze (977 m road crest at km 152.31, geographic peak ~1.3 km off the route): ",[34,3255,3258],{"href":3256,"rel":3257,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMont_Bessou",[158,159],"Mont Bessou (Wikipédia)",[151,3260,3261,3262,168],{},"Limousin granitic basement and the Variscan orogeny (Carboniferous plutons emplaced ~360-290 Ma): ",[34,3263,1884],{"href":1882,"rel":3264,"target":160},[158,159],[151,3266,3267,3268,3270,3271,168],{},"Bocage limousin (livestock-led economy, comparative absence of major ",[237,3269,2560],{},"; hedgerow densities Limousin mean 60 m\u002Fha, Corrèze 31 m\u002Fha, Creuse 80 m\u002Fha): S. Hippolyte, A. Bossis and F. Burel, ",[34,3272,3274,3009],{"href":2710,"rel":3273,"target":160},[158,159],[237,3275,2741],{},[151,3277,3278,3279,162,3284,162,3289,162,3294,168],{},"La Rotonde de la Villette as a surviving Ledoux barrière of the Mur des Fermiers généraux (1784-1791), the 19th arrondissement's creation in Haussmann's 1860 annexation of La Villette, La Chapelle, and Belleville, and the Bassin de la Villette opened in 1808 under Napoleon's 1802 canal decree: ",[34,3280,3283],{"href":3281,"rel":3282,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FRotonde_de_la_Villette",[158,159],"Rotonde de la Villette (Wikipédia)",[34,3285,3288],{"href":3286,"rel":3287,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMur_des_Fermiers_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9raux",[158,159],"Mur des Fermiers généraux (Wikipédia)",[34,3290,3293],{"href":3291,"rel":3292,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002F19e_arrondissement_de_Paris",[158,159],"19e arrondissement de Paris (Wikipédia)",[34,3295,3298],{"href":3296,"rel":3297,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FBassin_de_la_Villette",[158,159],"Bassin de la Villette (Wikipédia)",[232,3300],{},[27,3302,3303],{},[237,3304,3305],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.7. Voice register: tls-essay (scholarly sub-mode) (simpson-registers); the editorial opening above the first body paragraph is in a personal-aside register, outside the body's voice.",[241,3307,3309,3312],{"className":3308,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,3310,249],{"className":3311,"id":38},[248],[251,3313,3314],{},[151,3315,3317,3318,3321,3322,3325,3326,3329,3330,3333,3334,3337,3338,3341,3342,3345,3346],{"id":3316},"user-content-fn-mur-murant","\"The wall walling Paris makes Paris murmur\" — a homophonic Parisian quip from the years the Mur des Fermiers généraux went up (1784-1791), playing on ",[237,3319,3320],{},"mur"," (wall), ",[237,3323,3324],{},"murant"," (walling), and ",[237,3327,3328],{},"murmurant"," (murmuring, grumbling). The line is variously attributed to Louis-Sébastien Mercier (1740-1814), chronicler of Paris in ",[237,3331,3332],{},"Tableau de Paris"," (1781-1788) and ",[237,3335,3336],{},"Le Nouveau Paris"," (1798), and to Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799), playwright of ",[237,3339,3340],{},"Le Barbier de Séville"," (1775) and ",[237,3343,3344],{},"Le Mariage de Figaro"," (1784); neither attribution is firm, and the quip circulates in eighteenth-century sources without a fixed author. ",[34,3347,267],{"href":3348,"ariaLabel":264,"className":3349,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-mur-murant",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":3351},[3352,3353,3354],{"id":3206,"depth":354,"text":3207},{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-13.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-13.gpx",[3358,3363,3367,3373,3376],{"src":3359,"alt":3360,"author":1927,"authorUrl":3361,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":3362},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F7\u002F7f\u002FLa_Vimbelle%2C_au_sud_de_Beaumont.jpg\u002F1280px-La_Vimbelle%2C_au_sud_de_Beaumont.jpg","The Vimbelle stream in Corrèze, photographed at the southern edge of Beaumont commune, upstream of the seg-13 road crossing","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Avocat_jean","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:La_Vimbelle,_au_sud_de_Beaumont.jpg",{"src":3364,"alt":3365,"author":1299,"authorUrl":2485,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":3366},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F4\u002F4e\u002FPaysage_rural_Chamboulive.JPG\u002F1280px-Paysage_rural_Chamboulive.JPG","Hedge-lined pasture near Chamboulive — the southern apron of the granite plateau the seg-13 climb enters in its closing kilometre","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Paysage_rural_Chamboulive.JPG",{"src":3368,"alt":3369,"author":3370,"authorUrl":3371,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":3372},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F3\u002F33\u002FPanorama_sur_les_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res.jpg\u002F1280px-Panorama_sur_les_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res.jpg","Panorama of the Monédières from le Lonzac, hameau de la Tronche, looking toward the Puy de la Monédière and the northern Suc au May","Proxi19","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Proxi19","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Panorama_sur_les_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res.jpg",{"src":3374,"alt":3375,"author":3167,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152},"\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-13\u002Fcanal-saint-martin-lock.jpg","The lock at the south end of the Bassin de la Villette, Quai de la Loire, Paris, immediately beside la Rotonde de la Villette, photographed 17 May 2026",{"src":3377,"alt":3378,"author":3167,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152},"\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-13\u002Flays-flavours-paris.jpg","The Lay's aisle of the Franprix near the Gare de l'Est, Paris, photographed 17 May 2026",92,{"dataCutoff":3381},"2026-05-17","\u002Fentries\u002F13-puy-de-lachaud-uncounted",{"title":3158,"description":39},"entries\u002F13-puy-de-lachaud-uncounted","Km 84-92: the day's third climb, a granite plateau, and the road turns toward the Suc au May",{"fetchedAt":3381,"current":3387,"forecast":359},{"temp":745,"conditions":989,"wind":3388},"6 km\u002Fh WSW","IQchfQwKzfwKLAB-64iznV1433UPrdT9CwihL6XgIq0",{"id":3391,"title":3392,"body":3393,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":3716,"extension":360,"gpxFile":3717,"images":3718,"issue":359,"kmEnd":3750,"kmStart":3379,"meta":3751,"navigation":364,"path":3753,"publishDate":3754,"segment":745,"seo":3755,"special":359,"stem":3756,"subtitle":3757,"weather":3758,"__hash__":3762},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F14-into-the-monedieres.md","Into the Monédières",{"type":8,"value":3394,"toc":3711},[3395,3398,3403,3412,3417,3419,3422,3429,3440,3443,3461,3492,3495,3502,3508,3510,3609,3611,3616],[11,3396,3392],{"id":3397},"into-the-monédières",[15,3399],{"alt":3400,"author":3167,"caption":3401,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"src":3402},"The Porte Saint-Denis on the Grands Boulevards in Paris, the 1672 triumphal arch built to François Blondel's design to commemorate Louis XIV's Rhine campaign","The Porte Saint-Denis on the Grands Boulevards, the 1672 triumphal arch built to François Blondel's design, photographed on the walk between the Faubourg Saint-Denis and the Rue des Degrés (the shortest street in Paris) on 20 May 2026.","\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-14\u002Fporte-saint-denis.jpg",[27,3404,3405],{},[237,3406,3407,3408,3411],{},"A second note from outside the entry. Justin spent Sunday to Tuesday at the ",[34,3409,3184],{"href":3182,"rel":3410,"target":160},[158,159]," inside la Rotonde de la Villette, the Ledoux barrière at the south end of the bassin pictured at the top of the previous entry, and walked the rest of the week. The photograph above is the Porte Saint-Denis on the Grands Boulevards: a triumphal arch begun in 1672 to François Blondel's design to commemorate Louis XIV's Rhine victories of that summer, set into the line of the old Charles V fortifications which Louis ordered demolished at the same moment. Blondel's arch and Ledoux's pavilions are not on the same wall – the Mur des Fermiers généraux ran kilometres further out a century later – but the walk from one to the other crosses two of Paris's old edges, takes in the faubourg the rue Saint-Denis became when the inner wall came down, and meets the bassin the city dug after the outer wall went up. Two and a half kilometres on foot; three centuries of edge.",[27,3413,3414],{},[237,3415,3416],{},"The other five photographs in the gallery below are from the same week.",[143,3418,3207],{"id":3206},[27,3420,3421],{},"The road comes off the Puy de Lachaud crest at three and four tenths per cent for something like two kilometres, and then the gradient turns. At kilometre ninety-two the route enters the Saint-Augustin commune at five hundred and twenty-two metres, on a small plateau between the puy behind and the Monédières ahead. From there it climbs in two unhurried lifts joined by a half-kilometre of false flat. The steepest pitch inside the segment runs at seven and a half per cent for not much more than a hundred metres; the segment's net work is eighty-five metres of climb and forty of descent across six kilometres of road. By the standards of the day so far this is not climbing; by the standards of the day still ahead, it is the runway.",[27,3423,3424,3425,3428],{},"The bourg of Saint-Augustin sits a few hundred metres south of the road, on a small rise the route leaves to its left at kilometre ninety-four and a half. The polyline runs nine metres off the bourg centre and does not turn for it. Population four hundred and twenty-seven in the 2023 census, area twenty-nine square kilometres of granite-and-bocage country on the southern flank of the Monédières, the commune takes its name from the Augustinian priory founded here around the tenth century, not from Augustine of Hippo. It is inside the Parc naturel régional de Millevaches en Limousin. The southernmost named ",[237,3426,3427],{},"puy"," of the massif, the Puy de Chauzeix at eight hundred and ninety-three metres, stands inside the commune limits, two kilometres north-west of the bourg; the commune's full range of elevation is three hundred and fifty-five to eight hundred and ninety-seven metres, of which the road takes the lowest fifty.",[27,3430,3431,3432,3439],{},"What is on the road, then, is the bourg passed at racing speed, a hamlet a kilometre north, and a memorial off the verge a kilometre and a half further on. The parish church on the small rise inside the bourg is Saint-Augustin de Saint-Augustin, thirteenth century, modified in the fourteenth through sixteenth, inscribed Monument Historique in 1929",[31,3433,3434],{},[34,3435,41],{"href":3436,"ariaDescribedBy":3437,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":3438},"#user-content-fn-merimee",[38],"user-content-fnref-merimee",". What the rider does not see, going past, is the retable inside.",[27,3441,3442],{},"The retable is a Crucifixion flanked by Saint Augustine, with the flaming heart of the Augustinian canons, and Saint Roch, with dog and staff. It was commissioned in sixteen eighty-one from Pierre Duhamel, the Tulle woodcarver, with the menuisier Antoine Cessac. It is the earlier of a pair. The same atelier, twenty-three years later, finished the Retable de Naves, twelve metres of walnut by fourteen, twenty panels with scenes from the life of Saint Peter, signed by Pierre on its Adoration of the Magi panel; that retable, in the church the riders did not enter two segments back, is the larger and later work of the hand that worked here first. The earlier retable, in the church the riders also do not enter, is the same hand at it twenty-three years younger and at a smaller scale. Two parish churches on the same plateau, on the same workshop's books a generation apart, is the kind of country that could still commission walnut at the scale walnut took.",[27,3444,3445,3446,3449,3456,3457,3460],{},"The road climbs out of the bourg and bends north-east. The massif opens across the eastern half of the segment: Puy de la Monédière at nine hundred and twenty-two metres, Puy de la Jarrige at nine hundred and nine, Suc au May at nine hundred and eight, Puy Messou at nine hundred and seven, with the broken peaks of the Plateau de Millevaches behind them. The Limousin granitic basement that has carried the road since Tulle is unchanged, but the relief is now stronger and the cover changes with it. The oak-and-chestnut bocage gives way at this elevation to the ",[237,3447,3448],{},"brandes",[31,3450,3451],{},[34,3452,66],{"href":3453,"ariaDescribedBy":3454,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":3455},"#user-content-fn-brandes",[38],"user-content-fnref-brandes",", the heath community of heather and gorse and bilberry that defines the ",[237,3458,3459],{},"paysage"," of the massif and which the road will be inside for most of the next two hours. The named figures of the Monédières, the Bourrée played by the Chaumeil violinists and the accordion of Jean Ségurel and the criterium he built in the year after the war, arrive on the road at Chaumeil, two segments on. What lands here is the horizon they sit inside.",[27,3462,3463,3464,3467,3468,3475,3476,3479,3480,3483,3484,3491],{},"At kilometre ninety-six and three quarters the road passes within two hundred and forty-nine metres of a small stele in the ",[237,3465,3466],{},"maquis"," of the Monédières. The stele almost certainly commemorates Camp Roland, the FTP-Corrèze",[31,3469,3470],{},[34,3471,84],{"href":3472,"ariaDescribedBy":3473,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":3474},"#user-content-fn-ftp",[38],"user-content-fnref-ftp"," unit named after Auguste Vangierdegom, ",[237,3477,3478],{},"Roland",", the first FTP combatant killed in action in Corrèze, on the night of the thirteenth to fourteenth of July nineteen forty-three, age twenty-two. The original detachment, Camp Guy Môquet under Marcel Gibiat (",[237,3481,3482],{},"Metallo","), operated from Puy-Chassagnoux; surviving comrades established Camp Roland in the Monédières as a memorial unit after Vangierdegom's death",[31,3485,3486],{},[34,3487,96],{"href":3488,"ariaDescribedBy":3489,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":3490},"#user-content-fn-maquis-roland",[38],"user-content-fnref-maquis-roland",". The heath the riders are about to climb through was a hiding country. The stele itself, two hundred and forty-nine metres off the road, is not the kind of memorial the rider going past at racing speed sees. The country carries the name regardless.",[27,3493,3494],{},"The cycling history of this road, as it happens, is also a history of going the other way. On the tenth of September two thousand and twenty, on the longest stage of that year's Tour de France, Chauvigny to Sarran at two hundred and eighteen kilometres, the peloton came over the Suc au May from the Treignac side and descended through Saint-Augustin southbound, toward a finish at Sarran tied by route choice to the family château of Jacques Chirac. Marc Hirschi, then twenty-two and riding for Sunweb, attacked off the Suc au May descent with twenty-five kilometres still to go, and won alone. The 2020 race read the road as a descent. The 2026 race, this Wednesday, reads it as a climb, into the same massif from the opposite side. The Tour has been on this road before, but always going down. This is the first time the road is climbed.",[27,3496,3497,3498,3501],{},"L'Agglomérée 2026, the regional ",[237,3499,3500],{},"cyclosportive"," from Tulle Auzelou on the fifth of April this year, climbed Suc au May from the same southern approach as the 2026 Stage Nine. The hundred-and-five-kilometre course refuelled at Saint-Augustin twice, at kilometre twenty-three on the outbound leg and kilometre forty-eight on the return, which makes the village the cyclosportive's Suc au May threshold the same way it makes it the Tour's. By the time the peloton arrives the road has been climbed in the new direction, by the local amateurs, for six weeks.",[27,3503,3504,3505,3507],{},"The road climbs toward the next commune line and the gradient sharpens. Ahead, the heath the ",[237,3506,3466],{}," hid in is the heath the climb goes through. The mountains are no longer on the horizon.",[143,3509,146],{"id":145},[148,3511,3512,3523,3540,3550,3565,3580,3593],{},[151,3513,3514,3515,3517,3518,168],{},"Saint-Augustin (Corrèze) commune fundamentals (population 427 in 2023; area 29.31 km²; Augustinian priory founding around the tenth century; commune inside the Parc naturel régional de Millevaches en Limousin; Puy de Chauzeix at 893 m as the southernmost named ",[237,3516,3427],{}," of the Monédières inside the commune; commune elevation range 355-897 m): ",[34,3519,3522],{"href":3520,"rel":3521,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSaint-Augustin_(Corr%C3%A8ze)",[158,159],"Saint-Augustin (Corrèze) – Wikipédia",[151,3524,3525,3526,3529,3530,162,3535,168],{},"Église Saint-Augustin and the 1681 Duhamel retable (Pierre Duhamel of Tulle with the ",[237,3527,3528],{},"menuisier"," Antoine Cessac; Crucifixion flanked by Saint Augustine with the flaming heart and Saint Roch with dog and staff; Monument Historique inscription dated to 1929 in the Mérimée database): ",[34,3531,3534],{"href":3532,"rel":3533,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.pop.culture.gouv.fr\u002Fnotice\u002Fmerimee\u002FPA00099811",[158,159],"Église Saint-Augustin – Mérimée notice PA00099811",[34,3536,3539],{"href":3537,"rel":3538,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.correze-histoire-patrimoine.fr\u002Fsaint-augustin\u002F",[158,159],"Saint-Augustin (Corrèze-Histoire-Patrimoine)",[151,3541,3542,3543,3546,3547,168],{},"Retable de Naves cross-reference (1704, fourteen by twelve metres, twenty panels with scenes from the life of Saint Peter, signed by Pierre Duhamel on the ",[237,3544,3545],{},"Adoration des mages"," panel, attributed to the same Tulle workshop as the 1681 Saint-Augustin retable): ",[34,3548,2948],{"href":2887,"rel":3549,"target":160},[158,159],[151,3551,3552,3553,3555,3556,162,3561,168],{},"Monédières massif (granitic basement of the Limousin, Variscan emplacement 360-290 Ma; named peaks Puy de la Monédière 922 m, Puy de la Jarrige 909 m, Suc au May 908 m, Puy Messou 907 m; ",[237,3554,3448],{}," heath community): ",[34,3557,3560],{"href":3558,"rel":3559,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res",[158,159],"Monédières – Wikipédia",[34,3562,3564],{"href":1882,"rel":3563,"target":160},[158,159],"Géologie du Limousin – Wikipédia",[151,3566,3567,3568,3570,3571,3573,3574,3579],{},"Camp Roland and the Maquis Roland identification (Auguste Vangierdegom \u002F ",[237,3569,3478],{},", first FTP combatant killed in action in Corrèze on the night of 13-14 July 1943, age 22; Camp Guy Môquet under Marcel Gibiat (",[237,3572,3482],{},") at Puy-Chassagnoux as the precursor detachment; Camp Roland established in the Monédières after Vangierdegom's death): ",[34,3575,3578],{"href":3576,"rel":3577,"target":160},"http:\u002F\u002Fwww.saintpardouxlacroisille.net\u002Fstp_30d_009.htm",[158,159],"Saint-Pardoux-la-Croisille local-history page",". The stele's dedication has not been ground-verified.",[151,3581,3582,3583,162,3588,168],{},"2020 Tour de France Stage 12 (Chauvigny → Sarran, Thursday 10 September 2020, 218 km, the longest stage of that year's Tour; Marc Hirschi soloed to the win from a Suc au May descent attack with 25 km remaining; the peloton crossed Suc au May from the Treignac side and descended southbound through Saint-Augustin): ",[34,3584,3587],{"href":3585,"rel":3586,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002F2020_Tour_de_France",[158,159],"Tour de France 2020 – Wikipedia",[34,3589,3592],{"href":3590,"rel":3591,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Finrng.com\u002F2020\u002F09\u002Ftour-de-france-stage-12-preview-sarran",[158,159],"Inner Ring, Stage 12 preview (Chauvigny → Sarran)",[151,3594,3595,3596,3598,3599,162,3604,168],{},"L'Agglomérée 2026 (regional ",[237,3597,3500],{}," from Tulle Auzelou on 5 April 2026, 105 km course climbing Suc au May from the southern Saint-Augustin \u002F Chaumeil approach, refuelling at Saint-Augustin at km 23 outbound and km 48 on the return leg): ",[34,3600,3603],{"href":3601,"rel":3602,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Flagglomeree.agglo-tulle.fr\u002Fepreuves\u002Fcyclosportive",[158,159],"L'Agglomérée 2026 – Tulle Agglomération",[34,3605,3608],{"href":3606,"rel":3607,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.battistrada.com\u002Ffr\u002Fcalendrier-cyclosportives\u002Fedition\u002Ftulle-agglo-cyclosportive-2026\u002F47469",[158,159],"Battistrada calendar listing",[232,3610],{},[27,3612,3613],{},[237,3614,3615],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.7. Voice register: tls-essay (scholarly sub-mode).",[241,3617,3619,3622],{"className":3618,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,3620,249],{"className":3621,"id":38},[248],[251,3623,3624,3645,3680,3699],{},[151,3625,3627,3628,3631,3632,896,3634,3637,3638,3640,3641],{"id":3626},"user-content-fn-merimee","The Mérimée database (notice PA00099811) records the inscription of the Église Saint-Augustin as a Monument Historique in 1929; Wikipedia FR gives 25 September 1929 for the church, while ",[237,3629,3630],{},"correze-histoire-patrimoine.fr"," gives 29 November 1929 for the retable's separate classification as a ",[237,3633,2872],{},[237,3635,3636],{},"objet",". Both dates are credible (a building's inscription and the classification of a fixed ",[237,3639,3636],{}," it contains are independent administrative acts), but the project has not yet checked them against the original Mérimée notice; the inscription year is what the prose claims. ",[34,3642,267],{"href":3643,"ariaLabel":264,"className":3644,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-merimee",[266],[151,3646,3648,3651,3652,3655,3656,3659,3660,3663,3664,3667,3668,3671,3672,3675,3676],{"id":3647},"user-content-fn-brandes",[237,3649,3650],{},"Brandes",", in the regional vocabulary of the Limousin and the wider Massif Central, is the heath plant community – ",[237,3653,3654],{},"Calluna vulgaris"," (heather), ",[237,3657,3658],{},"Erica cinerea"," (bell heather), ",[237,3661,3662],{},"Ulex minor"," (dwarf gorse), ",[237,3665,3666],{},"Cytisus scoparius"," (broom), ",[237,3669,3670],{},"Vaccinium myrtillus"," (bilberry) – that sits above the oak-and-chestnut bocage on acid granitic and metamorphic soils, and which is now a Natura 2000 ",[237,3673,3674],{},"paysage culturel"," historically maintained by sheep grazing and periodic burning. The Monédières heath has been in retreat since the 1960s as upland sheep economies were abandoned; the Parc naturel régional de Millevaches en Limousin is the contemporary conservation body. ",[34,3677,267],{"href":3678,"ariaLabel":281,"className":3679,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-brandes",[266],[151,3681,3683,3686,3687,3690,3691,3694,3695],{"id":3682},"user-content-fn-ftp",[237,3684,3685],{},"Francs-Tireurs et Partisans français",", the communist-organised armed component of the French Resistance, founded 1941-1942 and merged into the ",[237,3688,3689],{},"Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur"," (FFI) in 1944. In the Corrèze the FTP networks were among the earliest and most active of the wartime maquis; the ",[237,3692,3693],{},"Camp Guy Môquet – Camp Roland"," lineage in the Monédières is one of several FTP detachments documented in the département. ",[34,3696,267],{"href":3697,"ariaLabel":296,"className":3698,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-ftp",[266],[151,3700,3702,3703,3706,3707],{"id":3701},"user-content-fn-maquis-roland","The identification of this stele with Camp Roland is the strongest working hypothesis available to the project, drawn from the local-history account at ",[237,3704,3705],{},"saintpardouxlacroisille.net\u002Fstp_30d_009.htm"," (which records Vangierdegom's death on the night of 13-14 July 1943, the Camp Guy Môquet detachment at Puy-Chassagnoux under Marcel Gibiat, and the post-mortem establishment of Camp Roland in the Monédières). A ground photograph of the stele's dedication has not yet been taken, and the local-history source is a single regional page rather than a Wikipedia-grade primary; the identification is given here as the working hypothesis, not as the verified inscription. If the stele turns out to commemorate a different unit, the correction will carry forward into a later entry rather than retroactively edit this one. ",[34,3708,267],{"href":3709,"ariaLabel":308,"className":3710,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-maquis-roland",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":3712},[3713,3714,3715],{"id":3206,"depth":354,"text":3207},{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-14.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-14.gpx",[3719,3723,3729,3735,3738,3741,3744,3747],{"src":3720,"alt":3721,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":3722},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F04\u002FSaint-Augustin_Vue_du_village.jpg\u002F1280px-Saint-Augustin_Vue_du_village.jpg","Panorama of the Saint-Augustin bourg on the southern flank of the Monédières","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Saint-Augustin_Vue_du_village.jpg",{"src":3724,"alt":3725,"author":3726,"authorUrl":3727,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":3728},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fd\u002Fd2\u002FSaint-Augustin_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29_-_Eglise_Saint-Augustin_02.JPG\u002F1280px-Saint-Augustin_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29_-_Eglise_Saint-Augustin_02.JPG","The Église Saint-Augustin de Saint-Augustin, the thirteenth-century parish church on the small rise inside the bourg, housing the 1681 Duhamel retable","MOSSOT","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:MOSSOT","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Saint-Augustin_(Corr%C3%A8ze)_-_Eglise_Saint-Augustin_02.JPG",{"src":3730,"alt":3731,"author":3732,"authorUrl":3733,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":3734},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fd\u002Fd0\u002FLe_tourondel_chateau.JPG\u002F1280px-Le_tourondel_chateau.JPG","The Château du Tourondel in the hamlet of Tourondel, Saint-Augustin commune, a kilometre north of the bourg","Velvet","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Velvet","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Le_tourondel_chateau.JPG",{"src":3736,"alt":3737,"author":3167,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152},"\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-14\u002Fparis-stair-selfie.jpg","Justin Simpson with co-workers Joel and Kelly on the Rue des Degrés, the shortest street in Paris (14 steps in the 2nd arrondissement), photographed 20 May 2026",{"src":3739,"alt":3740,"author":3167,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152},"\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-14\u002Fcat-in-handbag-shop.jpg","A tabby cat asleep inside a Chanel box in the window of a Paris handbag shop, photographed 20 May 2026",{"src":3742,"alt":3743,"author":3167,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152},"\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-14\u002Fmural-paris-10th.jpg","A street mural seen from a small bridge in the 10th arrondissement of Paris on the morning walk back from the Gare de l'Est, photographed 21 May 2026",{"src":3745,"alt":3746,"author":3167,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152},"\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-14\u002Fatelier-canal-saint-martin.jpg","A garden-fronted atelier on the rue Yves Toudic, near the Canal Saint-Martin in the 10th arrondissement of Paris",{"src":3748,"alt":3749,"author":3167,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152},"\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-14\u002Fdu-pain-et-des-idees.jpg","The boulangerie Du Pain et des Idées at the corner of rue Yves Toudic and rue de Marseille, Paris 10e, at premises continuously a boulangerie since the late nineteenth century",98,{"dataCutoff":3752},"2026-05-19","\u002Fentries\u002F14-into-the-monedieres","2026-05-20",{"title":3392,"description":39},"entries\u002F14-into-the-monedieres","Km 92-98: the road enters the Saint-Augustin commune, and the massif rises ahead",{"fetchedAt":3759,"current":3760,"forecast":359},"2026-05-21",{"temp":1950,"conditions":626,"wind":3761},"5 km\u002Fh ENE","kzE96mULKH4qnAHeQflCu3XFmK5OGlNGCZBht8hGAH8",{"id":3764,"title":3765,"body":3766,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":4159,"extension":360,"gpxFile":4160,"images":4161,"issue":359,"kmEnd":4178,"kmStart":3750,"meta":4179,"navigation":364,"path":4181,"publishDate":4180,"segment":4182,"seo":4183,"special":359,"stem":4184,"subtitle":4185,"weather":4186,"__hash__":4190},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F15-suc-au-may-the-fierce-one.md","Suc au May - The Fierce One",{"type":8,"value":3767,"toc":4155},[3768,3771,3777,3808,3811,3844,3849,3856,3859,3878,3883,3889,3900,3908,3919,3924,3927,3929,4022,4024,4028],[11,3769,3765],{"id":3770},"suc-au-may-the-fierce-one",[15,3772],{"alt":3773,"author":1299,"author-url":2485,"caption":3774,"license":21,"license-url":22,"source-url":3775,"src":3776},"The south of the Monédières massif, looking toward Chaumeil from the Suc au May summit (908 m)","The south of the Monédières massif, looking toward Chaumeil from the Suc au May summit – the view the 1935 table d'orientation names, with the village in the middle distance and the lower-Limousin valleys beyond.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Le_sud_des_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res_vers_Chaumeil.JPG","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F4\u002F45\u002FLe_sud_des_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res_vers_Chaumeil.JPG\u002F1920px-Le_sud_des_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res_vers_Chaumeil.JPG",[27,3778,3779,3780,3783,3784,3787,3788,3791,3792,3795,3796,3803,3804,3807],{},"The commune line is at kilometre ninety-eight, and the road enters Chaumeil on a gradient that has been firming through the closing kilometre of the previous segment. Three and a half kilometres past the bourg, the same gradient becomes the Suc au May. Chaumeil is small. Population one hundred and sixty-four in the 2023 census, area thirty-one and seven tenths square kilometres of granitic upland on the southern flank of the Monédières massif, elevation range five hundred and twenty-four to nine hundred and eleven metres. The bourg sits at kilometre one hundred and three tenths, on the high side of the road, at five hundred and seventy metres. The name is exactly what the place is. ",[237,3781,3782],{},"Chaumeil",", from the prélatin ",[237,3785,3786],{},"calmis"," with the Latin diminutive suffix ",[237,3789,3790],{},"-iculus",", is the small ",[237,3793,3794],{},"chaume",", the small heath",[31,3797,3798],{},[34,3799,41],{"href":3800,"ariaDescribedBy":3801,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":3802},"#user-content-fn-calmis",[38],"user-content-fnref-calmis",". The cognate Occitan ",[237,3805,3806],{},"chaumo"," survives in regional speech for the same kind of upland clearing. A village called for the heath it sits in, in the tongue the heath was first called by.",[27,3809,3810],{},"What the size of the village does not predict is the weight Chaumeil carries in French folk-music and French cycling memory. The two are not separable here. The Monédières heath gave its name to a tune; a Chaumeil-born accordionist carried the tune to the national record; and the same Chaumeil drew a post-war cycling generation back every summer for fifty years to ride a criterium on its lanes. The size of the present village is a measure of the country's twentieth-century depopulation, not of what the village has been doing.",[27,3812,3813,3814,3817,3818,3825,3826,3829,3830,3833,3834,3836,3837,168],{},"The tune first. ",[237,3815,3816],{},"La Bourrée des Monédières"," is, in the regional vocabulary of Limousin folk music, two things at once",[31,3819,3820],{},[34,3821,66],{"href":3822,"ariaDescribedBy":3823,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":3824},"#user-content-fn-bourree",[38],"user-content-fnref-bourree",". It is the name of a sub-style of the Limousin and Auvergnat ",[237,3827,3828],{},"bourrée"," – a triple-time three-step dance carried on violins in pairs, played in the Massif Central from at least the seventeenth century and probably much earlier – and the name of a specific tune, played by the violinists of the Monédières and centred on Chaumeil, that came to stand for the sub-style. The violinists are anonymous. The tune is not. The ",[237,3831,3832],{},"Bourrée"," the Chaumeil violinists played is the ",[237,3835,3832],{}," a Chaumeil-born accordionist named Jean Ségurel recorded in arrangement at some point in the 1930s, and it is the recorded version that the tune is now known by",[31,3838,3839],{},[34,3840,84],{"href":3841,"ariaDescribedBy":3842,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":3843},"#user-content-fn-segurel",[38],"user-content-fnref-segurel",[69,3845],{"attribution":3846,"caption":3847,"embed-url":3848},"Source: YouTube channel Chansons, Folklore et Variété.","Jean Ségurel et ses Troubadours, Bourrée des Monédières. The canonical arrangement, in Ségurel's own accordion recording with his Troubadours ensemble.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FWgabbiMcjdg",[27,3850,3851,3852,3855],{},"Ségurel was born at Chaumeil on the thirteenth of October nineteen hundred and eight; he died at Chaumeil on the twenty-ninth of December nineteen hundred and seventy-eight; he is buried in the Chaumeil cemetery. His other recording, ",[237,3853,3854],{},"Bruyères corréziennes"," (1936; words by the schoolteacher Jean Leymarie), pressed six hundred thousand copies by 1945 and is the song that put the name of the corridor's heath plant into French wartime and post-war memory. Charles de Gaulle pinned the Légion d'honneur on him in 1968. His wife was elected mayor of Chaumeil. The Maison des Monédières in the bourg, ground floor, holds the Musée Jean Ségurel; it is open seasonally and shares the building with the village tourist office.",[27,3857,3858],{},"The cycling part of the village's twentieth century comes back to this same name. From the early 1950s through the early 2000s, with a long pause and a long revival, Chaumeil hosted a post-Tour-de-France criterium that the road through the bourg formed half the circuit of. The roll-call of the criterium's winners is the roll-call of the post-war peloton. The criterium is the reason the Tour, in 1987, was at Chaumeil twice in one day.",[27,3860,3861,3862,3869,3870,3877],{},"The day was Saturday the eleventh of July nineteen hundred and eighty-seven. Stage eleven of the men's race, Poitiers to Chaumeil over two hundred and fifty-five kilometres: Martial Gayant of Système U went clear with thirteen kilometres remaining and held the breakaway home alone, ahead of Laudelino Cubino and Kim Andersen",[31,3863,3864],{},[34,3865,96],{"href":3866,"ariaDescribedBy":3867,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":3868},"#user-content-fn-men-1987",[38],"user-content-fnref-men-1987",". On the same stage, Gayant's own teammate Charly Mottet lost the yellow jersey he had carried into the day. Stage three of the women's race, the Tour de France Féminin, Linards to Chaumeil over seventy-two and a half kilometres: Roberta Bonanomi of Italy won ahead of Maria Canins and Jeannie Longo, taking the yellow jersey, on the same village's finish line, on the same Saturday",[31,3871,3872],{},[34,3873,108],{"href":3874,"ariaDescribedBy":3875,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":3876},"#user-content-fn-women-1987",[38],"user-content-fnref-women-1987",". Longo, who crashed twice in the stage, went on to win the overall race that ran the eighth to the twenty-sixth of July. The two finishes are the only occasion on record on which both editions of the Tour finished a stage in the same village on the same day. The criterium era is the reason Chaumeil was a place the Tour could come to; the 1987 double-finish was the moment the rest of the Tour caught up with the village's own scale of cycling memory.",[69,3879],{"attribution":3880,"caption":3881,"embed-url":3882},"Source: YouTube channel Retro Cycling.","Tour de France 1987, Stage 11, Poitiers to Chaumeil. Martial Gayant's solo win, in the original French television broadcast.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FLb9gKDY48Us",[1159,3884],{"attribution":3885,"caption":3886,"embed-url":3887,"title-prefix":3888},"Interactive view. Imagery © Google Street View.","The rond-point at Chaumeil where the D26 bears north toward the Suc au May climb, with the road sign pointing the way.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1748100000000!6m8!1m7!1sIH2dNAV0LoQpc5krKYAV-Q!2m2!1d45.4557832!2d1.8815126!3f361.61!4f-10.26!5f0.7820865974627469","Street View",[27,3890,3891,3892,3895,3896,3899],{},"The road climbs out of Chaumeil and onto the categorised climb. The Suc au May, in the road's geometry, is short and severe. The categorised section runs about three and a half kilometres from the village to the road's high point at kilometre one hundred and five and a sixth, with a sharp pitch on the elevation profile near the road-peak. The road-peak sits at eight hundred and eighty-nine metres. The Suc au May, in the ",[237,3893,3894],{},"summit's"," geometry, is somewhere else. The actual summit, nine hundred and eight metres, rises nineteen metres above the road's high point and four hundred and forty-two metres off the parcours, reached by a fifteen-minute footpath from a small parking area on the D26 just before the road-peak. The ",[237,3897,3898],{},"suc",", in Occitan, is the summit word. The fierce one of the Monédières keeps its summit off the bitumen. The climbing rider is delivered to the road-peak; the named summit is elsewhere.",[15,3901],{"alt":3902,"author":3903,"author-url":3904,"caption":3905,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"source-url":3906,"src":3907},"A rider on the Suc au May road during Stage 12 of the 2020 Tour de France","GAFUCRU","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:GAFUCRU","The Suc au May road on a Tour day: a rider during Stage 12 of the 2020 Tour de France (Chauvigny to Sarran, 10 September 2020), the first time the Tour climbed the Suc au May.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Passage_Tour_de_France_2020.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fe\u002Fee\u002FPassage_Tour_de_France_2020.jpg\u002F1280px-Passage_Tour_de_France_2020.jpg",[27,3909,3910,3911,3918],{},"At the actual summit, off the road, sits the table d'orientation. A hexagonal Volvic stone base, an enamelled-lava engraving by M. Seurat of the Auvergne enamelled-lava factory naming the visible peaks from the Monts d'Auvergne in the east to the Plateau de Millevaches in the north to the lower Limousin valleys in the south, the hundred and thirty-second such table placed in France and North Africa, the oldest in the Limousin. It was inaugurated on the twenty-fifth of August nineteen hundred and thirty-five by Henry de Jouvenel",[31,3912,3913],{},[34,3914,117],{"href":3915,"ariaDescribedBy":3916,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":3917},"#user-content-fn-jouvenel",[38],"user-content-fnref-jouvenel",", at the time senator of the Corrèze, former minister, former French ambassador to Italy. The Jouvenel of the Suc au May is the same Henry de Jouvenel whose Maison de la Sirène at Collonges-la-Rouge, twelve segments back at kilometre twenty-two, was the house he kept with Colette. The 2026 route climbs to within four hundred and forty-two metres of a marker placed by the man whose Collonges house the riders passed eighty kilometres ago. The corridor's longest verified cross-segment thread closes at a stone the riders do not, on the climbing day, walk fifteen minutes to see.",[69,3920],{"attribution":3921,"caption":3922,"embed-url":3923},"Source: YouTube channel CAM ON BIG AIR.","Aerial view of the Suc au May summit and its table d'orientation – the marker the road climbs past but does not reach.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FZXQasOzc9zg",[27,3925,3926],{},"The road turns off the high point and begins to descend. Segment sixteen owns the descent off the massif.",[143,3928,146],{"id":145},[148,3930,3931,3939,3963,3984,3997,4015],{},[151,3932,3933,3934,168],{},"Chaumeil commune: ",[34,3935,3938],{"href":3936,"rel":3937,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FChaumeil",[158,159],"Chaumeil – Wikipédia",[151,3940,3941,1358,3943,162,3948,162,3956,168],{},[237,3942,3816],{},[34,3944,3947],{"href":3945,"rel":3946,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMusique_limousine",[158,159],"Musique limousine – Wikipédia",[34,3949,3952,3955],{"href":3950,"rel":3951,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fviolons-populaires-nouvelle-aquitaine.fr\u002Fportfolio\u002Fles-pastoureaux-de-la-couze-folklore-du-bas-limousin\u002F",[158,159],[237,3953,3954],{},"Folklore du Bas-Limousin"," (Les Pastoureaux de la Couze)",[34,3957,3960],{"href":3958,"rel":3959,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fviolons-populaires-nouvelle-aquitaine.fr\u002Fportfolio\u002Fdits-chants-et-danses-populaires-du-limousin\u002F",[158,159],[237,3961,3962],{},"Dits, Chants et Danses Populaires du Limousin",[151,3964,3965,3966,162,3970,162,3975,3978,3979,168],{},"Jean Ségurel: ",[34,3967,2885],{"href":3968,"rel":3969,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FJean_S%C3%A9gurel",[158,159],[34,3971,3974],{"href":3972,"rel":3973,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fdata.bnf.fr\u002F13958098\u002Fjean_segurel\u002F",[158,159],"BnF authority record 13958098",[237,3976,3977],{},"Jean Ségurel: Un accordéon dans la bruyère"," (biography), ",[34,3980,3983],{"href":3981,"rel":3982,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.libraria-occitana.org\u002Fen\u002Fproduct\u002Fjean-segurel-un-accordeon-dans-la-bruyere\u002F",[158,159],"Libraria Occitana",[151,3985,3986,3987,162,3992,168],{},"1987 Tours at Chaumeil (men's + women's): see the Tour de France History cards below; ",[34,3988,3991],{"href":3989,"rel":3990,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002F1987_Tour_de_France",[158,159],"1987 Tour de France – Wikipedia",[34,3993,3996],{"href":3994,"rel":3995,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002F1987_Tour_de_France_F%C3%A9minin",[158,159],"1987 Tour de France Féminin – Wikipedia",[151,3998,3999,4000,162,4005,162,4010,168],{},"Suc au May summit and table d'orientation: ",[34,4001,4004],{"href":4002,"rel":4003,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSuc_au_May",[158,159],"Suc au May – Wikipédia",[34,4006,4009],{"href":4007,"rel":4008,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.detours-en-limousin.com\u002FSuc-au-May",[158,159],"Détours en Limousin – Suc au May",[34,4011,4014],{"href":4012,"rel":4013,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourisme-egletons.com\u002FAnnuaire\u002Fle-suc-au-may.html",[158,159],"Tourisme Ventadour-Egletons-Monédières – Suc au May",[151,4016,4017,4018,168],{},"Henry de Jouvenel: ",[34,4019,2885],{"href":4020,"rel":4021,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FHenry_de_Jouvenel",[158,159],[232,4023],{},[27,4025,4026],{},[237,4027,3615],{},[241,4029,4031,4034],{"className":4030,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,4032,249],{"className":4033,"id":38},[248],[251,4035,4036,4063,4094,4121,4129,4137],{},[151,4037,4039,4041,4042,4044,4045,4047,4048,4051,4052,4054,4055,4058,4059],{"id":4038},"user-content-fn-calmis",[237,4040,3782],{}," derives from the prélatin Celtic root ",[237,4043,3786],{}," (\"plateau désert, lande\" – desert plateau, heath), with the Latin diminutive suffix ",[237,4046,3790],{},": the small heath. The Occitan ",[237,4049,4050],{},"chaumo \u002F chalmo"," is the cognate that becomes the modern French ",[237,4053,3794],{},". Source: ",[34,4056,3938],{"href":3936,"rel":4057,"target":160},[158,159],", §Toponymie. ",[34,4060,267],{"href":4061,"ariaLabel":264,"className":4062,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-calmis",[266],[151,4064,4066,4068,4069,4071,4072,4075,4076,4079,4080,162,4083,4085,4086,260,4090],{"id":4065},"user-content-fn-bourree",[237,4067,3947],{}," describes the ",[237,4070,3828],{}," as \"",[237,4073,4074],{},"une danse propre au territoire limousin","\", and lists the ",[237,4077,4078],{},"bourrée des Monédières"," among the regional variants. The tune predates Ségurel – it was played by the violinists of the Monédières region, particularly the Chaumeil violinists – and his recording fixed the version that has become canonical. Sources: ",[34,4081,3947],{"href":3945,"rel":4082,"target":160},[158,159],[237,4084,3954],{}," (Les Pastoureaux de la Couze), ",[34,4087,4089],{"href":3950,"rel":4088,"target":160},[158,159],"Violons Populaires en Nouvelle-Aquitaine",[34,4091,267],{"href":4092,"ariaLabel":281,"className":4093,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-bourree",[266],[151,4095,4097,4098,4101,4102,4105,4106,4108,4109,162,4113,260,4117],{"id":4096},"user-content-fn-segurel","Jean Ségurel (13 October 1908, Chaumeil - 29 December 1978, Chaumeil; buried Chaumeil cemetery). Accordionist, composer, ",[237,4099,4100],{},"chef d'orchestre","; founded ",[237,4103,4104],{},"Les Troubadours corréziens"," in the early 1930s with the schoolteachers Jean Leymarie and Roger Leyssène; composed ",[237,4107,3854],{}," in 1936 (lyrics by Leymarie), 600,000 copies pressed by 1945; Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur 1968, the cross presented by Charles de Gaulle. His wife was elected mayor of Chaumeil. Primary sources: ",[34,4110,4112],{"href":3968,"rel":4111,"target":160},[158,159],"Jean Ségurel – Wikipédia",[34,4114,4116],{"href":3972,"rel":4115,"target":160},[158,159],"data.bnf.fr authority record 13958098",[34,4118,267],{"href":4119,"ariaLabel":296,"className":4120,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-segurel",[266],[151,4122,4124,4125],{"id":4123},"user-content-fn-men-1987","Stage 11 of the 1987 men's Tour de France: see the Tour de France History entry below for the card with source and period photos. ",[34,4126,267],{"href":4127,"ariaLabel":308,"className":4128,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-men-1987",[266],[151,4130,4132,4133],{"id":4131},"user-content-fn-women-1987","Stage 3 of the 1987 women's Tour de France Féminin: see the Tour de France History entry below. Primary source linked in §Sources. ",[34,4134,267],{"href":4135,"ariaLabel":323,"className":4136,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-women-1987",[266],[151,4138,4140,4141,162,4144,162,4147,260,4151],{"id":4139},"user-content-fn-jouvenel","Henry de Jouvenel (1876-1935; marriage to Colette 1912-1924) inaugurated the table d'orientation on 25 August 1935, weeks before his own death on 5 October of that year. Sources: ",[34,4142,4004],{"href":4002,"rel":4143,"target":160},[158,159],[34,4145,4009],{"href":4007,"rel":4146,"target":160},[158,159],[34,4148,4150],{"href":4020,"rel":4149,"target":160},[158,159],"Henry de Jouvenel – Wikipédia",[34,4152,267],{"href":4153,"ariaLabel":335,"className":4154,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-jouvenel",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":4156},[4157,4158],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-15.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-15.gpx",[4162,4168,4174],{"src":4163,"alt":4164,"author":4165,"authorUrl":4166,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":4167},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F3\u002F3c\u002FMus%C3%A9e_de_la_Maison_des_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res_%C3%A0_Chaumeil_01.jpg\u002F1280px-Mus%C3%A9e_de_la_Maison_des_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res_%C3%A0_Chaumeil_01.jpg","Interior of the Musée Jean Ségurel at the Maison des Monédières in Chaumeil, the seasonal museum the entry names","Celeda","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Celeda","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Mus%C3%A9e_de_la_Maison_des_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res_%C3%A0_Chaumeil_01.jpg",{"src":4169,"alt":4170,"author":4171,"authorUrl":4172,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":4173},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F4\u002F43\u002FTOsucMay.JPG\u002F1280px-TOsucMay.JPG","The table d'orientation at the Suc au May summit, inaugurated 25 August 1935 by Henry de Jouvenel","Anthospace","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Anthospace","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:TOsucMay.JPG",{"src":4175,"alt":4176,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":4177},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fa\u002Faf\u002FChaumeil_-_La_place_de_l%27%C3%A9glise.jpg\u002F1280px-Chaumeil_-_La_place_de_l%27%C3%A9glise.jpg","La place de l'église, the church square in the Chaumeil bourg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Chaumeil_-_La_place_de_l%27%C3%A9glise.jpg",106,{"dataCutoff":4180},"2026-05-24","\u002Fentries\u002F15-suc-au-may-the-fierce-one",15,{"title":3765,"description":39},"entries\u002F15-suc-au-may-the-fierce-one","Km 98-106: Chaumeil, the climb to the road-peak, and the summit four hundred metres off the bitumen",{"fetchedAt":4180,"current":4187,"forecast":359},{"temp":4188,"conditions":626,"wind":4189},32,"6 km\u002Fh ESE","_ieoouXotw_3BpspdONzkLGqS2t8ml2lXoxkVI-IgZQ",{"id":4192,"title":4193,"body":4194,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":4422,"extension":360,"gpxFile":4423,"images":4424,"issue":359,"kmEnd":4442,"kmStart":4178,"meta":4443,"navigation":364,"path":4445,"publishDate":4444,"segment":1950,"seo":4446,"special":359,"stem":4447,"subtitle":4448,"weather":4449,"__hash__":4453},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F16-descent-from-the-monedieres.md","The Long Exhale",{"type":8,"value":4195,"toc":4418},[4196,4199,4205,4208,4212,4227,4245,4252,4263,4266,4274,4277,4280,4282,4322,4324,4329],[11,4197,4193],{"id":4198},"the-long-exhale",[15,4200],{"alt":4201,"author":1927,"author-url":3361,"caption":4202,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"source-url":4203,"src":4204},"Heather in flower on the Monédières massif","Heather on the Monédières – the upland scrub of the massif this descent quietly drops off.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Bruy%C3%A8re_sur_les_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F9\u002F93\u002FBruy%C3%A8re_sur_les_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res.jpg\u002F1920px-Bruy%C3%A8re_sur_les_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res.jpg",[27,4206,4207],{},"Segment sixteen picks the road up at eight hundred and fifty-three metres, already below the high point of the climb that has just ended, and for six kilometres it does almost nothing but go down. This is the descent the climbing day was owed. The parcours loses a little over two hundred and sixty metres before kilometre one hundred and twelve, a touch above four per cent on average and close to nine in the steepest pitch, the kind of grade that asks a rider to sit up and let the road do the work rather than to reach for the brakes. After the Suc au May, everything is downhill in the only sense the legs care about.",[1159,4209],{"attribution":3885,"caption":4210,"embed-url":4211,"title-prefix":3888},"A hairpin on the descent off the Suc au May, on the D26 above Madranges – the road this segment runs down.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1748400000000!6m8!1m7!1ssmEnPwrv_CY6_tXJI2t0tw!2m2!1d1.8492318!2d45.480541!3f286.32!4f18.76!5f0.7820865974627469",[27,4213,4214,4215,4218,4219,4226],{},"There is no monument here and no village the road bothers to enter. What there is, for the first kilometre or two, is the massif coming apart beside and behind the rider. To the east the named summits stay in view as they fall away. They are ",[237,4216,4217],{},"puys"," here, the word this granite country keeps for a height",[31,4220,4221],{},[34,4222,41],{"href":4223,"ariaDescribedBy":4224,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":4225},"#user-content-fn-puy",[38],"user-content-fnref-puy",": the Puy de la Monédière, the highest of them at nine hundred and twenty-two metres, then the Puy de la Jarrige and the Puy Messou, all within a metre or two of the Suc au May and none of them on the route. To the north the Plateau de Millevaches opens out, flat and pale and enormous. South of the road, behind the rider, the massif folds into the Cirque de Freysselines, a natural amphitheatre on the Chaumeil flank of the Monédières that the climb passed alongside on the way up. There is no marked viewpoint on this stretch, no table of orientation, nothing built to stop at. On a descent the view is not a place you arrive at. It is the thing you are doing.",[27,4228,4229,4230,4233,4240,4241,4244],{},"The granite of the heights gives way as the road drops, less in any outcrop than in the colour of the soil in the cuts and the lie of the pasture. And there is a second line, one the rider crosses without any chance of seeing it. Somewhere near the top of the climb just finished, the road passes over the ",[237,4231,4232],{},"ligne de partage des eaux",[31,4234,4235],{},[34,4236,66],{"href":4237,"ariaDescribedBy":4238,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":4239},"#user-content-fn-watershed",[38],"user-content-fnref-watershed",", the divide the Monédières draw across this corner of the Corrèze. East of the crest the water runs to the Corrèze, the river that gave the department its name. West and north, the way this descent is going, it runs to the Vézère. The commune the road is dropping toward is Madranges, and Madranges is watered by the Madrange and the ruisseau de Boulou, two streams the maps record without ceremony as ",[237,4242,4243],{},"affluents de la Vézère",". The hardest climb of the day is also, near enough, the day's watershed. The riders came up the Corrèze side; they are going down the Vézère side; and nothing about the tarmac tells them so.",[27,4246,4247,4248,4251],{},"I find the watershed more moving than the summit, which is probably a minority view. A summit is a place. You can stand on it, photograph it, count the peaks. A watershed is only a decision the ground makes about water, invisible at the point it is made and total once it is made. And this one turns out to be gentler than it sounds. The Corrèze, the river on the far side of the line, is itself an ",[237,4249,4250],{},"affluent rive gauche de la Vézère",": it joins the larger river at the boundary of Saint-Pantaléon-de-Larche and Ussac, just west of Brive, at ninety-eight metres above the sea. The water shedding east off this climb and the water running down this descent are not parting for good. They meet again a few kilometres from where the stage began, near Malemort, where the route rolled out on the bank of the Corrèze a hundred and six kilometres ago. The divide is real. It is also provisional, two basins that quarrel at the top of the Monédières and settle it down by the start line.",[27,4253,4254,4255,4262],{},"The river the descent is chasing is a modest thing. The Madrange",[31,4256,4257],{},[34,4258,84],{"href":4259,"ariaDescribedBy":4260,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":4261},"#user-content-fn-madrange",[38],"user-content-fnref-madrange"," rises on this same massif, at the col du Bos, and runs some twenty-one kilometres down to the Vézère, and along the way it once turned a line of mills, the moulins of Praderie and Chaillac and Pierotte and Rieux, all of them now silent or gone. The descent and the stream start from the same heights and reach the same river by different routes, the rider on tarmac and the water on stone, and only one of them is in any hurry.",[27,4264,4265],{},"The race has been here before, going the other way. When the Tour last climbed the Suc au May, on Stage 12 in 2020, it came up from the Treignac side, up the road this descent now runs down, and Marc Hirschi launched the solo that won him the stage on this very slope. The road the riders will brake down in July is a road a Tour stage was already won on, climbed then, descended now. It is not the only Tour history this corner of the Corrèze holds, though the rest is a subject for an essay of its own, nearer the start of the race.",[15,4267],{"alt":4268,"author":4269,"author-url":4270,"caption":4271,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"source-url":4272,"src":4273},"Marc Hirschi at the 2020 Tour de France, the rider who won Stage 12 by launching his solo on this descent","C. Martino","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Martin_Myst%C3%A8re","Marc Hirschi at the 2020 Tour de France – the rider who, on Stage 12 of that edition, launched the solo that won him the stage on the road this descent now runs down.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:2020_Tour_de_France,_2nd_stage,_Marc_Hirschi.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fc\u002Fc6\u002F2020_Tour_de_France%2C_2nd_stage%2C_Marc_Hirschi.jpg\u002F1280px-2020_Tour_de_France%2C_2nd_stage%2C_Marc_Hirschi.jpg",[27,4275,4276],{},"The four of us keeping the walking ledger for this blog cross watersheds we never notice, on the way to the shops or around a park, two kilometres a day at the cap and no massif in sight. A line like the one on the Monédières is drawn on every patch of ground that drains anywhere at all. Mostly we are simply on one side of one without thinking about it, which is the ordinary condition of living on a continent rather than a fact anyone is asked to feel.",[27,4278,4279],{},"The descent runs out at kilometre one hundred and twelve, on no particular feature, the road already gathering itself to rise again toward Madranges. Segment sixteen is six kilometres of going down and a single idea: that the high road the riders fought up is also the roof between two rivers, and that the quarrel between the rivers does not outlast the valley. It is the quietest the stage has been since the lowlands, and after the Suc au May it is exactly what the day is owed, a long exhale on the Vézère side of a line that nobody drew and everybody crosses.",[143,4281,146],{"id":145},[148,4283,4284,4292,4300,4308,4316],{},[151,4285,4286,4287,168],{},"Monédières massif, named summits and elevations, and the streams that border it (Vimbelle and Madrange to the west, the Corrèze to the east): ",[34,4288,4291],{"href":4289,"rel":4290,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMassif_des_Mon%C3%A9di%C3%A8res",[158,159],"Massif des Monédières – Wikipédia",[151,4293,4294,4295,168],{},"Madranges watered by the Madrange and the ruisseau de Boulou, \"deux affluents de la Vézère\": ",[34,4296,4299],{"href":4297,"rel":4298,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMadranges",[158,159],"Madranges – Wikipédia",[151,4301,4302,4303,168],{},"The Madrange river, its source at the col du Bos, its course of some 21 km, and the mills along it: ",[34,4304,4307],{"href":4305,"rel":4306,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMadrange_(ruisseau)",[158,159],"Madrange (ruisseau) – Wikipédia",[151,4309,4310,4311,168],{},"The Corrèze as a left-bank tributary of the Vézère, confluence at the boundary of Saint-Pantaléon-de-Larche and Ussac at 98 m: ",[34,4312,4315],{"href":4313,"rel":4314,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FCorr%C3%A8ze_(rivi%C3%A8re)",[158,159],"Corrèze (rivière) – Wikipédia",[151,4317,4318,4319,168],{},"Suc au May summit (908 m) and the 2020 Tour de France Stage 12 ascent from the Treignac side: ",[34,4320,4004],{"href":4002,"rel":4321,"target":160},[158,159],[232,4323],{},[27,4325,4326],{},[237,4327,4328],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.7. Voice register: madrid-review.",[241,4330,4332,4335],{"className":4331,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,4333,249],{"className":4334,"id":38},[248],[251,4336,4337,4374,4390],{},[151,4338,4340,4343,4344,4347,4348,4351,4352,4354,4355,4357,4358,4361,4362,4364,4365,260,4370],{"id":4339},"user-content-fn-puy",[237,4341,4342],{},"Puy"," is the word the Massif Central keeps for its heights, from the Latin ",[237,4345,4346],{},"podium",", a raised base or platform, by way of the Greek ",[237,4349,4350],{},"pódion",", \"little foot\". The modern ",[237,4353,4346],{}," is the learned doublet of the same root; ",[237,4356,3427],{}," is the inherited form, in French by the late eleventh century as ",[237,4359,4360],{},"pui",", a hill or a height. It is the ",[237,4363,3427],{}," of the Puy de Dôme and of Le Puy-en-Velay. Source: ",[34,4366,4369],{"href":4367,"rel":4368,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wiktionary.org\u002Fwiki\u002Fpuy",[158,159],"puy, Wiktionnaire",[34,4371,267],{"href":4372,"ariaLabel":264,"className":4373,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-puy",[266],[151,4375,4377,4380,4381,260,4386],{"id":4376},"user-content-fn-watershed",[237,4378,4379],{},"Ligne de partage des eaux",", literally the line of the parting of the waters: in the Wiktionnaire's definition, \"la ligne qui délimite deux bassins versants adjacents, telle une crête\", the line that divides two adjacent drainage basins, such as a ridge. English flattens it to \"watershed\" or \"divide\"; the French keeps the water in the picture, being parted. The phrase has a figurative life too, for the moment at which long-shared lives begin to run apart. Source: ",[34,4382,4385],{"href":4383,"rel":4384,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wiktionary.org\u002Fwiki\u002Fligne_de_partage_des_eaux",[158,159],"ligne de partage des eaux, Wiktionnaire",[34,4387,267],{"href":4388,"ariaLabel":281,"className":4389,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-watershed",[266],[151,4391,4393,4394,4397,4398,4401,4402,4405,4406,4409,4410,260,4414],{"id":4392},"user-content-fn-madrange","The name probably means the land of ",[237,4395,4396],{},"Matrius",", a Gallo-Roman personal name, carried by the estate suffix ",[237,4399,4400],{},"-anicas"," that wears down to the French ",[237,4403,4404],{},"-ange",". The stream rises at the col du Bos on the Monédières, goes by ",[237,4407,4408],{},"ruisseau des Monédières"," in its highest reach, and reaches the Vézère near Pierrefitte. Source: ",[34,4411,4413],{"href":4305,"rel":4412,"target":160},[158,159],"Madrange (ruisseau), Wikipédia",[34,4415,267],{"href":4416,"ariaLabel":296,"className":4417,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-madrange",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":4419},[4420,4421],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-16.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-16.gpx",[4425,4429,4434,4440],{"src":4426,"alt":4427,"author":3370,"authorUrl":3371,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":4428},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fb\u002Fbf\u002FCirque_de_Freysselines_en_hiver.jpg\u002F1280px-Cirque_de_Freysselines_en_hiver.jpg","The Cirque de Freysselines under snow – the natural amphitheatre on the Chaumeil flank of the Monédières, the climb's earlier face seen from the road that runs past it.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Cirque_de_Freysselines_en_hiver.jpg",{"src":4430,"alt":4431,"author":961,"authorUrl":4432,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":4433},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F1\u002F1e\u002FConfluent_Corr%C3%A8ze-V%C3%A9z%C3%A8re.JPG\u002F1280px-Confluent_Corr%C3%A8ze-V%C3%A9z%C3%A8re.JPG","The Corrèze (foreground) meeting the Vézère (from the right) near Brive – the two basins that part at the top of this climb quietly settling it back down a few kilometres from the start line.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:P%C3%A8re_Igor","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Confluent_Corr%C3%A8ze-V%C3%A9z%C3%A8re.JPG",{"src":4435,"alt":4436,"author":4437,"authorUrl":4438,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":4439},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F5\u002F58\u002FRuisseau_de_Boulou.jpg\u002F1280px-Ruisseau_de_Boulou.jpg","The Ruisseau de Boulou, a small stream in the Madranges commune named in the entry as an affluent of the Vézère","Fc42","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Fc42","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Ruisseau_de_Boulou.jpg",{"src":3368,"alt":4441,"author":3370,"authorUrl":3371,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":3372},"The Monédières seen from la Tronche, south of the massif – the Puy de la Monédière and the northern part of the Suc au May, the view a climber rides up into. The slope that a rider sees on the way up, the horizon Marc Hirschi was crossing toward when he won Stage 12 in 2020.",112,{"dataCutoff":4444},"2026-05-27","\u002Fentries\u002F16-descent-from-the-monedieres",{"title":4193,"description":39},"entries\u002F16-descent-from-the-monedieres","Km 106-112: off the Monédières, on the Vézère side of the watershed",{"fetchedAt":4450,"current":4451,"forecast":359},"2026-05-28",{"temp":977,"conditions":1804,"wind":4452},"11 km\u002Fh NE","ZXwB2k8D7OCVBvvGvH42e3Z8h-gJNCs_gy1bsYcr3aQ",{"id":4455,"title":4456,"body":4457,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":4658,"extension":360,"gpxFile":4659,"images":4660,"issue":359,"kmEnd":4687,"kmStart":4442,"meta":4688,"navigation":364,"path":4690,"publishDate":4691,"segment":2190,"seo":4692,"special":359,"stem":4693,"subtitle":4694,"weather":4695,"__hash__":4699},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F17-the-closing-of-the-land.md","The Closing of the Land",{"type":8,"value":4458,"toc":4654},[4459,4467,4470,4473,4484,4495,4501,4504,4515,4519,4522,4525,4527,4572,4574,4579],[15,4460],{"alt":4461,"author":4462,"caption":4463,"license":21,"license-url":22,"lightbox-src":4464,"source-url":4465,"src":4466},"The Les Farges Douglas-fir stand, Plateau de Millevaches, planted around 1850","Amalo","The historic Douglas-fir stand at Les Farges on the Plateau de Millevaches, planted around 1850, the conifer afforestation that closed the open landscape. Cropped to a banner from the original; click to see the full frame.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fa\u002Fa4\u002FDouglas_des_farges_3.jpg\u002F1280px-Douglas_des_farges_3.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Douglas_des_farges_3.jpg","\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-17\u002Fdouglas-firs-les-farges-banner.jpg",[11,4468,4456],{"id":4469},"the-closing-of-the-land",[27,4471,4472],{},"It has always seemed to me that a landscape tells you most about itself in the moment it begins to close. The road that comes off the Monédières and touches its lowest point at kilometre one hundred and twelve does not stay low; it gathers itself almost at once and begins to climb again, north and a little west, toward the small commune of Madranges, and as it climbs it does a thing the previous hundred kilometres had not prepared the rider for. It shuts the view. The open heath of the massif, the bruyère and the long sightlines that the Suc au May had paid out that morning with such generosity, give way over the space of a few kilometres to plantation: to the dark, ordered, shadeless ranks of Douglas fir and sitka spruce that now cover so much of the southern apron of the Plateau de Millevaches. One climbs up into the trees, and a country that has been wide all day becomes a corridor.",[27,4474,4475,4476,4483],{},"What is underneath has not changed at all, and that, I confess, is the part I find genuinely worth pausing on. The rock here is the same leucogranite the riders have been crossing since they entered the Monédières, pale and coarse and old beyond easy reckoning, the basement of the whole Limousin upland. The ground is continuous; only the skin of it has changed, and changed recently, and changed by us. The conifers are not native. They are the work of the twentieth century, of a deliberate planting that put fast softwood on the poorer pastures and the abandoned commons, and which the geographers of the Plateau call, with a precision the English language rather envies, the fermeture paysagère: the closing of the landscape.",[31,4477,4478],{},[34,4479,41],{"href":4480,"ariaDescribedBy":4481,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":4482},"#user-content-fn-fermeture",[38],"user-content-fnref-fermeture"," Where the heights once showed, in the local phrase, large cleared horizons, they now show timber in rows. I am not sure I have ever seen the hand of a single century lie so plainly on a place, nor lie so lightly over rock so indifferent to it.",[27,4485,4486,4487,4494],{},"The planting and the emptying were, as it happens, the same movement. The Plateau was one of the most thinly peopled corners of France before ever the trees came, and from the end of the Second World War it emptied further, in the long rural exodus that took the young off the granite and into the towns; and as the people left, the conifer arrived to take their ground. The instrument was the Fonds forestier national, set up in 1946 to put a war-stripped France back into timber, which paid for the planting of softwood on poor and abandoned land at a scale that redrew the map. Forest cover on the Plateau, which had stood at something like a quarter in 1946, was nearing a half by 1971, and some forty-five thousand hectares of new forest went onto the Plateau de Millevaches in the forty years after the war.",[31,4488,4489],{},[34,4490,66],{"href":4491,"ariaDescribedBy":4492,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":4493},"#user-content-fn-ffn",[38],"user-content-fnref-ffn"," A good deal of it was planted by heirs who had themselves gone to the cities, and who found in spruce a way of holding land they had stopped living on.",[69,4496],{"attribution":4497,"caption":4498,"embed-url":4499,"title-prefix":4500},"Source: Des Racines et des Ailes, France Télévisions (via YouTube).","Les richesses du plateau de Millevaches, from the France Télévisions heritage series Des Racines et des Ailes — the high plateau the road climbs onto in this segment.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002Fv8GCN-VlmjU","Millevaches plateau video",[27,4502,4503],{},"Madranges itself the rider scarcely sees. The bourg sits some sixty-five metres off the road at about kilometre one hundred and thirteen, a cluster too small and too quickly passed to register at racing speed, and small by any honest measure: a commune of a hundred and sixty-six souls at the last counting, and fewer at the next, the population having fallen by something near a seventh in the six years to 2023. It is a gateway commune of the Plateau, inside the perimeter of the regional park, and all its water, like the descent that carried the riders down here, is already running to the Vézère, the river the next segment delivers the race to at Treignac. I own a weakness, which I do not propose to defend at length, for places of exactly this size: places whose whole civic history can be held in one hand, and where a single fact will carry the weight that a city has to distribute across a thousand.",[27,4505,4506,4507,4514],{},"And Madranges has its fact. The one that has stayed with me is that this isolated upland village, Catholic for the whole of its recorded life, turned Protestant at the very end of the nineteenth century. The new faith arrived in 1898; a reformed temple was built and inaugurated in March 1900, to the design of Adolphe Augustin Rey, then a young architect of churches and eclectic buildings, and later, after he had given up building for the study of it, one of the early figures of social housing in Paris and a tireless propagandist of what he named the healthful or climatic dwelling.",[31,4508,4509],{},[34,4510,84],{"href":4511,"ariaDescribedBy":4512,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":4513},"#user-content-fn-temple",[38],"user-content-fnref-temple"," One should not make too much of a single small building. But it is a genuinely odd and rather moving thing, that a hamlet of a few hundred on the granite should petition a pastor from Brive and raise a temple of the reformed religion a full century after the Revolution had unsettled the old one, and a generation after the young Republic had begun, in earnest, to quarrel with the Church. The temple still stands. It stands, moreover, a short walk from the older set-piece of the village, the Église Saint-Barthélemy, which is listed on the national inventory and which had the place to itself for several hundred years before it acquired a neighbour of another confession. Two faiths, two buildings, a few hundred parishioners to be divided between them: it is a sum that only a very small place can set out so plainly.",[1159,4516],{"caption":4517,"embed-url":4518},"Street View in the bourg of Madranges, the cluster the race passes some sixty-five metres off the road, where the Protestant temple of 1900 and the older Église Saint-Barthélemy stand a short walk apart.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1780335552987!6m8!1m7!1sZISEuY4CT1eEpyWaCHSewg!2m2!1d45.47586182772532!2d1.792119358331394!3f228.23286429472464!4f-5.6856750123664455!5f1.2152265916564744",[27,4520,4521],{},"Our own four riders are walking this route a couple of kilometres at a time, and keeping the honest ledger of it that this blog exists to keep, and most of their kilometres are walked through country quite as enclosed as the plantation above Madranges, though enclosed for duller reasons: hedge and fence and house, the suburban corridor that pays out its sightlines as grudgingly as any stand of sitka. The comparison is mine and not theirs, and I make it only because the resemblance pleases me: the small daily instalment going on through closed ground toward an opening that has been promised and is not yet in view.",[27,4523,4524],{},"For the opening is coming. The road that has shut the view for the length of this segment will, in the next, give it back all at once: the plantation breaks, the ground falls away toward the gorges of the Vézère, and the medieval town of Treignac stands up out of the valley to be looked at. That, however, is the next essay's business, and Treignac a subject of its own, granite and water both. The segment that ends here ends in the trees, on rock that has not altered in the time it takes mountains to rise and wear flat, under a cover that has not stood there a hundred years, on the way down to a river it cannot yet hear. It is the quietest stretch of the whole day. And quiet, I have long held, is not the same thing as empty.",[143,4526,146],{"id":145},[148,4528,4529,4536,4547,4564],{},[151,4530,4531,4532,168],{},"Madranges commune: population, the streams Boulou and Madrange as tributaries of the Vézère, the arrival of Protestantism and the temple, and the Église Saint-Barthélemy: ",[34,4533,4535],{"href":4297,"rel":4534,"target":160},[158,159],"Madranges, Wikipédia",[151,4537,4538,4539,1358,4542,168],{},"The afforestation of the Plateau de Millevaches and the ",[237,4540,4541],{},"fermeture paysagère",[34,4543,4546],{"href":4544,"rel":4545,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FPlateau_de_Millevaches",[158,159],"Plateau de Millevaches, Wikipédia",[151,4548,4549,4550,4553,4554,162,4559,168],{},"The post-war ",[237,4551,4552],{},"enrésinement",", the Fonds forestier national, and the forest-cover figures: ",[34,4555,4558],{"href":4556,"rel":4557,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffauxlamontagne.fr\u002Fwp-content\u002Fuploads\u002F2020\u002F06\u002FRapport_Enresinement_finalmai2020_diff.pdf",[158,159],"L'enrésinement du Plateau de Millevaches de 1945 aux années 80 (Faux la Montagne)",[34,4560,4563],{"href":4561,"rel":4562,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.journal-ipns.org\u002Fles-articles\u002F435-histoire-de-la-foret-du-plateau",[158,159],"Histoire de la forêt du Plateau (Journal IPNS)",[151,4565,4566,4567,168],{},"Adolphe Augustin Rey, architect of the temple: ",[34,4568,4571],{"href":4569,"rel":4570,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FAdolphe_Augustin_Rey",[158,159],"Adolphe Augustin Rey, Wikipédia",[232,4573],{},[27,4575,4576],{},[237,4577,4578],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.8. Voice register: saintsbury-modern (registers-framework).",[241,4580,4582,4585],{"className":4581,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,4583,249],{"className":4584,"id":38},[248],[251,4586,4587,4618,4636],{},[151,4588,4590,4591,4594,4595,4598,4599,4602,4603,4605,4606,4054,4611,260,4614],{"id":4589},"user-content-fn-fermeture","The dark conifer cover of the Plateau de Millevaches is largely a twentieth-century creation. As pastoral use of the high commons declined, the open ",[237,4592,4593],{},"landes"," were planted with fast-growing softwoods, predominantly the Douglas fir (",[237,4596,4597],{},"Pseudotsuga menziesii",") and the sitka spruce (",[237,4600,4601],{},"épicéa de Sitka","), alongside the native Scots pine; the French geographers describe the result as a ",[237,4604,4541],{},", the closing-up of formerly cleared horizons by plantation forest, and read it as a sign of rural decline as much as of changed land use. For a filmed overview of the plateau, see ",[34,4607,4610],{"href":4608,"rel":4609,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fwatch?v=x6Nxc13gbKQ",[158,159],"The Millevaches plateau, the roof of the Limousin",[34,4612,4546],{"href":4544,"rel":4613,"target":160},[158,159],[34,4615,267],{"href":4616,"ariaLabel":264,"className":4617,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-fermeture",[266],[151,4619,4621,4622,4625,4626,162,4629,260,4632],{"id":4620},"user-content-fn-ffn","The afforestation was driven above all by the ",[237,4623,4624],{},"Fonds forestier national",", created in 1946 to rebuild French timber stocks, which subsidised conifer planting (principally pine, Douglas fir, and spruce) on poor and abandoned ground. Forest cover on the Plateau de Millevaches rose from roughly 6 per cent before the First World War to about a quarter by 1946 and nearly half by 1971; on the order of forty-five thousand hectares of new forest were established on the Plateau in the four decades after the Second World War, much of it on land whose owners had left in the rural exodus and planted from the cities. Sources: ",[34,4627,4558],{"href":4556,"rel":4628,"target":160},[158,159],[34,4630,4563],{"href":4561,"rel":4631,"target":160},[158,159],[34,4633,267],{"href":4634,"ariaLabel":281,"className":4635,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-ffn",[266],[151,4637,4639,4640,4643,4644,162,4647,260,4650],{"id":4638},"user-content-fn-temple","Protestantism reached Madranges in 1898; the temple was inaugurated on 11 March 1900, to the design of Adolphe Augustin Rey (1864-1934). At that date Rey was still building in the eclectic manner of the late nineteenth century; he won the Rothschild Foundation competition for working-class housing in 1905, and after about 1910 abandoned building altogether for the study of hygiene and urbanism, becoming a noted advocate of the ",[237,4641,4642],{},"habitation climatique"," and a French delegate to the international hygiene congresses. Sources: ",[34,4645,4535],{"href":4297,"rel":4646,"target":160},[158,159],[34,4648,4571],{"href":4569,"rel":4649,"target":160},[158,159],[34,4651,267],{"href":4652,"ariaLabel":296,"className":4653,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-temple",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":4655},[4656,4657],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-17.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-17.gpx",[4661,4665,4669,4674,4678,4683],{"src":4662,"alt":4663,"author":1927,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":4664},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F4\u002F4d\u002FLe_temple_protestant_de_Madranges.jpg\u002F1280px-Le_temple_protestant_de_Madranges.jpg","The Protestant temple at Madranges, inaugurated 11 March 1900 to the design of Adolphe Augustin Rey","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Le_temple_protestant_de_Madranges.jpg",{"src":4666,"alt":4667,"author":1927,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":4668},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F5\u002F55\u002FMadranges%2C_l%27%C3%A9glise_catholique_Saint_Barth%C3%A9l%C3%A9my.jpg\u002F1280px-Madranges%2C_l%27%C3%A9glise_catholique_Saint_Barth%C3%A9l%C3%A9my.jpg","The Eglise Saint-Barthelemy at Madranges, the older Catholic parish church","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Madranges,_l%27%C3%A9glise_catholique_Saint_Barth%C3%A9l%C3%A9my.jpg",{"src":4670,"alt":4671,"author":4672,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":4673},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F2\u002F29\u002FMadranges_Monument.jpg\u002F1280px-Madranges_Monument.jpg","The war memorial at Madranges","Rene Hourdry","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Madranges_Monument.jpg",{"src":4675,"alt":4676,"author":4672,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":4677},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fc\u002Fc7\u002FMadranges_Puits_1.jpg\u002F1280px-Madranges_Puits_1.jpg","A village well at Madranges","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Madranges_Puits_1.jpg",{"src":4679,"alt":4680,"author":4681,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":4682},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F04\u002FBruy%C3%A8re.JPG\u002F1280px-Bruy%C3%A8re.JPG","Heather (bruyere) on the Plateau de Millevaches, the open lande that conifer plantation has largely replaced","Noeljupiter","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Bruy%C3%A8re.JPG",{"src":4684,"alt":4685,"author":1927,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":4686},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fb\u002Fbf\u002FEntre_Peret_Bel_air_et_La_Naucodie%2C_sur_le_plateau_de_Millevaches%2C_France.jpg\u002F1280px-Entre_Peret_Bel_air_et_La_Naucodie%2C_sur_le_plateau_de_Millevaches%2C_France.jpg","Open lande de bruyeres on the Plateau de Millevaches, near La Naucodie","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Entre_Peret_Bel_air_et_La_Naucodie,_sur_le_plateau_de_Millevaches,_France.jpg",120,{"dataCutoff":4689},"2026-05-30","\u002Fentries\u002F17-the-closing-of-the-land","2026-05-31",{"title":4456,"description":39},"entries\u002F17-the-closing-of-the-land","Km 112-120: Madranges, and Treignac across the gorges",{"fetchedAt":4696,"current":4697,"forecast":359},"2026-06-01",{"temp":1950,"conditions":1557,"wind":4698},"3 km\u002Fh WNW","GsOeXcHMPGZ0mjBOMkinG2-UF_ENHYkOfGfeZ2Nzafo",{"id":4701,"title":4702,"body":4703,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":4937,"extension":360,"gpxFile":4938,"images":4939,"issue":359,"kmEnd":4948,"kmStart":4687,"meta":4949,"navigation":364,"path":4951,"publishDate":4952,"segment":1556,"seo":4953,"special":359,"stem":4954,"subtitle":4955,"weather":4956,"__hash__":4959},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F18-treignac-the-crossing.md","Treignac: The Old Crossing",{"type":8,"value":4704,"toc":4933},[4705,4708,4715,4718,4729,4736,4742,4749,4760,4764,4775,4790,4793,4799,4802,4805,4807,4844,4846,4850],[11,4706,4702],{"id":4707},"treignac-the-old-crossing",[15,4709],{"alt":4710,"author":2490,"author-url":2491,"caption":4711,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"lightbox-src":4712,"source-url":4713,"src":4714},"Treignac on its granite spur above the Vézère, the medieval Vieux Pont crossing the river below the town","Treignac on its spur above the Vézère, the Vieux Pont crossing below: the town, in the essay's phrase, arranged to be looked at before it is entered.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F6\u002F6f\u002FTreignac_Vieux_Pont.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Treignac_Vieux_Pont.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F6\u002F6f\u002FTreignac_Vieux_Pont.jpg\u002F1280px-Treignac_Vieux_Pont.jpg",[27,4716,4717],{},"The previous essay left the road in the trees, climbing through plantation toward an opening it had been promised but could not yet see. The opening comes here. Somewhere above kilometre one hundred and twenty the dark ranks of Douglas fir give out, the ground tips forward, and the country that had been shut for a whole segment is handed back all at once. Below, the Vézère has cut itself a gorge in the leucogranite, and standing up out of that gorge, on its rocky spur within a meander of the river, is the town of Treignac. I confess a weakness, which I do not propose to defend at length, for towns that arrange themselves to be looked at before they are entered; and Treignac, granite and water both, has arranged itself about as well as a town of fourteen hundred souls can.",[27,4719,4720,4721,4728],{},"The riders come down into it, and at the bottom of the descent the road does the oldest thing a road can do at a river: it crosses. The crossing is the heart of the segment and very nearly the heart of the town. The Vieux Pont, the old bridge, is documented as early as 1285, three arches of broken span built of rubble and dressed granite to reach the now vanished château on its spur, and for something close to six hundred years it was the only way over the Vézère here, until the nineteenth century at last gave the town two easier bridges downstream.",[31,4722,4723],{},[34,4724,41],{"href":4725,"ariaDescribedBy":4726,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":4727},"#user-content-fn-pont",[38],"user-content-fnref-pont"," It is not a handsome object in the way a Loire château is handsome. It is something better: exactly the thing it was made to be, of exactly the stone the gorge is made of, and it has stood in the water long enough to look less like an intervention in the landscape than a feature of it.",[15,4730],{"alt":4731,"author":3726,"author-url":3727,"caption":4732,"license":21,"license-url":22,"lightbox-src":4733,"source-url":4734,"src":4735},"The granite arches of the Vieux Pont spanning the Vézère at Treignac","The Vieux Pont at Treignac, its granite arches over the Vézère, the crossing documented from 1285 and listed a monument historique in 1963.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fa\u002Fad\u002FPont_de_Treignac_sur_la_V%C3%A9z%C3%A8re_02.JPG","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Pont_de_Treignac_sur_la_V%C3%A9z%C3%A8re_02.JPG","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fa\u002Fad\u002FPont_de_Treignac_sur_la_V%C3%A9z%C3%A8re_02.JPG\u002F1280px-Pont_de_Treignac_sur_la_V%C3%A9z%C3%A8re_02.JPG",[2293,4737],{"headline":4738,"kind":4739,"publication":3223,"summary":4740,"url":4741},"Galerie d'art du Vieux Pont de Treignac","Local attraction","An art gallery beside the old bridge, in the lower town by the Vézère, that takes its name from the Vieux Pont.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourismecorreze.com\u002Ffr\u002Ftourisme_detail\u002Fgalerie_d_art_du_vieux_pont_de_treignac.html",[2293,4743],{"headline":4744,"kind":4745,"publication":4746,"summary":4747,"url":4748},"Mairie de Treignac","Official site","Ville de Treignac","The commune's official site, which opens on a view of the Vieux Pont over the Vézère.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.mairietreignac.fr\u002F",[27,4750,4751,4752,4759],{},"That granite is the first half of the local pairing, and the visitor meets it everywhere once across the bridge: in the quoins and lintels of the seventeenth and eighteenth century houses, in the thirteenth century town gate called the Porte Chabirande, in the balcony of the Maison des Gardes, all of it cut from the same pale, coarse stone the riders have been crossing since the Monédières. The second half is the water, and the water has the longer reach. The Vézère does not merely decorate Treignac; it has been the town's industry and its sport by turns. The gorge below the dam, where the river narrows between granite blocks at the rapids the locals call the Saut du Loup, is one of the founding sites of a discipline: in 1959 Treignac hosted the first world championships of canoe-kayak descent ever held, and they have come back since, most recently in 2022.",[31,4753,4754],{},[34,4755,66],{"href":4756,"ariaDescribedBy":4757,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":4758},"#user-content-fn-kayak",[38],"user-content-fnref-kayak"," It is a tidy thing to be able to say of a six-kilometre stretch of road, that the riders cross, on a bridge of 1285, a river that taught the world a sport in 1959.",[1159,4761],{"caption":4762,"embed-url":4763},"Street View from the upper town at Treignac, looking down toward the Vieux Pont and the Vézère gorge.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1780000000000!6m8!1m7!1sCovuuwjzvKWPCo36I6WVMQ!2m2!1d45.5370539!2d1.793824!3f233.63194562103453!4f-14.58!5f1.2152265916564744",[27,4765,4766,4767,4774],{},"The history that produced the bridge is the history of a small place that once mattered to larger men. Treignac belonged through the medieval centuries to the viscounts of Comborn, and a town held by a viscount acquires the apparatus of one: walls, a market hall, and, in Treignac's case, three separate charters of liberties. The apparatus is also what made the town worth taking. In 1438, in the long unravelling of the Hundred Years' War, the Castilian captain Rodrigue de Villandrando, a freebooter the chronicles called the Scourge, sacked Treignac to recover a thousand écus that Jean de Comborn had borrowed and not repaid. The market hall was rebuilt in 1484, after the worst was over.",[31,4768,4769],{},[34,4770,84],{"href":4771,"ariaDescribedBy":4772,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":4773},"#user-content-fn-sack",[38],"user-content-fnref-sack"," One does not, as a rule, burn a village to recover a debt unless the village is the kind that can be made to yield one, and Treignac was; the same wealth that raised the bridge invited the man who came to collect.",[27,4776,4777,4778,4785,4786,4789],{},"For all that, the figure the town is proudest of made his name a long way from the granite. Charles Lachaud was born in Treignac in 1817, the son of a local notary, and became, by general consent, the most followed criminal advocate of the Second Empire, the man the newspapers called the King of the Assizes. He defended Marie Lafarge in the arsenic trial that did as much as any case of the century to put toxicology into a French courtroom; he defended Marshal Bazaine after the surrender of Metz, and Gustave Courbet after the column in the Place Vendôme came down, and the murderer Troppmann, whom he could not save from the guillotine.",[31,4779,4780],{},[34,4781,96],{"href":4782,"ariaDescribedBy":4783,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":4784},"#user-content-fn-lachaud",[38],"user-content-fnref-lachaud"," His collected pleas were gathered into print as the ",[237,4787,4788],{},"Plaidoyers",", and they are still, now and then, taken down and read: not for the law in them, which dates as all law dates, but for the sound of a man talking a jury round, which does not. The Lachaud house survives as the town's museum of Vézère valley life, and it is a pleasing accident of inheritance that the trial lawyer's grandson, Marc Sangnier, the Catholic-democrat who founded the French youth-hostel movement, lies buried in the same Treignac cemetery, two generations of one family pinned to a town neither of them quite lived in.",[27,4791,4792],{},"Treignac is not, I should add for the record, a Plus Beau Village de France; it held that label once and lost it in 2008, and carries instead the quieter Petite Cité de Caractère, which suits it. Membership of the most beautiful villages is, after all, a kind of club, and Treignac carries its quieter title with the air of a town that has better things to do than mind its rank.",[69,4794],{"attribution":4795,"caption":4796,"embed-url":4797,"title-prefix":4798},"Source: Office de Tourisme Terres de Corrèze (via YouTube).","Treignac, Petite Cité de Caractère, filmed by the Office de Tourisme Terres de Corrèze: the medieval town on its spur, the gorge, and the Vézère the road crosses in this segment.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FIb3nBpvpQe8","Treignac town video",[27,4800,4801],{},"The road, meanwhile, has business of its own, and the business is uphill. The Côte de la Croix de Pey begins at the river, or near enough, and the climb out of Treignac is the day's first hard test of the second half, with the Suc au May already three segments behind and the Mont Bessou still to come. There is an argument in the data about how long and how steep this climb is, which I leave to the people whose affair it is; what is not in argument is the road's shape, which is the only thing the rider feels. It tilts up out of the town toward the Plateau and does not relent inside this segment. The cyclist with a memory will recall that in 2020 the Tour came the other way, descending this same road into Treignac, and that it was on this descent that the day's decisive group went clear, Marc Hirschi among them, before he soloed away later for the win. In 2026 the race climbs what it once dropped down. The crest, and the wide plateau country it opens onto, are the next essay's business; this segment owns only the beginning of the ascent, the long lean out of the valley with the gorge dropping away behind.",[27,4803,4804],{},"Our own four riders reach Treignac in their own time, a kilometre or two at a sitting, keeping the honest ledger this blog exists to keep. The opening the last essay promised them has arrived: the trees break, the gorge falls away, the old bridge is there to be crossed. What waits past it is a climb, which is also, by long arrangement, the thing this route has been promising all along. They will take it the way they have taken the rest, on foot and a little at a time.",[143,4806,146],{"id":145},[148,4808,4809,4820,4828,4836],{},[151,4810,4811,4812,4814,4815,168],{},"The Vieux Pont, its 1285 documentation, granite construction, six-century tenure as the only crossing, and ",[237,4813,2872],{}," listing: ",[34,4816,4819],{"href":4817,"rel":4818,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fmonumentum.fr\u002Fmonument-historique\u002Fpa00099910\u002Ftreignac-pont-ancien-sur-la-vezere",[158,159],"Pont ancien sur la Vézère à Treignac, base Mérimée PA00099910 (Monumentum)",[151,4821,4822,4823,168],{},"Treignac's Comborn history, the 1438 Villandrando sack, the Halle, the Porte Chabirande, the kayak world championships, and the Petite Cité de Caractère label: ",[34,4824,4827],{"href":4825,"rel":4826,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FTreignac",[158,159],"Treignac, Wikipédia",[151,4829,4830,4831,168],{},"Charles Lachaud, his trials, and his Treignac birth: ",[34,4832,4835],{"href":4833,"rel":4834,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FCharles_Lachaud",[158,159],"Charles Lachaud, Wikipédia",[151,4837,4838,4839,168],{},"Marc Sangnier, Lachaud's grandson, and his burial at Treignac: ",[34,4840,4843],{"href":4841,"rel":4842,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMarc_Sangnier",[158,159],"Marc Sangnier, Wikipédia",[232,4845],{},[27,4847,4848],{},[237,4849,4578],{},[241,4851,4853,4856],{"className":4852,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,4854,249],{"className":4855,"id":38},[248],[251,4857,4858,4873,4892,4911],{},[151,4859,4861,4862,4864,4865,260,4869],{"id":4860},"user-content-fn-pont","The Vieux Pont (also called the Pont Médiéval) is documented as early as 1285; the present structure of three broken arches in rubble and dressed granite incorporates twelfth- and thirteenth-century work, and was built to reach the fortified château, since demolished, on its spur above the gorge. It was for roughly six hundred years the only crossing of the Vézère at Treignac, until the Pont Finot (1822) and the Pont Bargy (1840) were built downstream. It was listed a ",[237,4863,2872],{}," by decree of 1 April 1963 (Mérimée PA00099910, official notice \"Pont ancien sur la Vézère à Treignac\"). Source: ",[34,4866,4868],{"href":4817,"rel":4867,"target":160},[158,159],"Pont ancien sur la Vézère à Treignac, Monumentum \u002F base Mérimée PA00099910",[34,4870,267],{"href":4871,"ariaLabel":264,"className":4872,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-pont",[266],[151,4874,4876,4877,4880,4881,4884,4885,260,4888],{"id":4875},"user-content-fn-kayak","Treignac hosted the first World Championships of canoe-kayak ",[237,4878,4879],{},"descente"," (white-water\u002Fwild-water racing) on 1-2 August 1959, the founding of the discipline as a world-championship event; the championships returned to the Vézère in 2000 and again in 2022. The dam-fed rapids reach below the town, including the ",[237,4882,4883],{},"Saut du Loup",", remains an active white-water course. Source: ",[34,4886,4827],{"href":4825,"rel":4887,"target":160},[158,159],[34,4889,267],{"href":4890,"ariaLabel":281,"className":4891,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-kayak",[266],[151,4893,4895,4896,4899,4900,4903,4904,260,4907],{"id":4894},"user-content-fn-sack","Treignac was held through the medieval period by the viscounts of Comborn and received charters of liberties across the period (1205, 1284, 1438). In 1438 the Castilian ",[237,4897,4898],{},"routier"," Rodrigue de Villandrando, known as ",[237,4901,4902],{},"l'Écorcheur"," (the Scourge), sacked the town to recover a debt of 1,000 écus owed by Jean de Comborn; the covered market hall (the Halle) was rebuilt in 1484. Source: ",[34,4905,4827],{"href":4825,"rel":4906,"target":160},[158,159],[34,4908,267],{"href":4909,"ariaLabel":296,"className":4910,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-sack",[266],[151,4912,4914,4915,4918,4919,4922,4923,162,4926,260,4929],{"id":4913},"user-content-fn-lachaud","Charles Lachaud (Treignac, 25 February 1817 - Paris, 9 December 1882), Bonapartist advocate nicknamed the \"Roi des Assises,\" defended Marie Lafarge (the 1840 arsenic-poisoning trial, an early use of forensic toxicology in a French court), Marshal François Achille Bazaine (1873 court-martial), Gustave Courbet (after the demolition of the Vendôme Column), and Jean-Baptiste Troppmann (the 1869 Pantin murders; executed). His collected courtroom pleas were published posthumously as the ",[237,4916,4917],{},"Plaidoyers de Ch. Lachaud",". His grandson Marc Sangnier (1873-1950), founder of ",[237,4920,4921],{},"Le Sillon"," and of the French youth-hostel movement, is buried in the Treignac cemetery. Sources: ",[34,4924,4835],{"href":4833,"rel":4925,"target":160},[158,159],[34,4927,4843],{"href":4841,"rel":4928,"target":160},[158,159],[34,4930,267],{"href":4931,"ariaLabel":308,"className":4932,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-lachaud",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":4934},[4935,4936],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-18.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-18.gpx",[4940,4944],{"src":4941,"alt":4942,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":4943},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F8\u002F8c\u002FTreignac_Vue_de_la_vall%C3%A9e_de_la_V%C3%A9z%C3%A8re_1.jpg\u002F1280px-Treignac_Vue_de_la_vall%C3%A9e_de_la_V%C3%A9z%C3%A8re_1.jpg","The Vézère gorge at Treignac, the town climbing the granite spur above the river","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Treignac_Vue_de_la_vall%C3%A9e_de_la_V%C3%A9z%C3%A8re_1.jpg",{"src":4945,"alt":4946,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":4947},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F5\u002F53\u002FTreignac_Panorama.jpg\u002F1280px-Treignac_Panorama.jpg","Panorama of Treignac, granite roofs and the surrounding plateau","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Treignac_Panorama.jpg",126,{"dataCutoff":4950},"2026-06-02","\u002Fentries\u002F18-treignac-the-crossing","2026-06-03",{"title":4702,"description":39},"entries\u002F18-treignac-the-crossing","Km 120-126: into the Vézère gorge, over the medieval bridge, and onto the climb out of the town",{"fetchedAt":4952,"current":4957,"forecast":359},{"temp":4182,"conditions":1557,"wind":4958},"6 km\u002Fh SSW","l5zcY0oSg_cvPuCnrCFnyq7pT6zEfBAxwn0WmHWM-HY",{"id":4961,"title":4962,"body":4963,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":5059,"extension":360,"gpxFile":5060,"images":5061,"issue":359,"kmEnd":5078,"kmStart":4948,"meta":5079,"navigation":364,"path":5081,"publishDate":5082,"segment":5083,"seo":5084,"special":359,"stem":5085,"subtitle":5086,"weather":5087,"__hash__":5091},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F19-lestards-the-thatched-church.md","Lestards: The Only Thatched Church in France",{"type":8,"value":4964,"toc":5056},[4965,4968,4977,4980,4983,4987,4990,4993,4996,5001,5004,5006,5050,5052],[11,4966,4962],{"id":4967},"lestards-the-only-thatched-church-in-france",[15,4969],{"alt":4970,"author":4971,"author-url":4972,"caption":4973,"license":21,"license-url":22,"lightbox-src":4974,"source-url":4975,"src":4976},"Église Saint-Martial de Lestards from the south-west, the granite wall-belfry and the rye-straw thatched nave roof","Zivax","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Zivax","Église Saint-Martial at Lestards, the granite clocher-mur and the rye-straw thatch: by the steady testimony of the sources, the only thatched church roof in France. Cropped to a banner from the original; click to see the full frame.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fd\u002Fd3\u002FEglise_de_Lestards_%282%29.JPG","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Eglise_de_Lestards_%282%29.JPG","\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-19\u002Flestards-church-banner.jpg",[27,4978,4979],{},"The climb that began at the Vézère does not end at the river's edge, as the previous essay was at some pains to say; it goes on lifting the road out of Treignac, up through the last of the gorge's trees, until somewhere above kilometre one hundred and thirty the ground stops climbing and the country changes its mind. This is the crest the last segment handed forward, and it is worth a pause, not because the map marks a tidy summit here (the map, on this climb, marks several, and the surveyors and the roadbook compilers may settle among themselves which of them is the true one) but because it is the place where one landscape becomes another. Behind the rider is the gorge of the Vézère, granite-walled and wooded and fast with water. Ahead, as the firs thin and the horizon pulls back, is the open, lifted, sparer country of the Plateau de Millevaches, and the small commune of Lestards, eight hundred metres up and a hundred and seventeen souls strong, sitting astride the door.",[27,4981,4982],{},"I have always held that the smallest places keep the oddest things, and Lestards keeps about the oddest thing on the whole of this route. It is a church, and by the steady testimony of the Office de Tourisme and of more learned authorities besides, it is the only church in France roofed in thatch, and very possibly the only one in Europe. The building under the thatch is old and plain and good: a Romanesque nave of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, barrel-vaulted, carried on the honest granite the whole upland is built from, with a clocher-mur, a wall belfry, braced by four corner buttresses on its western face. It was inscribed among the monuments historiques in 1998 and classified outright in 2002. But it is the roof that brings the photographers, and the roof has earned them. The thatch is rye straw, paille de seigle, laid in the Limousin manner, which is neither the Dutch manner nor the English: the bundles are tied down to the joists with twisted and knotted cords of straw rather than pinned under metal bars, a craft kept up into our own time by a few masters, Armand Klavun among the last of them. The Republic thought well enough of the church to put it on a postage stamp in June of 2015. I decline to give a date for the last re-thatching, having found the usual figure unsupported when I went looking for it; thatch is in any case a roof that asks to be renewed rather than dated, and a church that has kept a straw roof over its head on a windy plateau for as long as this one has is best praised for the keeping and not the calendar.",[1159,4984],{"caption":4985,"embed-url":4986},"Inside Église Saint-Martial at Lestards: the barrel-vaulted Romanesque nave, granite below and rye thatch above.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1780992431062!6m8!1m7!1sCAoSFkNJSE0wb2dLRUlDQWdJQ3FrOHFOQ0E.!2m2!1d45.51508297723576!2d1.874388995314832!3f317.6164517460632!4f-7.673400600275855!5f0.7820865974627469",[27,4988,4989],{},"The roof is not, as it happens, the only thing about Lestards made of rye. The village enters the written record in 1315, and around the year 1300, a little before, the canons of the Order of Saint Anthony of Vienne established a commanderie here, a religious house of a very particular vocation: the care of those afflicted with ergotism, the disease the Middle Ages called Saint Anthony's fire, got from bread baked of rye infected with the ergot fungus and productive of gangrene and of hallucination in dreadful combination. The Antonines were the specialists in it, and they did not site their houses at random. They built where the disease was, and the disease was where the rye was, and the rye was here, rye being the grain that consents to grow on a cold acid upland where wheat sulks and fails. So the founding fact of the village is a rye-grain hospital, and the surviving monument of the village is a rye-straw roof, and the line drawn between the two is not a conceit of mine but a plain matter of what the ground will grow. The mission passed by a royal decree of 1766 to the Knights Hospitaller, the Order of Malta, in whose keeping the old Antonine charge ended its days.",[27,4991,4992],{},"What the ground will grow is, in truth, the whole subject of this segment, for Lestards stands on a threshold. The Plateau de Millevaches is the water-tower of this corner of France, the château d'eau from which the Vienne and the Creuse and the Vézère and the Corrèze all rise; its surface is a weave of landes, the open heath of heather and bilberry, and of tourbières, the peat bogs that hold the rain and let it go again slowly, and, laid over both since the middle of the last century, the dark regular ranks of Douglas fir and spruce that the earlier essays watched closing the view. The rider has been climbing toward this all day without quite arriving, and arrives now. It is, to be exact about an inexact thing, a threshold of catchment rather than of watershed: the streams here still run south and west, down the Vézère toward the Dordogne and the Atlantic, as they have done all the way from the Monédières. But the country they run through has changed its character, from the hurrying gorge-cut water of Treignac to the slow held source-country water of the plateau, and the change is felt at the crest as plainly as it is reasoned on the map.",[27,4994,4995],{},"The table changes with the country, as it always does. Below the crest the cooking is that of the bas-Limousin, of cattle and chestnut and the farcidure dumpling; above it the upland markers begin to show on the village ground, the rye flour and rye bread that the Antonine logic would lead one to expect, and the myrtilles, the bilberries the heath gives up in late summer to be folded into a clafoutis. As for the bicycle, the crest is where the climber collects the climb's points, and the climb has two names and one road. The older races called it the Côte de Lestards, after the village; the Tour calls it the Côte de la Croix de Pey, after a granite cross on the old forest track down to Treignac. But Cyril Gautier going over it in the 2017 Tour du Limousin and Marc Hirschi going the other way over it in the 2020 Tour climbed and descended the same hill, and 2026 is the first time a Tour de France has climbed through Lestards rather than dropped through it, the road for once running uphill through the door.",[69,4997],{"attribution":4998,"caption":4999,"embed-url":5000},"Source: YouTube channel RayMortlock.","An amateur rider climbs the Col de Lestards from the Treignac side — the same road, and the same direction, that the 2026 stage takes uphill through the village.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FpJLm-guOBjY",[27,5002,5003],{},"Our own four riders take the door in their usual fashion, a kilometre or two at a sitting, keeping the honest ledger this blog exists to keep. They have been climbing, in their staggered and patient way, since the gorge; now the firs open, the heath begins, and the small church with the straw roof stands where it has long stood, waiting to be passed. The plateau proper, its bogs and its long stubborn history of people choosing to live where living is hard, belongs to the essays that follow. This one only opens the door and gives it a name.",[143,5005,146],{"id":145},[148,5007,5008,5021,5037],{},[151,5009,5010,5011,162,5016,168],{},"Lestards commune, the Église Saint-Martial as the only thatched-roof church in France, the rye-straw Limousin technique, the Saint-Antoine commanderie and its 1766 transfer to the Hospitallers, and the 2015 postage stamp: ",[34,5012,5015],{"href":5013,"rel":5014,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FLestards",[158,159],"Lestards, Wikipédia",[34,5017,5020],{"href":5018,"rel":5019,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.terresdecorreze.com\u002Fen\u002Fsite-culturel\u002Feglise-saint-martial-de-lestards\u002F",[158,159],"Église Saint-Martial de Lestards, Office de Tourisme Terres de Corrèze",[151,5022,5023,5024,5027,5028,1979,5030,5033,5034,168],{},"The Plateau de Millevaches as ",[237,5025,5026],{},"château d'eau",", its ",[237,5029,4593],{},[237,5031,5032],{},"tourbières",", and the twentieth-century afforestation: ",[34,5035,4546],{"href":4544,"rel":5036,"target":160},[158,159],[151,5038,5039,5040,162,5045,168],{},"The climb's two names (the Côte de la Croix de Pey as \"98% of the Col de Lestards\") and its Tour du Limousin and Tour de France passages: ",[34,5041,5044],{"href":5042,"rel":5043,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FTour_du_Limousin",[158,159],"Tour du Limousin, Wikipédia",[34,5046,5049],{"href":5047,"rel":5048,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Finrng.com\u002F2020\u002F09\u002Ftour-de-france-stage-12-preview-sarran\u002F",[158,159],"Tour de France Stage 12 preview, The Inner Ring (2020)",[232,5051],{},[27,5053,5054],{},[237,5055,4578],{},{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":5057},[5058],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-19.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-19.gpx",[5062,5066,5070,5074],{"src":5063,"alt":5064,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":5065},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Ff\u002Ff2\u002FLestards_-Eglise_Saint-Martial_30.jpg\u002F1280px-Lestards_-Eglise_Saint-Martial_30.jpg","Église Saint-Martial de Lestards in summer, framed by clipped hedges","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile%3ALestards_-Eglise_Saint-Martial_30.jpg",{"src":5067,"alt":5068,"author":3726,"authorUrl":3727,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":5069},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F8\u002F83\u002FLestards_-_La_mairie_et_l%27%C3%A9glise_Saint-Martial.JPG\u002F1280px-Lestards_-_La_mairie_et_l%27%C3%A9glise_Saint-Martial.JPG","The mairie and Église Saint-Martial of Lestards sharing the village green","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile%3ALestards_-_La_mairie_et_l%27%C3%A9glise_Saint-Martial.JPG",{"src":5071,"alt":5072,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":5073},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F1\u002F12\u002FLestards_-Eglise_Saint-Martial_36.jpg\u002F1280px-Lestards_-Eglise_Saint-Martial_36.jpg","The Romanesque ogive vault of Église Saint-Martial, Lestards","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile%3ALestards_-Eglise_Saint-Martial_36.jpg",{"src":5075,"alt":5076,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":5077},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fb\u002Fbe\u002FLestards_-Eglise_Saint-Martial_34.jpg\u002F1280px-Lestards_-Eglise_Saint-Martial_34.jpg","The stone baptismal font of Église Saint-Martial, Lestards","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile%3ALestards_-Eglise_Saint-Martial_34.jpg",134,{"dataCutoff":5080},"2026-06-06","\u002Fentries\u002F19-lestards-the-thatched-church","2026-06-07",19,{"title":4962,"description":39},"entries\u002F19-lestards-the-thatched-church","Km 126-134: over the crest of the Croix de Pey and onto the threshold of the Plateau",{"fetchedAt":5088,"current":5089,"forecast":359},"2026-06-09",{"temp":1556,"conditions":1557,"wind":5090},"8 km\u002Fh NW","7vW1q7rghTOqfZNcZr1hBhiydNEWxuJUqWs7MOS-BKI",{"id":5093,"title":5094,"body":5095,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":5424,"extension":360,"gpxFile":5425,"images":5426,"issue":359,"kmEnd":5449,"kmStart":5078,"meta":5450,"navigation":364,"path":5451,"publishDate":5452,"segment":5453,"seo":5454,"special":359,"stem":5455,"subtitle":5456,"weather":5457,"__hash__":5461},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F20-heart-of-millevaches.md","The Empty Highland",{"type":8,"value":5096,"toc":5420},[5097,5100,5107,5110,5133,5139,5142,5149,5161,5166,5169,5200,5203,5206,5208,5281,5283,5288],[11,5098,5094],{"id":5099},"the-empty-highland",[15,5101],{"alt":5102,"author":1927,"caption":5103,"license":731,"source-url":5104,"src":5105,"author-url":5106,"license-url":1152},"Fenced rough pasture and flowering heather on the Plateau de Millevaches, backed by a wall of conifer plantation","Rough fenced pasture and heather in flower on the Plateau de Millevaches, giving onto the dark wall of a conifer plantation: the open moor and the planted forest in a single view. Not the line of the stage, which runs north-east toward Bugeat, but the country this segment crosses.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Chemin_entre_Peret_Bel_air_et_La_Naucodie%2C_sur_le_plateau_de_millevaches%2C_France.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F4\u002F4b\u002FChemin_entre_Peret_Bel_air_et_La_Naucodie%2C_sur_le_plateau_de_millevaches%2C_France.jpg\u002F1280px-Chemin_entre_Peret_Bel_air_et_La_Naucodie%2C_sur_le_plateau_de_millevaches%2C_France.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FAvocat_jean",[27,5108,5109],{},"Segment twenty crosses no town and tops no categorised climb. This blog keeps a town and a climb for almost every segment of the stage; for these six kilometres, from kilometre one hundred and thirty-four to kilometre one hundred and forty, both fields stand empty, and the emptiness is accurate. The road runs north-east out of the high ground above Lestards and into the interior of the Plateau de Millevaches, and there is, in the ordinary sense, nothing to see. The Plateau makes that into a subject.",[27,5111,5112,5113,5116,5117,5124,5125,5128,5129,5132],{},"And then there is the name. ",[237,5114,5115],{},"Millevaches"," looks like the easiest word in the Corrèze to translate and is among the hardest.",[31,5118,5119],{},[34,5120,41],{"href":5121,"ariaDescribedBy":5122,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":5123},"#user-content-fn-millevaches",[38],"user-content-fnref-millevaches"," The obvious modern reading, ",[237,5126,5127],{},"mille vaches",", a thousand cows, is almost certainly the wrong one. The scholars who have worked on it longest read the first part as a Gaulish word for a height and the second as a Latin word for empty or abandoned: not a thousand cows but the empty highland, half Gaulish and half Latin, a name for a place that is mostly neither. Other readings hear ",[237,5130,5131],{},"mille sources",", the thousand springs the tourist office prefers, or the granite boulders themselves, scattered across the heath and grouped, to a medieval eye, like herds of stone cattle. Empty highland, thousand springs, herds of stone: every one of them is true of what the rider is looking at. The thousand living cows are the only reading the land refuses.",[15,5134],{"alt":5135,"author":1927,"caption":5136,"license":731,"source-url":5137,"src":5138,"author-url":5106,"license-url":1152},"Granite boulders scattered across the heath on a puy of the Plateau de Millevaches","Granite boulders strewn across the heath of the Plateau, the herds of stone of one reading of the name Millevaches.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Rochers_sur_le_puy_de_Viossanges.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F3\u002F31\u002FRochers_sur_le_puy_de_Viossanges.jpg\u002F1280px-Rochers_sur_le_puy_de_Viossanges.jpg",[27,5140,5141],{},"Under all the names the land is granite. The Plateau is the raised top of one of the largest granite massifs in the Massif Central, a body forced up during the long collision that closed the Paleozoic, then worn flat and tilted gently to the north-west, so that the middle of it reads as a high table while the rivers do their cutting at the edges. The Vézère gorge the race crossed at Treignac, two segments back, is one of those edge-cuts. The granite is also why the ground is wet: rain that cannot drain through the rock gathers in shallow basins, and in those basins, since the last ice withdrew, peat has been building under the heath. The bogs of the Plateau sit, quite literally, in bowls of stone, and a rider crossing a little above seven hundred metres is riding the roof of a rock that holds water like a saucer.",[15,5143],{"alt":5144,"author":5145,"caption":5146,"license":966,"source-url":5147,"src":5148},"An early-twentieth-century postcard of sheep grazing the open, treeless moor of the Plateau de Millevaches","maison Eyboulet","Sheep grazing the open Plateau de Millevaches early in the twentieth century, the treeless moor before the postwar conifer plantations closed the horizon.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Plateau_du_Millevaches%2C_d%C3%A9but_XXe_si%C3%A8cle.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F0b\u002FPlateau_du_Millevaches%2C_d%C3%A9but_XXe_si%C3%A8cle.jpg\u002F1280px-Plateau_du_Millevaches%2C_d%C3%A9but_XXe_si%C3%A8cle.jpg",[27,5150,5151,5152,5154,5155,5160],{},"The dark walls of conifer that shut off the view for much of the segment look like the oldest thing in it and are among the youngest. Before the war the Plateau was open country, a near-treeless moor of heath and rough pasture. After the war the state paid to plant, fast and exotic, Douglas fir and Sitka spruce and grand fir in even-aged blocks across tens of thousands of hectares of emptied farmland, within a couple of generations. French has a phrase for what this did to the horizon, ",[237,5153,4541],{},", the closing of the landscape,",[31,5156,5157],{},[34,5158,66],{"href":4480,"ariaDescribedBy":5159,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":4482},[38]," the open distance walled in by timber. The great storms of December nineteen ninety-nine flattened whole rectangles of the young monoculture at a stroke and showed how shallow its roots, in both senses, went. It is worth knowing, on a stretch that feels like wilderness, that much of the wild was planted, as an investment, within living memory. The forester who did most to map these plantations, Marius Vazeilles, was also a self-taught archaeologist who pulled a Gallo-Roman ruin out of the heath while surveying for trees: the modern forest and the buried Roman past, found by the same hands.",[69,5162],{"attribution":5163,"caption":5164,"embed-url":5165},"Source: Parc naturel régional de Millevaches en Limousin (via YouTube).","Histoire des paysages: le plateau de Millevaches de sa naissance à nos jours. The regional park's own film on how this country was made, from the granite up through the planted forests.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FRO4GWK_uZw0?cc_load_policy=1&cc_lang_pref=en&hl=en",[27,5167,5168],{},"The emptiness is lived as well as seen. The communes here count their people in dozens; a commune near this road, Toy-Viam, is the smallest in the whole Limousin, with something like thirty-five inhabitants, and the densities run to a handful of souls to the square kilometre. And yet the Plateau has not been left to its silence. From the nineteen-seventies it drew settlers who came on purpose, people who left the cities for the first real emptiness they reached, took up farms and crafts, defended the open landscape against the advancing conifer, and have argued about the place, in their own newspaper, ever since. Not many uplands this empty are this deliberately inhabited.",[27,5170,5171,5172,5179,5180,5187,5188,5195,5196,5199],{},"They have also written it, more thoroughly than almost any comparable ground in France. Richard Millet was born in nineteen fifty-three at Viam, a commune on the Plateau a short way off this road, and built his fiction on one invented village, Siom, which is the Plateau under another name; critics reach for Hardy's Wessex and Faulkner's county to say what the place does in his books.",[31,5173,5174],{},[34,5175,84],{"href":5176,"ariaDescribedBy":5177,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":5178},"#user-content-fn-millet",[38],"user-content-fnref-millet"," Pierre Bergounioux, raised down in Brive, reads the same granite the other way, as something austere and sombre, a hard northern country set against a softer south.",[31,5181,5182],{},[34,5183,96],{"href":5184,"ariaDescribedBy":5185,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":5186},"#user-content-fn-bergounioux",[38],"user-content-fnref-bergounioux"," And the oldest voice is the land's own: Marcelle Delpastre, a working farmer from just off the western edge of this plateau, became one of the great Occitan writers of the last century by setting the disappearing peasant Limousin down in its own language.",[31,5189,5190],{},[34,5191,108],{"href":5192,"ariaDescribedBy":5193,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":5194},"#user-content-fn-delpastre",[38],"user-content-fnref-delpastre"," The music that goes with her verse is the ",[237,5197,5198],{},"chabrette",", the Limousin bagpipe set with small mirrors, nearly lost and pulled back from the edge by a few players in the late nineteen-eighties. An empty highland, it turns out, is a crowded place to be from.",[27,5201,5202],{},"The four of us keeping the walking ledger for this blog are covering the opposite kind of ground. Our two kilometres a day go down streets nobody has named a region after, past nothing anyone has set a novel in, and the daily cap holds whether the walk is worth describing or not. There is a rough justice in spending the back half of the route on one of the most written-about empty places in France while logging the least written-about full ones. All four of us are well past the midpoint of our own hundred and eighty-five kilometres now, and bunched within a kilometre or two of one another, which is its own kind of flat country.",[27,5204,5205],{},"The road tips up a little toward the end of the segment, gathering itself for the town the next one finally enters, and at that point the names start coming back. For these six kilometres, though, there is only the highland with its three true names and its one false one, the planted dark along the skyline, the water waiting in the granite, and a rider crossing the middle of the day on the quietest road of it. The Plateau does not perform for the people passing over it. That, in the end, is most of what a thousand years of them have climbed up here to find.",[143,5207,146],{"id":145},[148,5209,5210,5220,5228,5236,5244,5252,5260,5268],{},[151,5211,5212,5213,5215,5216,168],{},"The Plateau de Millevaches: the contested etymology, the heath and peat bogs, the postwar ",[237,5214,4541],{},", and the long depopulation: ",[34,5217,5219],{"href":4544,"rel":5218,"target":160},[158,159],"Plateau de Millevaches – Wikipédia",[151,5221,5222,5223,168],{},"The regional park, its otter emblem, and the eleven rivers over fifty kilometres that rise on or around the Plateau, the \"water tower\" of central France: ",[34,5224,5227],{"href":5225,"rel":5226,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FParc_naturel_r%C3%A9gional_de_Millevaches_en_Limousin",[158,159],"Parc naturel régional de Millevaches en Limousin – Wikipédia",[151,5229,5230,5231,168],{},"The Millevaches granite, a Variscan leucogranite batholith among the largest in the Massif Central, raised and planed flat: ",[34,5232,5235],{"href":5233,"rel":5234,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ftheses.hal.science\u002Ftel-00008553",[158,159],"Granites du Millevaches (thèse, HAL)",[151,5237,5238,5239,168],{},"The scale and critique of the Fonds Forestier National afforestation of the uplands: ",[34,5240,5243],{"href":5241,"rel":5242,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.forestopic.com\u002F",[158,159],"Forestopic",[151,5245,5246,5247,168],{},"Richard Millet and the Siom cycle: ",[34,5248,5251],{"href":5249,"rel":5250,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FRichard_Millet",[158,159],"Richard Millet – Wikipedia",[151,5253,5254,5255,168],{},"Pierre Bergounioux's darker reading of the Plateau: ",[34,5256,5259],{"href":5257,"rel":5258,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.m.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FPierre_Bergounioux",[158,159],"Pierre Bergounioux – Wikipédia",[151,5261,5262,5263,168],{},"Marcelle Delpastre, Occitan poet and ethnographer of the Limousin: ",[34,5264,5267],{"href":5265,"rel":5266,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMarcela_Delpastre",[158,159],"Marcelle Delpastre – Wikipedia",[151,5269,503,5270,5272,5273,162,5278,168],{},[237,5271,5198],{},", the mirror-set Limousin bagpipe, and its late-1980s revival: ",[34,5274,5277],{"href":5275,"rel":5276,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FChabrette",[158,159],"Chabrette – Wikipedia",[34,5279,3947],{"href":3945,"rel":5280,"target":160},[158,159],[232,5282],{},[27,5284,5285],{},[237,5286,5287],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.8. Voice register: madrid-review.",[241,5289,5291,5294],{"className":5290,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,5292,249],{"className":5293,"id":38},[248],[251,5295,5296,5337,5353,5376,5395],{},[151,5297,5299,5300,5302,5303,5305,5306,5309,5310,5313,5314,5317,5318,5320,5321,162,5324,260,5333],{"id":5298},"user-content-fn-millevaches","The meaning of ",[237,5301,5115],{}," is genuinely disputed. The folk reading, ",[237,5304,5127],{}," (\"a thousand cows\"), is treated as a false friend. Albert Dauzat and Charles Rostaing derive it from a Gaulish ",[237,5307,5308],{},"melo"," (\"height, high place\") and a Latin ",[237,5311,5312],{},"vacua"," (\"empty, abandoned\"), giving \"the empty highland\"; Ernest Nègre reads an Occitan ",[237,5315,5316],{},"mila vacas"," but glosses it metaphorically, of granite boulders strewn like grazing herds; the tourist-board favourite, ",[237,5319,5131],{}," (\"a thousand springs\"), proposes a Celtic root for a spring but is noted as lacking documentation. Sources: ",[34,5322,4546],{"href":4544,"rel":5323,"target":160},[158,159],[34,5325,5328,5329,5332],{"href":5326,"rel":5327,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fshs.cairn.info\u002Frevue-espace-geographique-2018-1-page-82",[158,159],"\"Millevaches : un Entrevaux\", ",[237,5330,5331],{},"L'Espace géographique"," 2018",[34,5334,267],{"href":5335,"ariaLabel":264,"className":5336,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-millevaches",[266],[151,5338,5339,5342,5343,162,5346,260,5350],{"id":4589},[237,5340,5341],{},"Fermeture paysagère",", the \"closing of the landscape\": the term for the way postwar afforestation, subsidised from the late nineteen-forties through the Fonds Forestier National, replaced the open moor with even-aged blocks of exotic conifer and walled in the Plateau's long horizons. Sources: ",[34,5344,4546],{"href":4544,"rel":5345,"target":160},[158,159],[34,5347,5349],{"href":5241,"rel":5348,"target":160},[158,159],"Forestopic, on upland afforestation",[34,5351,267],{"href":4616,"ariaLabel":281,"className":5352,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},[266],[151,5354,5356,5357,5360,5361,5364,5365,4054,5368,260,5372],{"id":5355},"user-content-fn-millet","Richard Millet (born Viam, 1953). His Plateau fiction transposes the country around here to the invented village of Siom, across novels including ",[237,5358,5359],{},"La Gloire des Pythre"," (1995), ",[237,5362,5363],{},"L'Amour des trois sœurs Piale",", and ",[237,5366,5367],{},"Ma vie parmi les ombres",[34,5369,5371],{"href":5249,"rel":5370,"target":160},[158,159],"Richard Millet, Wikipedia",[34,5373,267],{"href":5374,"ariaLabel":296,"className":5375,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-millet",[266],[151,5377,5379,5380,1979,5383,5386,5387,260,5391],{"id":5378},"user-content-fn-bergounioux","Pierre Bergounioux (born Brive-la-Gaillarde, 1949), whose Corrèze books include ",[237,5381,5382],{},"Miette",[237,5384,5385],{},"La Casse",", reads the paternal Millevaches as austere and sombre against the sunnier Quercy of his mother's side. Source: ",[34,5388,5390],{"href":5257,"rel":5389,"target":160},[158,159],"Pierre Bergounioux, Wikipédia",[34,5392,267],{"href":5393,"ariaLabel":308,"className":5394,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-bergounioux",[266],[151,5396,5398,5399,5402,5403,5406,5407,162,5411,260,5416],{"id":5397},"user-content-fn-delpastre","Marcelle Delpastre (1925–1998), of Germont in the commune of Chamberet, on the western edge of the plateau: a farmer who became one of the major Occitan poets and ethnographers of the twentieth century, author of ",[237,5400,5401],{},"La Vinha dins l'òrt"," (1968) and ",[237,5404,5405],{},"Los Contes dau Pueg Gerjant"," (1970); her centenary was marked across Nouvelle-Aquitaine in 2025. Sources: ",[34,5408,5410],{"href":5265,"rel":5409,"target":160},[158,159],"Marcelle Delpastre, Wikipedia",[34,5412,5415],{"href":5413,"rel":5414,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.culture-nouvelle-aquitaine.fr\u002Flangues-et-cultures-regionales\u002Fcentenaire-marcelle-delpastre\u002F",[158,159],"Centenaire Marcelle Delpastre, Culture Nouvelle-Aquitaine",[34,5417,267],{"href":5418,"ariaLabel":323,"className":5419,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-delpastre",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":5421},[5422,5423],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-20.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-20.gpx",[5427,5432,5438,5443],{"src":5428,"alt":5429,"author":1299,"authorUrl":5430,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":5431},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fd\u002Fdd\u002FPlateau_de_Millevaches%2C_pr%C3%A8s_de_Saint-Setiers.JPG\u002F1280px-Plateau_de_Millevaches%2C_pr%C3%A8s_de_Saint-Setiers.JPG","Cattle grazing a pasture above the forested hills of the Plateau de Millevaches near Saint-Setiers","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FBabsy","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Plateau_de_Millevaches%2C_pr%C3%A8s_de_Saint-Setiers.JPG",{"src":5433,"alt":5434,"author":5435,"authorUrl":5436,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":5437},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fa\u002Fa3\u002FMillevache_Plateau_near_Servieres.JPG\u002F1280px-Millevache_Plateau_near_Servieres.JPG","Rolling forested hills of the Plateau de Millevaches near Servières under an overcast sky","Sjwells53","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FSjwells53","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Millevache_Plateau_near_Servieres.JPG",{"src":5439,"alt":5440,"author":4681,"authorUrl":5441,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":5442},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F8\u002F89\u002FBruy%C3%A8re1.JPG","Heather in flower on the Plateau de Millevaches, with birch and young conifers behind","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FNoeljupiter","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Bruy%C3%A8re1.JPG",{"src":5444,"alt":5445,"author":5446,"authorUrl":5447,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":5448},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F7\u002F7d\u002FBois_de_Crozat.jpg\u002F1280px-Bois_de_Crozat.jpg","Conifer-forested hills reflected in the water at the Bois de Crozat, on the Plateau de Millevaches","LucasD","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FLucasD","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Bois_de_Crozat.jpg",140,{"dataCutoff":5088},"\u002Fentries\u002F20-heart-of-millevaches","2026-06-10",20,{"title":5094,"description":39},"entries\u002F20-heart-of-millevaches","Km 134-140: across the open interior of the Plateau de Millevaches",{"fetchedAt":5458,"current":5459,"forecast":359},"2026-06-16",{"temp":1950,"conditions":1118,"wind":5460},"4 km\u002Fh SE","OkG2Oq_RHRk0r2b7hEO7ZMvzI2FfS857bvgA37t-5TM",{"id":5463,"title":5464,"body":5465,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":5686,"extension":360,"gpxFile":5687,"images":5688,"issue":359,"kmEnd":5705,"kmStart":5449,"meta":5706,"navigation":364,"path":5708,"publishDate":5709,"segment":5710,"seo":5711,"special":359,"stem":5712,"subtitle":5713,"weather":5714,"__hash__":5717},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F21-toward-mont-bessou.md","The Granite Town",{"type":8,"value":5466,"toc":5682},[5467,5470,5477,5480,5485,5488,5494,5505,5508,5519,5527,5538,5546,5549,5553,5556,5558,5616,5618,5622],[11,5468,5464],{"id":5469},"the-granite-town",[15,5471],{"alt":5472,"author":2490,"author-url":5473,"caption":5474,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"source-url":5475,"src":5476},"The town of Bugeat seen from above, granite houses gathered on the high Plateau de Millevaches","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FRenhour48","Bugeat from above: the granite town on the high Plateau, gathered on its railway and its high ground, the one real town of this high crossing.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Bugeat_Panorama1.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F5\u002F55\u002FBugeat_Panorama1.jpg\u002F1280px-Bugeat_Panorama1.jpg",[27,5478,5479],{},"For the six kilometres before this one the stage crosses no town at all, only the open moor of the Plateau de Millevaches; and then the road comes off the heath and into Bugeat, the first proper town since Treignac and the only one between the empty moor behind it and the rising ground ahead. It arrives as a town of stone. The houses are granite and the church is granite and the war memorial is granite, so that the place takes its colour from the rock it stands on, a grey that goes gold when the sun is on it and the colour of a wet slate roof when it is not.",[69,5481],{"attribution":5482,"caption":5483,"embed-url":5484},"Source: Victor François (via YouTube).","Coming into Bugeat on the D979, the road the stage takes through the town, with the granite houses in low evening sun.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002F8IGxZu7F_AY",[27,5486,5487],{},"The town keeps a small museum to that stone, the Maison du Granite, in its tourist office, where one learns that the local rock is not one grey but several, and that the variants have names: the pink granite of Pérols up the valley, the ochre granite of Bugeat itself. What raised the place above a granite village was the railway, which reached it in eighteen eighty-three and turned a remote upland parish into a junction with a station and a reason for outsiders to stop. The third thing is altitude. At a little over seven hundred metres Bugeat is high enough to be worth training at, and since nineteen sixty it has kept an altitude-sport centre, the Espace Mille Sources, among the lakes and the planted forests. Stone, rail, thin air: the town carries its three identities lightly, the way places do that have had to make a living out of whatever the ground would give.",[15,5489],{"alt":5490,"author":2490,"author-url":5473,"caption":5491,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"source-url":5492,"src":5493},"The railway station at Bugeat seen from the street side","Bugeat station, from the street. The line reached the town in eighteen eighty-three and made a remote granite parish into somewhere with a timetable.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Bugeat_La_gare_2.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F7\u002F72\u002FBugeat_La_gare_2.jpg\u002F1280px-Bugeat_La_gare_2.jpg",[27,5495,5496,5497,5504],{},"Bugeat was, for a generation, a communist commune, as much of this red corner of the Limousin was. Its long-serving mayor, Félix Lestang, a peasant and timber-merchant born just up the valley at Pérols-sur-Vézère, ran the town from nineteen thirty-two to nineteen fifty-nine, and at the Liberation, in November nineteen forty-five, served for a time as president of the departmental council of the Corrèze.",[31,5498,5499],{},[34,5500,41],{"href":5501,"ariaDescribedBy":5502,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":5503},"#user-content-fn-lestang",[38],"user-content-fnref-lestang"," None of which is incidental to the spring of nineteen forty-four. The same remoteness that gave the town its railway-end quiet gave the maquis of the Plateau their cover, and the occupier knew it.",[27,5506,5507],{},"What came was not the column that would burn Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane two months later; that was a different German formation, and the distinction matters to the people who keep the date. The unit that swept the Dordogne and the Corrèze that spring was the Brehmer Division, hunting maquisards and Jews across the high country. On the sixth of April, nineteen forty-four, it came to Bugeat. Four farmers were shot at the hamlet of L'Échameil, men in their thirties, forties and fifties; a fifth man, Chaïm Rozent, a Jewish résistant, was taken in the town and shot apart from the others, having refused under torture, it is said, to give up the maquis.",[27,5509,5510,5511,5518],{},"The same morning, ten Jewish women and children were arrested in Bugeat and deported, by way of Drancy, on Convoi 72; of the ten, one came back. The youngest was a boy of three and a half, taken with his mother. There were two sisters of six and sixteen, and two more girls of nine and eleven taken with theirs; the oldest were women of sixty-seven and of seventy. Three generations went out of one small town in a single day, and all but one of them into the camps.",[31,5512,5513],{},[34,5514,66],{"href":5515,"ariaDescribedBy":5516,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":5517},"#user-content-fn-bugeat44",[38],"user-content-fnref-bugeat44"," The four men of L'Échameil have had a stèle at the pont de Vezou since nineteen forty-seven, and a ceremony is still held there each April. The names of the deported were gathered into the town's memory more slowly: a plaque to the fusillés and the déportés was unveiled at the town hall in May twenty twenty-five, eighty-one years on, which is a long time for a small place to go on counting its dead and a sign that it has not stopped.",[15,5520],{"alt":5521,"author":5522,"author-url":5523,"caption":5524,"license":1100,"license-url":52,"source-url":5525,"src":5526},"A memorial plaque on the Bugeat town hall, unveiled in May 2025, listing the town's shot and deported of 1944","Pjmgand","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FPjmgand","The plaque to the fusillés and déportés of Bugeat, unveiled at the town hall in May twenty twenty-five, eighty-one years after the morning of the sixth of April, nineteen forty-four.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Mairie_Bugeat_plaque_m%C3%A9morielle_mai_2025_deux.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F00\u002FMairie_Bugeat_plaque_m%C3%A9morielle_mai_2025_deux.jpg\u002F1280px-Mairie_Bugeat_plaque_m%C3%A9morielle_mai_2025_deux.jpg",[27,5528,5529,5530,5537],{},"For a town this far up, Bugeat has seen a fair amount of bicycle racing, though not yet the Tour de France. It has twice been a stage town of the Tour du Limousin, the region's own professional race: a stage ran from here to Limoges in nineteen ninety-two, and in twenty twenty-one a stage set off from the Espace Mille Sources, the altitude centre that carries the name of Alain Mimoun, the Olympic marathon champion who helped bring it into being.",[31,5531,5532],{},[34,5533,84],{"href":5534,"ariaDescribedBy":5535,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":5536},"#user-content-fn-mimoun",[38],"user-content-fnref-mimoun"," The Plateau's one town already knows the look of a peloton and the noise of a publicity caravan, then. What it has not seen, in all the years the race has run, is the Tour de France itself, which crosses Bugeat for the first time in twenty twenty-six.",[15,5539],{"alt":5540,"author":5541,"author-url":5542,"caption":5543,"license":1100,"license-url":52,"source-url":5544,"src":5545},"The sports buildings of the Espace Mille Sources altitude centre at Bugeat","Christophe Delattre","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FChrisdel62","The Espace Mille Sources at Bugeat, the altitude-training centre founded in nineteen sixty under the patronage of the marathon champion Alain Mimoun, and the start of a Tour du Limousin stage in twenty twenty-one.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Centre_sportif_de_Bugeat.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fe\u002Fe4\u002FCentre_sportif_de_Bugeat.jpg\u002F1280px-Centre_sportif_de_Bugeat.jpg",[27,5547,5548],{},"The four of us keeping the walking ledger for this blog have arrived, by our own slow arithmetic, at a dead heat. On the capped count the race runs by, all four stand level at a hundred and forty-eight of the hundred and eighty-five kilometres, with thirty-seven still to go and not a kilometre between us; the only difference is how hard each is working to hold the line. It is a small thing to bring into a town like this one, and it is offered as a small thing.",[1159,5550],{"caption":5551,"embed-url":5552},"Street level in Bugeat, on the granite-built road the stage rides through the town.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1781567668770!6m8!1m7!1sTVxgIq-CGCWowFW24j2P_g!2m2!1d45.59748930499808!2d1.927912300859205!3f317.44391152267895!4f-18.124153156364102!5f0.7820865974627469",[27,5554,5555],{},"Beyond Bugeat the road tilts up again, gathering itself for Mont Bessou and the high point of the whole day, which is the next segment's business. What stays, on the way out, is the granite: in the houses, in the war memorial on the Place du Champ de foire, in the stèle down at the pont de Vezou with its four names and its date. A town that builds in the local stone builds to last, which is a plain virtue when the thing kept is a house and a harder one when the thing kept is a list of the dead. Bugeat keeps both, in the same grey rock, and the road goes up and over and leaves it to its keeping.",[143,5557,146],{"id":145},[148,5559,5560,5568,5576,5584,5592,5600,5608],{},[151,5561,5562,5563,168],{},"Bugeat: the granite town, the named local stone, the railway of 1883, the communist commune, the church of Saint-Pardoux: ",[34,5564,5567],{"href":5565,"rel":5566,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FBugeat",[158,159],"Bugeat – Wikipédia",[151,5569,5570,5571,168],{},"The killings and deportations of 6 April 1944, the Brehmer Division, the men of L'Échameil, Chaïm Rozent, the ten deported on Convoi 72, and the memorials of 1947 and 2025: ",[34,5572,5575],{"href":5573,"rel":5574,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFusill%C3%A9s_et_d%C3%A9port%C3%A9s_de_Bugeat",[158,159],"Fusillés et déportés de Bugeat – Wikipédia",[151,5577,5578,5579,168],{},"Félix Lestang, communist mayor of Bugeat and president of the departmental council at the Liberation: ",[34,5580,5583],{"href":5581,"rel":5582,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffusilles-40-44.maitron.fr\u002Flestang-felix-ne-etienne\u002F",[158,159],"LESTANG Félix – Le Maitron",[151,5585,5586,5587,168],{},"The Espace 1000 Sources, Alain Mimoun, and the centre's history: ",[34,5588,5591],{"href":5589,"rel":5590,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.espace1000sources.fr\u002Fle-centre\u002Flhistoire-du-centre",[158,159],"Espace 1000 Sources – histoire du centre",[151,5593,5594,5595,168],{},"The 2021 Tour du Limousin stage starting from Bugeat: ",[34,5596,5599],{"href":5597,"rel":5598,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.francebleu.fr\u002Fsports\u002Fcyclisme\u002Fen-direct-tour-du-limousin-perigord-nouvelle-aquitaine-2021-suivez-la-3e-etape-entre-bugeat-et-1628604663",[158,159],"France Bleu – Tour du Limousin 2021, 3e étape Bugeat",[151,5601,5602,5603,168],{},"The Maison du Granite and the \"pink Pérols, ochre Bugeat\" stone: ",[34,5604,5607],{"href":5605,"rel":5606,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourismecorreze.com\u002Fen\u002Ftourisme_detail\u002Fmaison_du_granite.html",[158,159],"Tourisme Corrèze – Maison du Granite",[151,5609,5610,5611,168],{},"Mont Bessou crossed by the Tour de France for the first time in 2026: ",[34,5612,5615],{"href":5613,"rel":5614,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fevents.revedevelo.com\u002Fetape-9-tour-de-france-2026-malemort-ussel-parcours\u002F",[158,159],"Rêve de Vélo – Étape 9 (Malemort–Ussel), parcours",[232,5617],{},[27,5619,5620],{},[237,5621,239],{},[241,5623,5625,5628],{"className":5624,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,5626,249],{"className":5627,"id":38},[248],[251,5629,5630,5650,5670],{},[151,5631,5633,5634,5637,5638,162,5642,260,5646],{"id":5632},"user-content-fn-lestang","Félix Lestang (born Pérols-sur-Vézère, 1889; died Bugeat, 1967), a peasant and timber-merchant who joined the Communist Party at its founding in 1920, was mayor of Bugeat from 1932 to 1959 and a councillor (",[237,5635,5636],{},"conseiller général",") of the Corrèze from 1937 to 1961; he became president of the departmental council in November 1945. Sources: ",[34,5639,5641],{"href":5565,"rel":5640,"target":160},[158,159],"Bugeat, Wikipédia",[34,5643,5645],{"href":5581,"rel":5644,"target":160},[158,159],"LESTANG Félix, Le Maitron",[34,5647,267],{"href":5648,"ariaLabel":264,"className":5649,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-lestang",[266],[151,5651,5653,5654,5657,5658,5661,5662,260,5666],{"id":5652},"user-content-fn-bugeat44","On 6 April 1944 the Brehmer Division (not the Das Reich division, which destroyed Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane two months later) carried out an anti-maquis and anti-Jewish sweep at Bugeat. Four farmers were shot at the hamlet of L'Échameil: Léon Gane (37), Antoine Gourinal (44), Antoine Nauche (56) and Henri Vacher (50). A fifth man, the Jewish résistant Chaïm Rozent (33), was shot the same day at l'Église-aux-Bois. Ten Jewish women and children arrested that morning were deported on Convoi 72, which left Drancy on 29 April 1944 for Auschwitz; only one survived. They were Lucie Fribourg (70), Carola Hoch (49), Anna Izbicka (6), Jeanne Izbicka (16), Anna Kleinberg (11), Maryem Kleinberg (40), Rosa Kleinberg (9), Brana Tencer (37), Serge Tencer (3½) and Clara Uhlmann (67). A stèle to the four men of L'Échameil was inaugurated at the pont de Vezou in 1947; a plaque to the ",[237,5655,5656],{},"fusillés et déportés"," was unveiled at the town hall on 8 May 2025. The events are recounted in Jean-Marie Borzeix, ",[237,5659,5660],{},"Jeudi saint"," (Paris: Stock, 2008). Source: ",[34,5663,5665],{"href":5573,"rel":5664,"target":160},[158,159],"Fusillés et déportés de Bugeat, Wikipédia",[34,5667,267],{"href":5668,"ariaLabel":281,"className":5669,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-bugeat44",[266],[151,5671,5673,5674,260,5678],{"id":5672},"user-content-fn-mimoun","The Espace 1000 Sources at Bugeat, an altitude-training centre at about 720 m, was created in 1960 with the involvement of Alain Mimoun (1921–2013), Olympic marathon champion at Melbourne in 1956; an expansion of its accommodation and pitches was backed by Jacques Chirac in 1989, and the centre carries Mimoun's name today. Source: ",[34,5675,5677],{"href":5589,"rel":5676,"target":160},[158,159],"Espace 1000 Sources, histoire du centre",[34,5679,267],{"href":5680,"ariaLabel":296,"className":5681,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-mimoun",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":5683},[5684,5685],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-21.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-21.gpx",[5689,5693,5697,5701],{"src":5690,"alt":5691,"author":2490,"authorUrl":5473,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":5692},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F3\u002F3f\u002FBugeat_Entr%C3%A9e.jpg\u002F1280px-Bugeat_Entr%C3%A9e.jpg","The granite-built approach to Bugeat, houses and trees along the road into the high-Plateau town","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Bugeat_Entr%C3%A9e.jpg",{"src":5694,"alt":5695,"author":2490,"authorUrl":5473,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":5696},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fd\u002Fd2\u002FBugeat_Le_pont_du_chemin_de_fer.jpg\u002F1280px-Bugeat_Le_pont_du_chemin_de_fer.jpg","The railway bridge at Bugeat carrying the line over the road","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Bugeat_Le_pont_du_chemin_de_fer.jpg",{"src":5698,"alt":5699,"author":5522,"authorUrl":5523,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":5700},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F0d\u002FFontaine_Saint_Pardoux_Bugeat_Bassin_Fontaine_Vue_Face.jpg\u002F1280px-Fontaine_Saint_Pardoux_Bugeat_Bassin_Fontaine_Vue_Face.jpg","The Saint-Pardoux fountain and its granite basin at Bugeat","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Fontaine_Saint_Pardoux_Bugeat_Bassin_Fontaine_Vue_Face.jpg",{"src":5702,"alt":5703,"author":2490,"authorUrl":5473,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":5704},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F7\u002F70\u002FBugeat_Plaque_hommage_aux_d%C3%A9port%C3%A9s.jpg\u002F1280px-Bugeat_Plaque_hommage_aux_d%C3%A9port%C3%A9s.jpg","A plaque at Bugeat in homage to the deportees of the town","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Bugeat_Plaque_hommage_aux_d%C3%A9port%C3%A9s.jpg",148,{"dataCutoff":5707},"2026-06-13","\u002Fentries\u002F21-toward-mont-bessou","2026-06-14",21,{"title":5464,"description":39},"entries\u002F21-toward-mont-bessou","Km 140-148: Bugeat, the high bourg of stone and rail, and what it lost in April 1944",{"fetchedAt":5458,"current":5715,"forecast":359},{"temp":1950,"conditions":1118,"wind":5716},"5 km\u002Fh ESE","HG5G1pAWPZ0WmbYbdjcm7q3mFqYVQ-kOnwVCRYQv5M4",{"id":5719,"title":5720,"body":5721,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":5960,"extension":360,"gpxFile":5961,"images":5962,"issue":359,"kmEnd":5977,"kmStart":5705,"meta":5978,"navigation":364,"path":5979,"publishDate":5980,"segment":977,"seo":5981,"special":359,"stem":5982,"subtitle":5983,"weather":5984,"__hash__":5988},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F22-mont-bessou-roof-of-correze.md","Mont Bessou - Roof of Corrèze",{"type":8,"value":5722,"toc":5956},[5723,5726,5732,5735,5738,5743,5753,5764,5775,5781,5792,5800,5803,5806,5808,5883,5885,5889],[11,5724,5720],{"id":5725},"mont-bessou-roof-of-corrèze",[15,5727],{"alt":5728,"author":1932,"author-url":5447,"caption":5729,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"source-url":5730,"src":5731},"Panorama from the summit of Mont Bessou over forest and plateau toward the distant Puy de Sancy","From the summit of Mont Bessou, the view east over the forested Plateau toward the Monts Dore and the Puy de Sancy. The stage crosses the road crest a little over a kilometre west of this point, at eight hundred and ninety-two metres.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Panorama_sur_le_Sancy_depuis_le_mont_Bessou.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F3\u002F34\u002FPanorama_sur_le_Sancy_depuis_le_mont_Bessou.jpg\u002F1280px-Panorama_sur_le_Sancy_depuis_le_mont_Bessou.jpg",[27,5733,5734],{},"Out of Bugeat the road climbs almost at once, off the granite streets and up between walls of planted conifer, and for a while there is nothing to see but the trees and the grey ribbon going up. The gradient is gentle and stays gentle. This is the climb to the highest point of the whole day, and of the whole stage, and it does not feel like one; the road gains its height the way the Plateau gains everything, slowly and without drama, a few metres at a time across open ground that has long since forgotten it was ever low.",[27,5736,5737],{},"What the road is climbing is Mont Bessou, at nine hundred and seventy-seven metres the highest point of the Corrèze, of the old Limousin, and of the Plateau de Millevaches itself. It is a curious kind of summit. The true peak, with its tower, stands a little over a kilometre east of the road, and the stage never touches it; the parcours crosses instead a broad road crest at eight hundred and ninety-two metres and tips over toward the descent. The mountain is the apex of a granite tableland, a leucogranite surface worn almost flat by long ages of erosion, and it stands above the lower country toward the Dordogne by two hundred and fifty or three hundred metres. It is, in the plainest sense, the roof.",[69,5739],{"attribution":5740,"caption":5741,"embed-url":5742},"Source: Franck Cordier Photographies (via YouTube).","Mont Bessou from the air: the forested dome of the Corrèze high point, the panoramic tower at the summit, and the Plateau de Millevaches running out on every side.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FHuhRJ4N4Jiw",[27,5744,5745,5746],{},"For a roof it asks very little. The categorised climb is a fourth-category affair, about five kilometres at not much under three per cent, and the day's real cruelty is well behind the riders by now: the Suc au May in the Monédières, the Côte de la Croix du Pey above Treignac. By the time the race reaches its ceiling the hard climbing is done, and the highest col of the stage turns out to be the soft one. There is a small inversion in that worth pausing on. The summit a rider would mark on the profile, the one printed highest on the page, is not the one that costs the most; the ones that cost lie lower, and lie in the morning. Mont Bessou, for all its altitude, has never once been climbed by the Tour de France in more than a century of racing, and crosses into the race's history for the first time in twenty twenty-six.",[31,5747,5748],{},[34,5749,41],{"href":5750,"ariaDescribedBy":5751,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":5752},"#user-content-fn-debut",[38],"user-content-fnref-debut",[27,5754,5755,5756,5763],{},"It helps to keep the altitude in proportion. Nine hundred and seventy-seven metres is the roof of the Corrèze, but it is a modest roof by the measure of the country just to the east. Two summers ago, some sixty kilometres away across the departmental line, the Tour climbed the Puy Mary in the Cantal at over fifteen hundred metres, and it was there, on the tenth of July twenty twenty-four, that Jonas Vingegaard came back from a broken body to beat Tadej Pogačar on the road to Le Lioran.",[31,5757,5758],{},[34,5759,66],{"href":5760,"ariaDescribedBy":5761,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":5762},"#user-content-fn-lioran",[38],"user-content-fnref-lioran"," No road joins that day to this one; the point is the contrast. Stage nine has no fifteen-hundred-metre wall. It has this gentle granite dome, the high open Plateau, and a long way still to fall to Ussel.",[27,5765,5766,5767,5774],{},"The mountain wears its seasons oddly too. In the nineteen seventies Mont Bessou was got up as a cross-country skiing station, with a rental chalet and, from nineteen seventy-three, a small plan d'eau, the Plateau being high enough and cold enough to hold snow when the lower valleys could not. The skiing has largely gone the way of the Limousin winters; what has taken its place is the mountain bike, and the summit is now one of the largest waymarked networks in France, a self-declared shop window for the sport in the Haute-Corrèze.",[31,5768,5769],{},[34,5770,84],{"href":5771,"ariaDescribedBy":5772,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":5773},"#user-content-fn-tower",[38],"user-content-fnref-tower"," A Nordic-ski hill that becomes, in July, a Tour de France climb is the kind of thing the Plateau does without seeming to notice. Even the name is double: Bessou is the Occitan for a twin, and the mountain has one in the Puy Pendu, nine hundred and seventy metres and barely lower, standing less than two kilometres off to the north-west.",[15,5776],{"alt":5777,"author":5435,"author-url":5436,"caption":5778,"license":21,"license-url":22,"source-url":5779,"src":5780},"The wooden Douglas-fir viewing tower on the wooded summit of Mont Bessou","The Douglas-fir panoramic tower on the true summit of Mont Bessou, about a kilometre and a half east of the road the stage takes; its platforms lift the visitor to roughly a thousand metres.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Bessou_Tower_01.JPG","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fc\u002Fc9\u002FBessou_Tower_01.JPG\u002F1280px-Bessou_Tower_01.JPG",[27,5782,5783,5784,5791],{},"At the crest the planted walls thin, and for a little while the road runs through open heather under more sky than it has had all day. Then it begins, very slightly, to go down, and the country it goes down into is the country where the water starts. A short way off the road to the south-east lies the Tourbière du Longéroux, the largest peat bog in the Limousin, two hundred and sixty hectares of sphagnum and sundew laid down over some seven and a half thousand years in a granite basin near nine hundred metres.",[31,5785,5786],{},[34,5787,96],{"href":5788,"ariaDescribedBy":5789,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":5790},"#user-content-fn-bog",[38],"user-content-fnref-bog"," This is headwater ground; more than one river of the region rises within a few kilometres of here, on the flank of the bog and the mountain, though their sources and the abbey town they run toward belong to the next stretches of the route, not this one. For now it is enough that the watershed has been crossed. The morning's climbing tipped the riders up onto the roof; from here the long arithmetic of the day runs downhill, toward Meymac and Ussel and the finish.",[15,5793],{"alt":5794,"author":5795,"author-url":5796,"caption":5797,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"source-url":5798,"src":5799},"The Longeroux peat bog at sunset, open heather moorland on the Plateau de Millevaches","Darkhuan","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FDarkhuan","The Tourbière du Longéroux at dusk, the largest peat bog in the Limousin, on the high ground south-east of the road; the day's rivers begin in country like this.","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Couch%C3%A9_de_soleil_tourbieres_du_longeroux.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F08\u002FCouch%C3%A9_de_soleil_tourbieres_du_longeroux.jpg\u002F1280px-Couch%C3%A9_de_soleil_tourbieres_du_longeroux.jpg",[27,5801,5802],{},"The four of us keeping the walking ledger came into Bugeat dead level, all on a hundred and forty-eight kilometres of the hundred and eighty-five, not a metre between us. The roof has begun, gently, to sort us. Three cross it still locked together, on a hundred and fifty-four now with thirty-one to go; Wally, after one thin day this week, sits a touch over a hundred and fifty-two and a half, something past a kilometre adrift. It is the first daylight the table has shown in some time, and on a climb this soft it is the smallest daylight imaginable. The watershed tips the same way for all four of us, which is downhill, toward Ussel.",[27,5804,5805],{},"The summit, when it comes, is barely a summit at all, a high broad shoulder where the conifers thin and the road levels and a sign gives the altitude. The true peak and its tower stand off to the east, unvisited; the race takes the easier line, as races do. What the riders carry over the top is not the memory of a wall but the plain fact of height, the knowledge that everything from here is a falling road. The roof of the Corrèze is behind them. Ahead, for the first time since Malemort, the day is mostly downhill.",[143,5807,146],{"id":145},[148,5809,5810,5821,5829,5837,5845,5851,5864,5877],{},[151,5811,5812,5813,5816,5817,168],{},"Mont Bessou, the highest point of the Corrèze at 977 m, the Occitan ",[237,5814,5815],{},"bessou"," (\"twin\"), the Douglas-fir panoramic tower of 2005, and the 1970s cross-country ski station: ",[34,5818,5820],{"href":3256,"rel":5819,"target":160},[158,159],"Mont Bessou – Wikipédia",[151,5822,5823,5824,168],{},"The Puy Pendu, 970 m, the second-highest point of the Corrèze and Mont Bessou's near-twin: ",[34,5825,5828],{"href":5826,"rel":5827,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FPuy_Pendu",[158,159],"Puy Pendu – Wikipédia",[151,5830,5831,5832,168],{},"Mont Bessou as a mountain-bike hub and a climb never before used by the Tour de France: ",[34,5833,5836],{"href":5834,"rel":5835,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourisme-hautecorreze.fr\u002Fle-mont-bessou-une-vitrine-du-vtt-en-haute-correze\u002F",[158,159],"Tourisme Haute-Corrèze – le Mont Bessou, vitrine du VTT",[151,5838,5839,5840,168],{},"The panoramic tower on the summit: ",[34,5841,5844],{"href":5842,"rel":5843,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourismecorreze.com\u002Fen\u002Ftourisme_detail\u002Ftour_panoramique_du_mont_bessou.html",[158,159],"Tourisme Corrèze – Tour panoramique du Mont Bessou",[151,5846,5847,5848,168],{},"The 2026 Stage 9 route over Mont Bessou: ",[34,5849,5615],{"href":5613,"rel":5850,"target":160},[158,159],[151,5852,5853,5854,162,5859,168],{},"The 2024 Tour Stage 11 to Le Lioran over the Puy Mary, Vingegaard over Pogačar: ",[34,5855,5858],{"href":5856,"rel":5857,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.cyclingnews.com\u002Fraces\u002Ftour-de-france-2024\u002Fstage-11\u002Fresults\u002F",[158,159],"Cyclingnews – 2024 Tour Stage 11 results",[34,5860,5863],{"href":5861,"rel":5862,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Flanternerouge.com\u002F2024\u002F07\u002F10\u002Fvingegaard-returns-to-beat-pogacar-tour-de-france-2024-stage-11\u002F",[158,159],"Lanterne Rouge – Stage 11 analysis",[151,5865,5866,5867,162,5872,168],{},"The Tourbière du Longéroux, the largest peat bog in the Limousin: ",[34,5868,5871],{"href":5869,"rel":5870,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FTourbi%C3%A8re_du_Long%C3%A9roux",[158,159],"Tourbière du Longéroux – Wikipédia",[34,5873,5876],{"href":5874,"rel":5875,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fcen-nouvelle-aquitaine.org\u002Fsites\u002Ftourbiere-du-longeyroux\u002F",[158,159],"CEN Nouvelle-Aquitaine – Tourbière du Longeyroux",[151,5878,5879,5880,168],{},"The Plateau de Millevaches as the high granite tableland the climb crosses: ",[34,5881,5219],{"href":4544,"rel":5882,"target":160},[158,159],[232,5884],{},[27,5886,5887],{},[237,5888,239],{},[241,5890,5892,5895],{"className":5891,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,5893,249],{"className":5894,"id":38},[248],[251,5896,5897,5911,5925,5942],{},[151,5898,5900,5901,162,5904,260,5907],{"id":5899},"user-content-fn-debut","Mont Bessou, at 977 m the highest point of the Corrèze and of the Plateau de Millevaches, has never been climbed by the Tour de France; Stage 9 of the 2026 race, on 12 July, is its first appearance in the route. The 2026 ascent takes the gentle road crest (about 5 km at 2.7%, a fourth-category climb), not the steep cyclo-climb up the Meymac south face. Sources: ",[34,5902,5615],{"href":5613,"rel":5903,"target":160},[158,159],[34,5905,5836],{"href":5834,"rel":5906,"target":160},[158,159],[34,5908,267],{"href":5909,"ariaLabel":264,"className":5910,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-debut",[266],[151,5912,5914,5915,162,5918,260,5921],{"id":5913},"user-content-fn-lioran","On 10 July 2024, on Stage 11 of that year's Tour (Évaux-les-Bains to Le Lioran, over the Puy Mary at about 1,589 m in the neighbouring Cantal), Jonas Vingegaard attacked and beat Tadej Pogačar on the descent to the finish, his first stage win after the crash that nearly ended his season. The two days share no roads; the comparison is one of altitude alone. Sources: ",[34,5916,5858],{"href":5856,"rel":5917,"target":160},[158,159],[34,5919,5863],{"href":5861,"rel":5920,"target":160},[158,159],[34,5922,267],{"href":5923,"ariaLabel":281,"className":5924,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-lioran",[266],[151,5926,5928,5929,162,5932,162,5935,260,5938],{"id":5927},"user-content-fn-tower","The geographic summit, about 1.3 km east of the road crest, carries a 26 m panoramic tower built of Douglas fir, inaugurated on 17 June 2005, its 148 steps and seven platforms lifting the visitor to roughly 1,000 m; on a clear day the view runs east to the Monts Dore and the Puy de Sancy, the Puy de Dôme, and the Monts du Cantal. The mountain-bike network centred on the summit is among the largest waymarked circuits in France. Sources: ",[34,5930,5820],{"href":3256,"rel":5931,"target":160},[158,159],[34,5933,5844],{"href":5842,"rel":5934,"target":160},[158,159],[34,5936,5836],{"href":5834,"rel":5937,"target":160},[158,159],[34,5939,267],{"href":5940,"ariaLabel":296,"className":5941,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-tower",[266],[151,5943,5945,5946,162,5949,260,5952],{"id":5944},"user-content-fn-bog","The Tourbière du Longéroux (the project also renders it Longeyroux), on the flank of the mountain about a kilometre and a half south-east of the route, is the largest peat bog in the Limousin: some 259.67 hectares of sphagnum mire between about 870 and 900 m, accumulated over roughly seven and a half thousand years since the last glaciation. It spreads across four communes (Meymac, Saint-Merd-les-Oussines, Chavanac and Saint-Sulpice-les-Bois), has been protected by a biotope decree since 10 June 1986, falls within Natura 2000, and is managed by the Conservatoire d'espaces naturels; its flora includes the insectivorous sundew, its fauna otters and the short-toed snake eagle. Sources: ",[34,5947,5871],{"href":5869,"rel":5948,"target":160},[158,159],[34,5950,5876],{"href":5874,"rel":5951,"target":160},[158,159],[34,5953,267],{"href":5954,"ariaLabel":308,"className":5955,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-bog",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":5957},[5958,5959],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-22.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-22.gpx",[5963,5967,5971],{"src":5964,"alt":5965,"author":5435,"authorUrl":5436,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":5966},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F2\u002F20\u002FMillevache_Plateau_near_Meymac.JPG\u002F1280px-Millevache_Plateau_near_Meymac.JPG","The view over the edge of the Plateau de Millevaches from the summit of Mont Bessou","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Millevache_Plateau_near_Meymac.JPG",{"src":5968,"alt":5969,"author":1927,"authorUrl":5106,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":5970},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F06\u002FL%27Ars%2C_Plateau_Millevaches.JPG\u002F1280px-L%27Ars%2C_Plateau_Millevaches.JPG","Open moorland and conifer plantation on the Plateau de Millevaches near L'Ars","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:L%27Ars,_Plateau_Millevaches.JPG",{"src":5972,"alt":5973,"author":5974,"authorUrl":5975,"license":1100,"licenseUrl":52,"sourceUrl":5976},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F4\u002F43\u002FBalisageLongeyroux.jpg\u002F1280px-BalisageLongeyroux.jpg","A waymarking stone on the heather-path trail through the Longeroux peat bog","Smcj~frwiki","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FSmcj~frwiki","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:BalisageLongeyroux.jpg",154,{"dataCutoff":5458},"\u002Fentries\u002F22-mont-bessou-roof-of-correze","2026-06-17",{"title":5720,"description":39},"entries\u002F22-mont-bessou-roof-of-correze","Km 148-154: the roof of the day at Mont Bessou, the gentle giant the Tour has never climbed",{"fetchedAt":5985,"current":5986,"forecast":359},"2026-06-18",{"temp":977,"conditions":1118,"wind":5987},"3 km\u002Fh E","Okj8bLqpCKUS0DxT6OPxnE1nl5IZAGNUb8lqNS46JAo",{"id":5990,"title":5991,"body":5992,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":6173,"extension":360,"gpxFile":6174,"images":6175,"issue":359,"kmEnd":6201,"kmStart":5977,"meta":6202,"navigation":364,"path":6204,"publishDate":6205,"segment":6206,"seo":6207,"special":359,"stem":6208,"subtitle":6209,"weather":6210,"__hash__":6215},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F23-descent-to-meymac.md","Off the Roof",{"type":8,"value":5993,"toc":6169},[5994,5997,6006,6009,6012,6016,6019,6030,6035,6054,6057,6060,6062,6103,6105,6110],[11,5995,5991],{"id":5996},"off-the-roof",[15,5998],{"alt":5999,"author":6000,"author-url":6001,"caption":6002,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"lightbox-src":6003,"source-url":6004,"src":6005},"Low stone wall foundations of the Gallo-Roman villa at Les Cars and a round granite cuve in a grassy forest clearing","Eggvert","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Eggvert","The Gallo-Roman villa at Les Cars, near Saint-Merd-les-Oussines a little south of the route: wall footings and a granite cuve in a clearing on the high plateau, the deep past lying as far out of sight here as the planted forests are recent. Cropped to a banner from the original; click to see the full frame.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F3\u002F37\u002FSa-DSCF5173-ruines-des-cars.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Sa-DSCF5173-ruines-des-cars.jpg","\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-23\u002Fles-cars-hero.jpg",[27,6007,6008],{},"In the official reckoning of the ninth stage, the eight kilometres immediately east of the Mont Bessou crest carry nothing at all. No categorised climb is marked upon them; no intermediate sprint is contested across them; no town the route troubles to name lies along them. On a stage that files its summits with the care of a clerk, the Suc au May, the Croix du Pey, and, a few kilometres back, the roof of the whole day at Mont Bessou, this stretch is entered as a blank, a passage of road between two accountings, of interest, the document seems to say, to no one.",[27,6010,6011],{},"What the blank covers is the roof itself, or rather the long eastern edge of it. Off the gentle crest of Mont Bessou the road runs out across the high granite of the Plateau de Millevaches, the pale impermeable leucogranite that holds the rain where it falls and gives the plateau its bogs and its thousand springs; it crosses open heather and the dark walls of planted conifer at somewhere between about eight hundred and seventy and nine hundred and seventy metres, neither climbing nor falling with much conviction, for these eight kilometres give back, if the survey is to be trusted, a little more height than they take. The printed profile knows none of this. It marks the high point at Bessou and draws from there a single descending line to Ussel, and files the whole of the long run home, this rolling stretch with the rest, under one word: descent.",[1159,6013],{"caption":6014,"embed-url":6015},"Street level on the high open road east of the Mont Bessou crest, where the stage crosses the heather and planted conifer of the Plateau de Millevaches at around nine hundred metres.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1782313399196!6m8!1m7!1sCfpsO1T0WR_nO_4EKucseA!2m2!1d45.57481278115787!2d2.092434711832115!3f90!4f0!5f0.4000000000000002",[27,6017,6018],{},"We turn, then, from the profile to the question the profile cannot answer. It is among the most settled errors of the armchair to suppose that a bicycle race is decided by its mountains. The mountains are merely where the deciding is easiest to see. A gradient is a thing a profile can draw, and what a profile can draw it can also warn against; the rider climbs in full knowledge of what is asked of him, and the strong are sorted from the weak by an arithmetic both can read. The wind is of another kind. It leaves no mark on the page, it announces nothing, and on high open ground, swept and treeless and turned at every angle to the sky, it will do in a quarter of an hour what a fourth-category climb could not do in a season: break the race in pieces, and break it not where the road is hard but where the road is easy.",[27,6020,6021,6022,6029],{},"The history of the race is full of the proof, and the proof is never on a col. In the crosswinds before Saint-Amand-Montrond, on the twelfth of July 2013, the very date on which this stage will be run thirteen years on, the bunch came apart on a flat and unremarkable road in the Berry; a side wind and a well-drilled team did the work, and a rider who had begun the day among the favourites lost the better part of ten minutes and, with them, his place in the race, none of it surrendered on a climb.",[31,6023,6024],{},[34,6025,41],{"href":6026,"ariaDescribedBy":6027,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6028},"#user-content-fn-echelon",[38],"user-content-fnref-echelon"," What the heathland east of Bessou offers is precisely such a road, lifted to nine hundred metres and stripped of every hedge. A break that means to be clear before the true plunge toward Meymac begins will force the pace here; a peloton that loses its concentration will pay for it here; and the shallow ramps the day has left to give will have nothing to do with either.",[69,6031],{"attribution":6032,"caption":6033,"embed-url":6034},"Source: Classic Cycling (via YouTube).","The 2013 Tour de France in the crosswinds: stage 13 to Saint-Amand-Montrond, where echelons tore the peloton apart on flat, open roads and a day with no climb on it reshaped the general classification.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002Fziv9HvDR1V0",[27,6036,6037,6038,6045,6046,6053],{},"There is a deeper deception in the country itself, and it bears on the same point. The traveller crossing this moor would take it for a wilderness, ancient and unpeopled, the last of some original Gaul. It is nothing of the sort. Within living memory the plateau stood all but bare, a near-treeless waste of heath and rough grazing; the sombre conifer plantations that now close the horizon are a work of the twentieth century, set out by men within the lifetime of men still living, and the wildness the cyclist admires is as made a thing as the road he rides on.",[31,6039,6040],{},[34,6041,66],{"href":6042,"ariaDescribedBy":6043,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6044},"#user-content-fn-forest",[38],"user-content-fnref-forest"," Under it, older still and likewise out of sight, lies the deep past the plateau does not advertise: a little to the south, off the line of the stage, the Gallo-Roman temples and tombs at Les Cars were raised and abandoned and forgotten centuries before the first forester set a seedling.",[31,6047,6048],{},[34,6049,84],{"href":6050,"ariaDescribedBy":6051,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6052},"#user-content-fn-lescars",[38],"user-content-fnref-lescars"," The plateau, in short, is a practised deceiver. It shows the eye a wilderness and conceals a plantation; it shows the map a descent and conceals a climb; it shows the profile a quiet stretch and conceals the one place on the run home where the race might break. Appearances, here, are the whole of the difficulty.",[27,6055,6056],{},"The smaller ledger the four of us keep ourselves has been overturned on exactly this kind of ground, and the timing is hard to miss. At Mont Bessou, two segments and four days back, three of us stood level at the front and Wally trailed; the whole catalogue of climbs from Malemort had not parted us, and the roof had barely begun to. It is the flat days since, the quiet unremarkable ones, that have done the parting. Wally, last and something past a kilometre adrift at the summit, has put together four steady days and hauled the entire deficit back; he now stands level on a hundred and sixty-two, which is to say exactly at the line that ends this segment, with twenty-three still to ride. Justin and Nan are level beside him, the three on the same mark. Marian, who had climbed with the leaders the whole way up, was in these same days making the long crossing from Scotland to British Columbia, and the travelling told on the ledger: a run of short days has slipped her to the back of the four, a touch over a hundred and sixty and a half, something past a kilometre behind. The reshuffle, like the kind the wind deals out, came nowhere near a summit, and owed nothing to the road at all.",[27,6058,6059],{},"The roadbook was right, then, to leave the stretch unmarked, and wrong about why. It left it blank for want of a climb to name; it should have left it blank as the one passage of the afternoon whose difficulty no clerk could enter, because no clerk can enter the wind. Everything the profile is able to draw on this stage has, by now, been drawn and survived. What remains is a high road across an open roof, a town and a finish still some way below, and the oldest lesson the mountains are too honest to teach: that the gradient is the adversary a map can show, and the wind the one it never can.",[143,6061,146],{"id":145},[148,6063,6064,6077,6090],{},[151,6065,6066,6067,6069,6070,162,6073,168],{},"The Plateau de Millevaches, its leucogranite high country and its twentieth-century afforestation (the ",[237,6068,4552],{}," from 1945 onward): ",[34,6071,5219],{"href":4544,"rel":6072,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6074,6076],{"href":4556,"rel":6075,"target":160},[158,159],"\"L'enrésinement du Plateau de Millevaches de 1945 aux années 80\" (rapport, faux-la-montagne)",[151,6078,6079,6080,162,6085,168],{},"The Gallo-Roman site of Les Cars at Saint-Merd-les-Oussines: ",[34,6081,6084],{"href":6082,"rel":6083,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FRuines_gallo-romaines_des_Cars",[158,159],"Ruines gallo-romaines des Cars – Wikipédia",[34,6086,6089],{"href":6087,"rel":6088,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourismecorreze.com\u002Fen\u002Ftourisme_detail\u002Fruines_gallo-romaines_des_cars.html",[158,159],"Tourisme Corrèze – ruines gallo-romaines des Cars",[151,6091,6092,6093,162,6098,168],{},"The 2013 Saint-Amand-Montrond crosswind stage as an instance of a flat road deciding a Grand Tour: ",[34,6094,6097],{"href":6095,"rel":6096,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.cyclingnews.com\u002Fraces\u002Ftour-de-france-2013\u002Fstage-13\u002Fresults\u002F",[158,159],"Cyclingnews – 2013 Tour Stage 13 results",[34,6099,6102],{"href":6100,"rel":6101,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.cyclingweekly.com\u002Fnews\u002Fracing\u002Ftour-de-france\u002Fmark-cavendish-wins-alejandro-valverde-loses-on-stage-13-of-the-tour-de-france-27825",[158,159],"Cycling Weekly – Cavendish wins, Valverde loses",[232,6104],{},[27,6106,6107],{},[237,6108,6109],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.8. Voice register: edinburgh-review-essay (registers-framework).",[241,6111,6113,6116],{"className":6112,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,6114,249],{"className":6115,"id":38},[248],[251,6117,6118,6132,6152],{},[151,6119,6121,6122,162,6125,260,6128],{"id":6120},"user-content-fn-echelon","Stage 13 of the 2013 Tour de France, Tours to Saint-Amand-Montrond on 12 July 2013, was broken apart by crosswinds on the flat roads of the Berry. Alejandro Valverde, lying second overall, punctured at the critical moment, was caught behind the decisive split, and lost nine minutes and fifty-four seconds, dropping from second to sixteenth on general classification; the stage went to Mark Cavendish. No climb played any part. By coincidence the date is the same one, thirteen years on, that the 2026 stage 9 will be run. Sources: ",[34,6123,6097],{"href":6095,"rel":6124,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6126,6102],{"href":6100,"rel":6127,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6129,267],{"href":6130,"ariaLabel":264,"className":6131,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-echelon",[266],[151,6133,6135,6136,6138,6139,6141,6142,162,6145,260,6148],{"id":6134},"user-content-fn-forest","The forest that now dominates the Plateau de Millevaches is recent. Within living memory the high country was largely open moorland (",[237,6137,4593],{},") and rough grazing; the dense conifer plantations of Douglas fir and spruce, the ",[237,6140,4552],{}," of the plateau, were planted from 1945 onward with the aid of the Fonds Forestier National and spread rapidly as upland farming was abandoned through the 1960s, until open moor survives on only a small fraction of the surface. Sources: ",[34,6143,5219],{"href":4544,"rel":6144,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6146,6076],{"href":4556,"rel":6147,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6149,267],{"href":6150,"ariaLabel":281,"className":6151,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-forest",[266],[151,6153,6155,6156,6158,6159,162,6162,260,6165],{"id":6154},"user-content-fn-lescars","The Gallo-Roman site of Les Cars, near Saint-Merd-les-Oussines and a little south of the route, preserves two temple-tombs and the remains of a villa (with hypocaust heating, baths and mosaics) on the high plateau, dating from the first half of the second century AD; it was classified a ",[237,6157,2872],{}," in 1935 and had been discovered, in 1917, in the course of a survey for a reforestation project. Sources: ",[34,6160,6084],{"href":6082,"rel":6161,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6163,6089],{"href":6087,"rel":6164,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6166,267],{"href":6167,"ariaLabel":296,"className":6168,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-lescars",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":6170},[6171,6172],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-23.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-23.gpx",[6176,6181,6185,6189,6195],{"src":6177,"alt":6178,"author":2057,"authorUrl":6179,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":6180},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F4\u002F4a\u002FLe_plateau_des_Millevaches_-_panoramio.jpg\u002F1280px-Le_plateau_des_Millevaches_-_panoramio.jpg","The open Plateau de Millevaches: heather moorland and conifer plantation under a wide sky","https:\u002F\u002Fweb.archive.org\u002Fweb\u002F20161029131642\u002Fhttp:\u002F\u002Fwww.panoramio.com\u002Fuser\u002F1710195?with_photo_id=107332180","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Le_plateau_des_Millevaches_-_panoramio.jpg",{"src":6182,"alt":6183,"author":5795,"authorUrl":5796,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":6184},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F2\u002F22\u002FDecouverte_de_sentier.JPG\u002F1280px-Decouverte_de_sentier.JPG","A waymarked discovery trail in the Parc naturel régional de Millevaches","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Decouverte_de_sentier.JPG",{"src":6186,"alt":6187,"author":5795,"authorUrl":5796,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":6188},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F0a\u002FViaduc_des_farges.JPG\u002F1280px-Viaduc_des_farges.JPG","The Viaduc des Farges on the Plateau de Millevaches","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Viaduc_des_farges.JPG",{"src":6190,"alt":6191,"author":6192,"authorUrl":6193,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":6194},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fa\u002Fac\u002FGare_de_Jassonneix_%281%29_par_Cramos.JPG\u002F1280px-Gare_de_Jassonneix_%281%29_par_Cramos.JPG","The halt at Jassonneix on the line across the plateau, looking towards Ussel","Cramos","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FCramos","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Gare_de_Jassonneix_(1)_par_Cramos.JPG",{"src":6196,"alt":6197,"author":6198,"authorUrl":6199,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":6200},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fb\u002Fb5\u002FGare_de_Jassonneix.JPG\u002F1280px-Gare_de_Jassonneix.JPG","The station building at Jassonneix on the Millevaches plateau","Pechristener","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:Pechristener","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Gare_de_Jassonneix.JPG",162,{"dataCutoff":6203},"2026-06-20","\u002Fentries\u002F23-descent-to-meymac","2026-06-21",23,{"title":5991,"description":39},"entries\u002F23-descent-to-meymac","Km 154-162: the high open roof east of Mont Bessou, where the wind, not the gradient, is the adversary",{"fetchedAt":6211,"current":6212,"forecast":359},"2026-06-24",{"temp":6213,"conditions":626,"wind":6214},34,"13 km\u002Fh NE","jmB9CDKb-fwoMZ0Ami3DRp5-tuVsk7M2ovtGe88DMMs",{"id":6217,"title":6218,"body":6219,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":6370,"extension":360,"gpxFile":6371,"images":6372,"issue":359,"kmEnd":6383,"kmStart":6201,"meta":6384,"navigation":364,"path":6386,"publishDate":6211,"segment":6387,"seo":6388,"special":359,"stem":6389,"subtitle":6390,"weather":6391,"__hash__":6396},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F24-off-the-plateau-edge.md","Off the Edge",{"type":8,"value":6220,"toc":6367},[6221,6224,6232,6235,6238,6241,6246,6249,6253,6256,6259,6337,6340,6343,6345,6360,6362],[11,6222,6218],{"id":6223},"off-the-edge",[15,6225],{"alt":6226,"author":4462,"author-url":6227,"caption":6228,"license":21,"license-url":22,"lightbox-src":6229,"source-url":6230,"src":6231},"A band of tall Douglas-fir trunks in the Forêt domaniale des Farges near Meymac","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FAmalo","The Forêt domaniale des Farges above Meymac, a stand of Douglas fir planted around 1850 and now more than fifty metres tall, the kind of planted conifer the road drops through on its way off the plateau. Cropped to a banner from the original; click to see the full frame.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F9\u002F92\u002FDouglas_des_farges_1.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Douglas_des_farges_1.jpg","\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-24\u002Fdouglas-farges-hero.jpg",[27,6233,6234],{},"For the better part of the afternoon the road has kept to the roof of the Plateau de Millevaches, holding its height across the open granite, and then, a little past the hundred and sixty-second kilometre, it tips and lets go. The high country gives out. The heather and the dark of the planted conifers begin to fall away, and the road, which has spent the day pretending the gradient did not concern it, settles to the steepest sustained work of the run home: very nearly two hundred and seventy metres handed back to the valley in six kilometres, against a bare eighteen climbed, the largest single drop the stage has left to give.",[27,6236,6237],{},"It is, on the map, still granite, and will be granite to the finish. The plateau is a single great body of pale leucogranite, the Millevaches batholith, and the road here does not cross from one rock to another but cuts down through the flank of the same stone it has ridden over all day. The change, in other words, is not in the ground but in the shape of it. What ends at this lip is not a geology but a height: the high impermeable roof that holds the rain where it falls, and with it the peat and the bog, gives way to steeper, better-drained, wooded valley sides. The plateau, which has no precise border anywhere on a survey, declares one here all the same, in the only language a cyclist reads, which is the angle of the road. Past this lip the tableland is finished, and though the granite stays underfoot all the way to the line, the high level country that has defined the day is, from here, simply gone.",[27,6239,6240],{},"For the race this is the most useful piece of road in the closing hour, and the riders will know it to the metre. A long descent is an honest thing, after the deceits of the high roof; it asks no more than nerve and a willingness to stay low, and it pays in the one currency the day is short of, which is time. The drop averages something under five per cent across its six kilometres, which is no Alpine wall, but it is steady, and it is long, and it comes at the hour when the legs are least able to answer it. After ninety kilometres of climbing and the high crossing behind them, a rider with the legs and the temperament to descend can take seconds here that a climber will struggle to reclaim, and the bunch, strung into a long thin line by the speed, arrives at the foot of the drop already sorted into those who mean to contest the finish and those who are merely going to reach it. The roads of Haute-Corrèze fall in long clean curves, the sightlines mostly open; the danger is not the technical difficulty but the speed, and the knowledge, sitting at the back of every mind in the line, that the day's last categorised climb is waiting at the bottom.",[69,6242],{"attribution":6243,"caption":6244,"embed-url":6245},"Source: Global Cycling Network (via YouTube).","Tom Pidcock, one of the peloton's quickest descenders, on how a rider carries speed and gains time going downhill, the craft a long drop off the plateau rewards.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002F3SXntCRUr8E",[27,6247,6248],{},"And the country, as the road falls, begins to soften and to fill. The austere high heath of the roof, all bog and bracken and wind, gives way by degrees to a greener and more inhabited land: pasture first, then field edges, then the scattered granite farms of the commune of Ambrugeat off to the west, the lac de Sèchemailles held in the woods below them. For a kilometre or two the road runs down through a corridor of planted conifer toward a valley that opens green at the foot of the trees. The plateau has held the riders at arm's length the whole stage, near nine hundred metres and indifferent; now, dropping below seven hundred, it relents, and lets them back down among people.",[1159,6250],{"caption":6251,"embed-url":6252},"Street level on the descent off the plateau, around km 165 and some seven hundred and sixty metres up, where the open roof has given way to planted conifer on the way down toward Meymac.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1782547765016!6m8!1m7!1sSnAKWS8GdvmIE6Mkp_fwDA!2m2!1d45.55829809668163!2d2.147019711301322!3f6.4847985132543045!4f-15.609512647154261!5f0.4000000000000002",[27,6254,6255],{},"The four who are covering this route at their own pace have, by the reckoning the standings keep, drawn level. All four now stand together at the hundred and sixty-eighth kilometre, the mark that closes this descent, with seventeen still between them and Ussel. The daily figures beneath that level surface are a good deal less tidy. Nan and Justin have put in the heaviest of the recent days, averaging close to eight and to seven kilometres over the last five logged; Wally and Marian have gone more quietly, nearer three and nearer two, Marian's totals still carrying the cost of a recent crossing from Scotland to British Columbia. The standings show them abreast; the legs, as ever, do not agree.",[27,6257,6258],{},"There is a third ledger that neither the cap nor the recent averages record, and it is the most quietly remarkable of them. The route from Malemort to Ussel measures a hundred and eighty-five kilometres; by the plain count of distance walked, every one of the four passed that mark weeks ago and simply kept going.",[6260,6261,6262,6281],"table",{},[6263,6264,6265],"thead",{},[6266,6267,6268,6272,6275,6278],"tr",{},[6269,6270,6271],"th",{},"Walker",[6269,6273,6274],{},"Total walked",[6269,6276,6277],{},"Past 185 km",[6269,6279,6280],{},"Reached 185 km on",[6282,6283,6284,6298,6311,6324],"tbody",{},[6266,6285,6286,6289,6292,6295],{},[6287,6288,442],"td",{},[6287,6290,6291],{},"403.2 km",[6287,6293,6294],{},"+218.2 km",[6287,6296,6297],{},"16 May",[6266,6299,6300,6302,6305,6308],{},[6287,6301,454],{},[6287,6303,6304],{},"401.8 km",[6287,6306,6307],{},"+216.8 km",[6287,6309,6310],{},"21 May",[6266,6312,6313,6315,6318,6321],{},[6287,6314,448],{},[6287,6316,6317],{},"299.6 km",[6287,6319,6320],{},"+114.6 km",[6287,6322,6323],{},"24 May",[6266,6325,6326,6328,6331,6334],{},[6287,6327,460],{},[6287,6329,6330],{},"211.8 km",[6287,6332,6333],{},"+26.8 km",[6287,6335,6336],{},"13 June",[27,6338,6339],{},"Justin crossed the full distance in the middle of May and has walked more than a further stage-length since; Wally, the last to the mark, reached it only ten days ago. Between the head of that table and the stage itself lie better than two hundred kilometres of road the standings, holding everyone to two a day, decline to count. The contest along the route is a careful fiction; the walking beneath it is not.",[27,6341,6342],{},"At the foot of the descent the plateau is behind them for good. The road has come down off its roof, the high open ground handed back to the wind and the heather, and ahead, where the granite eases into a green basin, lies the abbey town the whole long drop has been falling toward, and beyond it the last climb, and beyond that the high town by the river that has waited a century for an afternoon like this one. The roof is ridden. What remains is the run in.",[143,6344,146],{"id":145},[148,6346,6347,6353],{},[151,6348,6349,6350,168],{},"The Plateau de Millevaches as a single leucogranite body (the Millevaches batholith) and its high, impermeable, peat-holding character: ",[34,6351,5219],{"href":4544,"rel":6352,"target":160},[158,159],[151,6354,6355,6356,168],{},"The closing descent off the plateau toward Meymac and Ussel, and the stage's final categorised climb below it: ",[34,6357,6359],{"href":1866,"rel":6358,"target":160},[158,159],"Tour de France 2026, Stage 9 – cyclingstage.com",[232,6361],{},[27,6363,6364],{},[237,6365,6366],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.8. Voice register: tls-essay (simpson-registers).",{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":6368},[6369],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-24.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-24.gpx",[6373,6379],{"src":6374,"alt":6375,"author":6376,"authorUrl":6377,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":6378},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F9\u002F9e\u002FDouglaseraie_des_Farges.jpg\u002F1280px-Douglaseraie_des_Farges.jpg","A dense Douglas-fir plantation in the state forest above Meymac, the kind of conifer the descent drops through","Gulokhar","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FGulokhar","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Douglaseraie_des_Farges.jpg",{"src":6380,"alt":6381,"author":4462,"authorUrl":6227,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":6382},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F8\u002F8d\u002FChablis_douglas.jpg\u002F1280px-Chablis_douglas.jpg","A Douglas fir thrown by the wind on the plateau near Meymac, its shallow root-plate torn from the waterlogged granite soil","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Chablis_douglas.jpg",168,{"dataCutoff":6385},"2026-06-23","\u002Fentries\u002F24-off-the-plateau-edge",24,{"title":6218,"description":39},"entries\u002F24-off-the-plateau-edge","Km 162-168: off the eastern lip of the Millevaches, the steepest sustained drop of the run to Ussel",{"fetchedAt":6392,"current":6393,"forecast":359},"2026-06-27",{"temp":6394,"conditions":626,"wind":6395},30,"12 km\u002Fh S","xbyB-Z3R8uDyj9M1xy_qEPU2OKq6s_YJnz8A6EGYd-k",{"id":6398,"title":6399,"body":6400,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":6730,"extension":360,"gpxFile":6731,"images":6732,"issue":359,"kmEnd":6750,"kmStart":6383,"meta":6751,"navigation":364,"path":6752,"publishDate":6753,"segment":6754,"seo":6755,"special":359,"stem":6756,"subtitle":6757,"weather":6758,"__hash__":6762},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F25-meymac-and-the-cote-des-gardes.md","Meymac: An Abbey of Improbabilities",{"type":8,"value":6401,"toc":6726},[6402,6405,6412,6415,6419,6430,6437,6448,6467,6478,6483,6494,6505,6508,6511,6514,6517,6519,6588,6590,6595],[11,6403,6399],{"id":6404},"meymac-an-abbey-of-improbabilities",[15,6406],{"alt":6407,"author":2490,"author-url":2491,"caption":6408,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"lightbox-src":6409,"source-url":6410,"src":6411},"The Romanesque clocher-porche of the abbey church of Saint-André at Meymac","The clocher-porche of Saint-André at Meymac, the oldest standing part of the abbey, begun toward 1085: a bell-tower built as a porch, of the same granite as everything else in the town. Straightened and cropped to a banner from the original; click to see the full frame.","\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-25\u002Fmeymac-abbey-full.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Meymac_Eglise_abbatiale_Saint-Andr%C3%A9.jpg","\u002Fimages\u002Fsegment-25\u002Fmeymac-abbey-hero.jpg",[27,6413,6414],{},"The road has been falling toward Meymac for two segments, and it arrives, as the last essay promised, at an abbey. I have a weakness, which the years have not cured, for places that keep more than they were ever entitled to; and the abbey of Saint-André, reached almost before the riders are well into the town, has kept three things it ought long since to have lost. A Black Madonna whose history the records decline to support. A centre of perfectly contemporary art, lodged in a Benedictine house of 1085. And the memory of having been, after a fashion, a capital of the Bordeaux wine trade, this a granite town six hundred metres up and a long way from the nearest vine. I will take them in their turn.",[1159,6416],{"caption":6417,"embed-url":6418},"Grand Rue in Meymac, on the race route itself: a roadside fountain with the abbey visible beyond.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1782990187242!6m8!1m7!1s-urCxFa7xzdL_Ut73ipZ9w!2m2!1d45.53652861832916!2d2.145927098678392!3f152.31373240086754!4f2.2563453224099277!5f0.7820865974627469",[27,6420,6421,6422,6429],{},"The house is the proper beginning, being the reason the rest is here. What is documented, to the day, is that on the third of February 1085 Archambaud, third viscount of Comborn, founded a priory here and gave it to the great abbey of Uzerche, in reparation (the charters are frank about it) for damage his men had done the monks of Saint-Martin at Tulle. Penance built Meymac, and built well. The priory became an abbey in 1146 under Ebles the Second of Ventadour, a name worth keeping by you, for the viscounts of Ventadour will have something like the last word in this stage, spoken further down the road at Ussel.",[31,6423,6424],{},[34,6425,41],{"href":6426,"ariaDescribedBy":6427,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6428},"#user-content-fn-foundation",[38],"user-content-fnref-foundation"," The oldest thing standing is the clocher-porche, a bell-tower built as a porch, with eleven sculptured capitals in the heavy Limousin Romanesque; the nave behind it is of the later twelfth century, and a man who looks well at it will know its cousin when he meets it a segment on, in the priory church at Saint-Angel.",[15,6431],{"alt":6432,"author":2490,"author-url":2491,"caption":6433,"license":731,"license-url":1152,"lightbox-src":6434,"source-url":6435,"src":6436},"The Black Madonna of Meymac, a gilded Romanesque Virgin in Majesty with dark face and hands","The Vierge noire of Meymac, the gilded twelfth-century Virgin in Majesty as shown in the abbey church. The figure on display is a modern copy; the original is kept in the town hall safe and brought out for two processions each August.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F0\u002F0b\u002FMeymac_Eglise_abbatiale_Saint-Andr%C3%A9_-_La_Vierge_noire.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Meymac_Eglise_abbatiale_Saint-Andr%C3%A9_-_La_Vierge_noire.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F0\u002F0b\u002FMeymac_Eglise_abbatiale_Saint-Andr%C3%A9_-_La_Vierge_noire.jpg\u002F1280px-Meymac_Eglise_abbatiale_Saint-Andr%C3%A9_-_La_Vierge_noire.jpg",[27,6438,6439,6440,6447],{},"Inside sits the first of the improbable possessions. The Black Madonna of Meymac is a small carved and gilded Virgin in majesty, her face and her hands dark, and genuinely old, of the twelfth century. The story told of her, with relish, is that a crusader carried her home from Egypt or the Holy Land, and that her blackness is the blackness of that origin. It is a very good story. The official record, I am bound to say, knows nothing of it: the notice that classified her in 1908 sets down her age and her workmanship and stays silent as to any crusader, any voyage at all, treating her colour as a question of how she was made and not of where she came from.",[31,6441,6442],{},[34,6443,66],{"href":6444,"ariaDescribedBy":6445,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6446},"#user-content-fn-madonna",[38],"user-content-fnref-madonna"," I would not deprive the town of a legend older and more agreeable than the truth commonly is; I only record that the legend and the register are not on speaking terms. And the figure in the church is a copy. The true Madonna keeps to the safe of the town hall, and comes out only twice in the August of each year.",[27,6449,6450,6451,6458,6459,6466],{},"If the Madonna's pedigree is a blank the legend has filled in, the abbey's other relic is almost too well documented. The church is dedicated to Andrew and Léger together, and of Léger it keeps, in a reliquary bust, the skull. Léger, bishop of Autun, was blinded and then killed about the year 678 in the savageries of the Merovingian court, on the order of Ebroïn, mayor of the palace; a real man, really martyred, his bones really moved, the relic recorded as having come not from any crusade but soberly overland from the abbey of Saint-Maixent in Poitou. He was a great curer of madness, was Léger, and the afflicted were brought to him by cart from a wide country round, the abbey keeping a book of the cures.",[31,6452,6453],{},[34,6454,84],{"href":6455,"ariaDescribedBy":6456,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6457},"#user-content-fn-leger",[38],"user-content-fnref-leger"," One relic with a provenance and no legend, one legend with no provenance: the abbey keeps both. Later it passed, as such houses did, to commendatory abbots who drew its income from afar, among them the abbé d'Aubignac, the sternest theorist of the French classical stage,",[31,6460,6461],{},[34,6462,96],{"href":6463,"ariaDescribedBy":6464,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6465},"#user-content-fn-aubignac",[38],"user-content-fnref-aubignac"," who never, so far as anyone knows, set eyes on the Corrèze.",[27,6468,6469,6470,6477],{},"The third tenant no medieval founder could have foreseen, and it is, I confess, the one I like best. Since the end of the nineteen-seventies a centre of contemporary art has held a wing of the old monastery, a serious one, which has shown the living and the difficult for half a century and was lately raised by the French state, not a body that gives the title cheaply, to the rank of a contemporary-art centre of national interest. I am old enough to be expected to grumble at the white wall set against the eleventh-century granite, and I decline to: there is a rightness in an abbey going on being used, and the alternative to the new tenant is not the returning monk but the empty room, which is the saddest thing a building can come to. In another wing the town keeps the collections of Marius Vazeilles, and here the stage doubles back on itself. The dark planted forest the riders have descended through for two segments was largely the work of this one man, a forester who came before the first war, found the high country nearly bare, and spent a life putting trees on it and arguing, at last in the Chamber as deputy for Ussel, that the plateau had a future if it were planted. The same man dug its past out of the ground, and his spade-work fills the museum.",[31,6471,6472],{},[34,6473,108],{"href":6474,"ariaDescribedBy":6475,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6476},"#user-content-fn-vazeilles",[38],"user-content-fnref-vazeilles"," The forest the riders came down and the antiquities they might go and see are two halves of one stubborn life, both kept now in an abbey.",[69,6479],{"attribution":6480,"caption":6481,"embed-url":6482},"Source: YouTube channel Centre d'art contemporain de Meymac.","Première, the CAC's annual exhibition for new art-school graduates, running since 1995: opening night of the 31st edition, December 2025.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.youtube.com\u002Fembed\u002FBu1jta1GHPg",[27,6484,6485,6486,6493],{},"Which brings me, by the roundabout road the subject deserves, to the wine. The plain and nearly unbelievable fact of Meymac is that this granite mountain town was, within the grandfathers' memory, a power in the trade of Bordeaux. It began with one native, a man named Gaye-Bordas, who went down to the wine city about the middle of the last century, prospered, and sent for his neighbours, until for the better part of fifty years a whole emigration of Meymacois ran the wine business of the north of France and of Belgium. And they did the thing that makes me fonder of the town than all its saints can: they gave their Belgian customers, as the address of their houses, the words Meymac-près-Bordeaux. Meymac, near Bordeaux. It is two hundred and fifty kilometres if it is a step, and uphill the whole way; they wrote it with the straightest of faces, and the Belgians, with no atlas to hand and a thirst to slake, believed them.",[31,6487,6488],{},[34,6489,117],{"href":6490,"ariaDescribedBy":6491,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6492},"#user-content-fn-meymacbordeaux",[38],"user-content-fnref-meymacbordeaux"," I have been careful, in this essay, about what the record will bear. Here, for once, is a tall story that happens to be true.",[27,6495,6496,6497,6504],{},"There is one more thing the town keeps, and with it the cataloguing temper must stop, for it is not of a kind that can be enjoyed. In the second week of June 1944, after the maquis had briefly held and lost Tulle and the SS division was coming north to take its revenge, a column of the Resistance brought to the woods near Meymac some forty-seven or forty-eight German prisoners and one Frenchwoman, taken in the fighting about Tulle, shot them there and buried them, and the war moved on and the place was lost. It was lost so completely that only in our own time, on the testimony of one survivor grown very old, did the search begin; and when the ground was at last opened, in 2023, it gave up cartridges and coins and the marks of what had been done, but not the men.",[31,6498,6499],{},[34,6500,137],{"href":6501,"ariaDescribedBy":6502,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6503},"#user-content-fn-execution",[38],"user-content-fnref-execution"," Early in this stage the blog stood in Tulle, under the balconies from which that same June the same division hanged ninety-nine men; this is the season's other and harder reckoning, the one that runs the opposite way. I set it down because it is true and because it happened here, and I do not propose to work a paragraph of sentiment out of it. The wood keeps its secret, and the road goes on.",[27,6506,6507],{},"The road leaves Meymac and at once goes up. The rise is the Côte des Gardes, a little over two kilometres at something above four per cent, the last upward grade the stage has to give, cresting some fourteen kilometres from the line at Ussel. By the standards of the day now behind them it is nothing, and a strong man will go over it without rising from the saddle. And here, for the last time, the official accounting and the road part company. The King of the Mountains takes no notice of the Côte des Gardes: the four climbs the day counted, the Naves, the Suc au May, the Croix de Pey, the roof at Mont Bessou, are every one of them behind, the points all spent, and the board treats this final ramp as so much terrain. The riders, who have to climb it, will hold another opinion, as they held another opinion of the uncounted hill at Lachaud and of the wind on the open roof; for the men in the race a difficulty is a fact whatever the clerk enters, and a short steep launching-place fourteen kilometres from a Tour finish, with the bunch already thinned and the legs already emptied, is exactly the kind of place a hard rider goes from. It will decide more than its category admits. So, I notice, does the Madonna, whose legend the register also declines to enter, and who is venerated no less for it.",[27,6509,6510],{},"Our own four reach Meymac in their own measure, a kilometre or two at a sitting, and they reach it level. By the capped and faintly fictional reckoning the blog has kept since April, all four stand together at the hundred and seventy-sixth kilometre, beyond the abbey now and beyond the day's last rise as well, with nine kilometres of the route still between them and Ussel; level, and yet not alike, for beneath that even surface the daily figures run as unevenly as ever. Nan and Justin have kept the heaviest of the recent days, each averaging close to six kilometres over the last five logged; Marian, whose totals once carried the drag of that long flight west from Scotland to British Columbia, has found her legs again and closed to under five; Wally, of the four, has gone quietest this week, nearer two and a half, though his remains, as it has all along, the steadiest hand of the four. And beneath even that runs the truest ledger, the one the daily cap was made to hide: by the plain count of ground walked, every one of the four passed the whole hundred and eighty-five kilometres of this route many weeks ago, and simply kept walking. They come to Meymac, then, much as its abbey came to its own treasures, carrying more than the official tally will admit; which makes it the right town for them to have passed through. Beyond the last small climb the board declines to count, the granite eases away downhill at last toward the high place by the river, the town that has waited a hundred years for the afternoon now coming. But that is the next essay, and the one after it.",[27,6512,6513],{},"One count in this loose competition is not yet closed, though most now are. The blog has kept, alongside the daily cap, a small points table of its own, modelled loosely on the race's own jerseys: ten climbs and five sprints, scored as the four have walked past their marks, something like a King of the Mountains and something like a green jersey, run in miniature and largely for the blog's own amusement. The mountains competition closed today, at the Côte des Gardes, a climb the peloton's own table does not even recognise; Nan has led it by a margin none of the other three can now close. The sprint competition has not closed. Marian and Nan arrive at Meymac tied on points, Justin two behind them and Wally two behind him, and of the five sprints marked along the route only the last is still to come, at the line itself, in Ussel. Whichever of the four crosses that mark first, on the same afternoon the stage and the blog both end, will carry a jersey that exists nowhere but in this blog's own accounting, and will be argued about nonetheless.",[27,6515,6516],{},"For the moment the four are at Meymac, near Bordeaux, which is to say a very long way from it, and exactly where they ought to be.",[143,6518,146],{"id":145},[148,6520,6521,6534,6547,6560,6573,6581],{},[151,6522,6523,6524,162,6529,168],{},"The abbey of Saint-André de Meymac, its 1085 foundation by Archambaud III de Comborn, its raising to an abbey in 1146 under Ebles II de Ventadour, its Romanesque clocher-porche and nave, and the joint dedication to Saint-André and Saint-Léger: ",[34,6525,6528],{"href":6526,"rel":6527,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FAbbaye_Saint-Andr%C3%A9_de_Meymac",[158,159],"Abbaye Saint-André de Meymac, Wikipédia",[34,6530,6533],{"href":6531,"rel":6532,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fpop.culture.gouv.fr\u002Fnotice\u002Fmerimee\u002FPA00099804",[158,159],"base Mérimée PA00099804",[151,6535,6536,6537,162,6542,168],{},"The Vierge noire, its twelfth-century date and 1908 classification, the absence of any documented Crusades provenance, and the displayed figure being a copy: ",[34,6538,6541],{"href":6539,"rel":6540,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fpop.culture.gouv.fr\u002Fnotice\u002Fpalissy\u002FPM19000492",[158,159],"base Palissy PM19000492",[34,6543,6546],{"href":6544,"rel":6545,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffrance3-regions.franceinfo.fr\u002Fnouvelle-aquitaine\u002Fla-resurrection-de-la-vierge-noire-de-meymac-909013.html",[158,159],"France 3 \u002F franceinfo",[151,6548,6549,6550,162,6555,168],{},"The Centre d'art contemporain de Meymac, in the abbey since 1979 and labelled a centre of national interest in 2022, and the Marius-Vazeilles museum: ",[34,6551,6554],{"href":6552,"rel":6553,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FCentre_d%27art_contemporain_de_Meymac",[158,159],"Centre d'art contemporain de Meymac, Wikipédia",[34,6556,6559],{"href":6557,"rel":6558,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMarius_Vazeilles",[158,159],"Marius Vazeilles, Wikipédia",[151,6561,6562,6563,162,6568,168],{},"\"Meymac-près-Bordeaux\" and the Corrèze wine merchants of Bordeaux: ",[34,6564,6567],{"href":6565,"rel":6566,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMeymac-pr%C3%A8s-Bordeaux",[158,159],"Meymac-près-Bordeaux, Wikipédia",[34,6569,6572],{"href":6570,"rel":6571,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourismecorreze.com\u002Ffr\u002Fmeymac-pres-bordeaux.html",[158,159],"Tourisme Corrèze, \"Meymac-près-Bordeaux\"",[151,6574,6575,6576,168],{},"The execution of German prisoners near Meymac in June 1944 and the 2023 excavation: ",[34,6577,6580],{"href":6578,"rel":6579,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.francebleu.fr\u002Finfos\u002Fsociete\u002Ffouilles-de-meymac-les-corps-des-soldats-allemands-n-ont-pas-ete-retrouves-mais-un-espoir-demeure-7537858",[158,159],"France Bleu, \"Fouilles de Meymac\"",[151,6582,6583,6584,168],{},"The Côte des Gardes as the last rise of Stage 9, cresting roughly fourteen kilometres from the finish and not among the stage's four categorised climbs: ",[34,6585,6587],{"href":1866,"rel":6586,"target":160},[158,159],"Tour de France 2026, Stage 9, cyclingstage.com",[232,6589],{},[27,6591,6592],{},[237,6593,6594],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.8. Voice register: saintsbury-period (registers-framework).",[241,6596,6598,6601],{"className":6597,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,6599,249],{"className":6600,"id":38},[248],[251,6602,6603,6620,6638,6654,6675,6695,6709],{},[151,6604,6606,6607,6609,6610,162,6613,260,6616],{"id":6605},"user-content-fn-foundation","The abbey of Saint-André at Meymac was founded as a Benedictine priory on 3 February 1085 by Archambaud III, viscount of Comborn (in reparation for damage to the abbey of Saint-Martin de Tulle, and entrusted to Uzerche), and raised to the rank of abbey in 1146 under Ebles II de Ventadour. The Romanesque clocher-porche, with eleven sculptured capitals, is the oldest part; the nave is of the later twelfth century, with rib-vaults added in the thirteenth. The church is a ",[237,6608,2872],{}," (base Mérimée PA00099804). Sources: ",[34,6611,6528],{"href":6526,"rel":6612,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6614,6533],{"href":6531,"rel":6615,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6617,267],{"href":6618,"ariaLabel":264,"className":6619,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-foundation",[266],[151,6621,503,6623,6626,6627,162,6630,260,6634],{"id":6622},"user-content-fn-madonna",[237,6624,6625],{},"Vierge noire"," of Meymac is a polychrome and gilded wooden Virgin in Majesty of the twelfth century, classified among the historic objects of France on 12 November 1908 (base Palissy PM19000492). The classifying notice records no provenance: the popular tradition that a crusader brought her from Egypt or the Holy Land finds no support in it, the dark colouring being treated as iconographic. The figure displayed in the church is a modern copy; the original is kept in the town-hall safe and shown only for two processions in mid-August. Sources: ",[34,6628,6541],{"href":6539,"rel":6629,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6631,6633],{"href":6544,"rel":6632,"target":160},[158,159],"France 3 \u002F franceinfo, \"La résurrection de la Vierge noire de Meymac\"",[34,6635,267],{"href":6636,"ariaLabel":281,"className":6637,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-madonna",[266],[151,6639,6641,6642,162,6645,260,6650],{"id":6640},"user-content-fn-leger","The abbey church is jointly dedicated to Saint-André (Andrew) and Saint-Léger. Léger, or Leodegar, bishop of Autun, was blinded and put to death about 678 in the factional violence of the Merovingian court, on the orders of Ebroïn, mayor of the palace of Neustria. The relic at Meymac, a skull kept in a reliquary bust, is recorded as having come from the abbey of Saint-Maixent in Poitou; the local cult was held to cure madness, drawing pilgrims who brought the afflicted by cart, and a register of the miracles was kept. Sources: ",[34,6643,6528],{"href":6526,"rel":6644,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6646,6649],{"href":6647,"rel":6648,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.monestirs.cat\u002Fmonst\u002Fannex\u002Ffran\u002Fllemos\u002FfMeymac.htm",[158,159],"Abbaye Saint-Léger de Meymac, monestirs.cat",[34,6651,267],{"href":6652,"ariaLabel":296,"className":6653,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-leger",[266],[151,6655,6657,6658,6661,6662,6665,6666,260,6671],{"id":6656},"user-content-fn-aubignac","François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac (1604-1676), was the most systematic theorist of the French classical stage; his ",[237,6659,6660],{},"La Pratique du théâtre"," (1657) pressed the doctrine of the three dramatic unities further than the playwrights themselves cared to follow. He held the abbey of Meymac among his benefices ",[237,6663,6664],{},"in commendam",", drawing its revenues as an absentee, a common fate of such houses after the Middle Ages. Source: ",[34,6667,6670],{"href":6668,"rel":6669,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFran%C3%A7ois_H%C3%A9delin_d%27Aubignac",[158,159],"François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac, Wikipédia",[34,6672,267],{"href":6673,"ariaLabel":308,"className":6674,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-aubignac",[266],[151,6676,6678,6679,6682,6683,162,6686,260,6691],{"id":6677},"user-content-fn-vazeilles","Marius Vazeilles (1881-1973), forester, self-taught archaeologist and politician, settled at Meymac in 1913 and led the afforestation of the then nearly treeless Plateau de Millevaches (",[237,6680,6681],{},"Mise en valeur du plateau de Millevaches",", 1917); he sat as Popular Front deputy for the Ussel constituency from 1936. He also excavated the plateau's Gallo-Roman and prehistoric sites (among them the villa at Les Cars), and his collections form the archaeology and heritage museum housed in a wing of the Meymac abbey. Sources: ",[34,6684,6559],{"href":6557,"rel":6685,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6687,6690],{"href":6688,"rel":6689,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMus%C3%A9e_d%27arch%C3%A9ologie_et_du_patrimoine_Marius-Vazeilles",[158,159],"Musée d'archéologie et du patrimoine Marius-Vazeilles, Wikipédia",[34,6692,267],{"href":6693,"ariaLabel":323,"className":6694,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-vazeilles",[266],[151,6696,6698,6699,162,6702,260,6705],{"id":6697},"user-content-fn-meymacbordeaux","From about the middle of the nineteenth century, and for some fifty years, several hundred natives of the Meymac district ran a large share of the Bordeaux wine trade in the north of France and in Belgium; the movement was begun by Jean Gaye-Bordas (born at Davignac, Corrèze, in 1826). The Meymacois merchants are remembered for giving their Belgian clients the postal address \"Meymac-près-Bordeaux,\" though Meymac lies some 250 km from Bordeaux, in the mountains of the Corrèze. Sources: ",[34,6700,6567],{"href":6565,"rel":6701,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6703,6572],{"href":6570,"rel":6704,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6706,267],{"href":6707,"ariaLabel":335,"className":6708,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-meymacbordeaux",[266],[151,6710,6712,6713,162,6717,260,6722],{"id":6711},"user-content-fn-execution","German soldiers captured in the fighting around Tulle on 7-8 June 1944 (some forty-seven or forty-eight of them, with one Frenchwoman) were shot and buried in woodland near Meymac on 12 June 1944, during the FTP withdrawal before the advancing Das Reich division, the same division that hanged ninety-nine men at Tulle on 9 June 1944. Located from the 2019 testimony of Edmond Réveil, a surviving participant, the site was excavated by the ONACVG in May and June 2023; the dig recovered period cartridges and coins but not the remains. Sources: ",[34,6714,6716],{"href":6578,"rel":6715,"target":160},[158,159],"France Bleu, \"Fouilles de Meymac : les corps des soldats allemands n'ont pas été retrouvés\"",[34,6718,6721],{"href":6719,"rel":6720,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.francebleu.fr\u002Finfos\u002Fsociete\u002Fon-a-commis-une-faute-estime-edmond-reveil-79-ans-apres-la-capture-de-47-soldats-allemands-a-tulle-5956028",[158,159],"France Bleu, \"'On a commis une faute', estime Edmond Réveil\"",[34,6723,267],{"href":6724,"ariaLabel":351,"className":6725,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-execution",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":6727},[6728,6729],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-25.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-25.gpx",[6733,6738,6742,6746],{"src":6734,"alt":6735,"author":1093,"authorUrl":6736,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":6737},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F2\u002F2d\u002FMeymac_-_Abbaye_G.jpg\u002F1280px-Meymac_-_Abbaye_G.jpg","The west front of the abbey of Saint-André at Meymac beside the town's covered market hall","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:A1AA1A","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Meymac_-_Abbaye_G.jpg",{"src":6739,"alt":6740,"author":1093,"authorUrl":6736,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":6741},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Fc\u002Fcc\u002FMeymac_-_Beffroi.jpg\u002F1280px-Meymac_-_Beffroi.jpg","The medieval belfry gate of Meymac, attesting the town's standing under the viscounts of Ventadour","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Meymac_-_Beffroi.jpg",{"src":6743,"alt":6744,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":6745},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F3\u002F30\u002FMeymac_Rue_ancienne.jpg\u002F1280px-Meymac_Rue_ancienne.jpg","A street of old granite houses in the centre of Meymac","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Meymac_Rue_ancienne.jpg",{"src":6747,"alt":6748,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":731,"licenseUrl":1152,"sourceUrl":6749},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Ff\u002Ffc\u002FMeymac_Statue_de_saint_L%C3%A9ger1.jpg\u002F1280px-Meymac_Statue_de_saint_L%C3%A9ger1.jpg","A statue of Saint Léger in the abbey church of Meymac, jointly dedicated to Saint-André and Saint-Léger","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Meymac_Statue_de_saint_L%C3%A9ger1.jpg",176,{"dataCutoff":6392},"\u002Fentries\u002F25-meymac-and-the-cote-des-gardes","2026-06-28",25,{"title":6399,"description":39},"entries\u002F25-meymac-and-the-cote-des-gardes","Km 168-176: the abbey at the foot of the plateau, three improbabilities, and the last rise before Ussel",{"fetchedAt":6759,"current":6760,"forecast":359},"2026-07-02",{"temp":977,"conditions":626,"wind":6761},"12 km\u002Fh N","w2LtVMK9br7KqeSUIpaDVsmSisf6Rw4DRwOeOK1h51U",{"id":6764,"title":6765,"body":6766,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":6951,"extension":360,"gpxFile":6952,"images":6953,"issue":359,"kmEnd":6962,"kmStart":6750,"meta":6963,"navigation":364,"path":6965,"publishDate":6966,"segment":6967,"seo":6968,"special":359,"stem":6969,"subtitle":6970,"weather":6971,"__hash__":6974},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F26-saint-angel.md","Saint-Angel: The Last Village",{"type":8,"value":6767,"toc":6947},[6768,6771,6780,6783,6787,6790,6808,6817,6820,6831,6834,6837,6839,6882,6884,6888],[11,6769,6765],{"id":6770},"saint-angel-the-last-village",[15,6772],{"alt":6773,"author":6774,"author-url":6775,"caption":6776,"license":21,"license-url":22,"lightbox-src":6777,"source-url":6778,"src":6779},"The fortified priory church of Saint-Michel-des-Anges at Saint-Angel, with its round presbytery tower and Romanesque apse, standing on a granite outcrop","Phmadm","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpecial:Contributions\u002FPhmadm","The priory of Saint-Michel-des-Anges at Saint-Angel, fortified on its granite outcrop: the round presbytery tower, the conventual range, and the Romanesque apse, on the 1840 list of the first monuments France chose to protect. Cropped to a banner from the original; click to see the full frame.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F8\u002F89\u002FSt_angel_eglise.JPG","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:St_angel_eglise.JPG","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F8\u002F89\u002FSt_angel_eglise.JPG\u002F960px-St_angel_eglise.JPG",[27,6781,6782],{},"The road comes down off the last of the high country into a quieter place than any it has crossed since the morning. The villages, never thick on the plateau, thin almost to nothing; the planted forest stands close and dark to the verge, Douglas fir and Scots pine; and for a few kilometres the one thing the map asks anyone to notice is a small commune on a rock above a river, which a traveller in a hurry would pass at speed and never think of again. The river is the Triouzoune, carrying the plateau's water down the long way toward the Dordogne. The rock is a piton, a granite knuckle of the old crystalline floor that has held up the whole day, and on it stands Saint-Angel, the last village before the finish.",[1159,6784],{"caption":6785,"embed-url":6786},"On the route through Saint-Angel: a road sign pointing on toward Ussel.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.google.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fembed?pb=!4v1783003229338!6m8!1m7!1sGNU6Hs2HhHUSWL5foidr-w!2m2!1d45.50354905971734!2d2.231888677111889!3f48.399606848025314!4f2.0632813937804855!5f0.7820865974627469",[27,6788,6789],{},"The ground here has not changed so much as declared itself. The plateau has no edge a surveyor could draw, but a cyclist reads one all the same in the angle of the road, and below the last rise the country relents into pasture and wood without once leaving the crystalline basement underfoot. There is no soft valley of sediment ahead; the rock holds to the line, and will hold to it past the finish. What it makes of itself at Saint-Angel is this single outcrop, steep enough to be worth defending, which is why a village and, before the village, a church came to be set on it at all.",[27,6791,6792,6793,6800,6801],{},"The church is older than its papers can honestly prove. A charter dated to the year 783 records a count of Limoges, Roger, and his wife Euphrasie giving a church here, dedicated to Michael the Archangel, to the great abbey of Charroux away in Poitou; the document's authenticity has long been doubted, picked at by scholars for naming dependencies that came later, and the prudent reader takes the priory as very old without swearing to the year.",[31,6794,6795],{},[34,6796,41],{"href":6797,"ariaDescribedBy":6798,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6799},"#user-content-fn-charter",[38],"user-content-fnref-charter"," The village drew its name from it, Saint-Angel out of Saint-Michel-des-Anges, Michael of the Angels. And the thing that lifts the place above the ordinary run of Corrèze parishes is not its architecture but a stroke of administration. When France first drew up a register of the buildings it meant to protect, in 1840, the very first such list, compiled under the monuments inspectorate that Prosper Mérimée then headed, the priory church of Saint-Angel was on it. A small and emptying village on the rim of the plateau holds one of the earliest monuments the country ever decided to keep.",[31,6802,6803],{},[34,6804,66],{"href":6805,"ariaDescribedBy":6806,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6807},"#user-content-fn-listing",[38],"user-content-fnref-listing",[15,6809],{"alt":6810,"author":6811,"author-url":6812,"caption":6813,"license":21,"license-url":22,"lightbox-src":6814,"source-url":6815,"src":6816},"The granite nave of the priory church of Saint-Michel-des-Anges, with heavy round piers and Gothic rib-vaults, the apse beyond","GFreihalter","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUser:GFreihalter","The granite nave of Saint-Michel-des-Anges. Its Romanesque body was raised by the same Limousin hand as the abbey at Meymac; the rib-vaults overhead are a later Gothic addition, rebuilt toward 1500.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F9\u002F90\u002FSaint-Angel_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29_Prieur%C3%A9_Saint-Michel-des-Anges_357.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Saint-Angel_(Corr%C3%A8ze)_Prieur%C3%A9_Saint-Michel-des-Anges_357.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F9\u002F90\u002FSaint-Angel_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29_Prieur%C3%A9_Saint-Michel-des-Anges_357.jpg\u002F1280px-Saint-Angel_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29_Prieur%C3%A9_Saint-Michel-des-Anges_357.jpg",[27,6818,6819],{},"The building earns its listing twice over, once for its age and once for being a known quantity to anyone who looked well at the abbey a few kilometres back. It is fortified, a church made also to be held, thick in the wall, with a round tower at the corner of the presbytery; it was burned once, in 1375, in the long war with the English, and raised up again. The body of the nave is the same heavy granite, set by the same Limousin Romanesque hand, as the clocher-porche at Meymac; the abbey's essay promised the cousin a segment on, and here it stands. Later centuries gave the nave its Gothic vaults, rebuilt toward 1500, their keystones cut with the arms of France inside the collar of the Order of Saint Michael and with the devices of the local lords; the Benedictines of Saint-Maur arrived in 1657 and kept a few monks here until the Revolution, when the commune, briefly carried away, renamed itself Angel-la-Montagne before thinking the better of it. The angel, in the end, outlasted the mountain.",[27,6821,6822,6823,6830],{},"What Saint-Angel has never had much of is people the wider world would know. It keeps some seven hundred inhabitants where it once kept more, the patient subtraction the plateau works on every village it holds, and it has sent almost no one into the books. The man most bound up with it never lived there at all: Jean-Baptiste Poulbrière, canon of Tulle and the diocese's tireless historian, who set down every parish in the Corrèze and who described the churches of Saint-Angel and Meymac together, in one small study, in 1880, pairing the two the way the road has paired them.",[31,6824,6825],{},[34,6826,84],{"href":6827,"ariaDescribedBy":6828,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":6829},"#user-content-fn-poulbriere",[38],"user-content-fnref-poulbriere"," What the village does have, and has lately chosen to make its one modest distinction, is the dark. It is a village étoilé, one of the places that have agreed to keep their night unlit; and there is a quiet rightness, not to be pressed too hard, in a village named for the angels keeping for its single fame the stars.",[27,6832,6833],{},"For the race there is nothing in any of this. The road across the commune gives back a little more height than it asks, a few dozen metres each way over six gently falling kilometres; the last counted climb is behind, its points all paid out on the road before Meymac, and the bunch comes through doing the arithmetic of the finish and not of the hill. The four who are covering the route at their own deliberate pace come through it level, as they have come through everything lately, held abreast by the daily cap the standings keep; and by the plain count of ground actually walked, each of them passed the full length of the stage weeks ago and simply kept on. They are near the end of it now, as the road is.",[27,6835,6836],{},"Past the village the road swings back to its line and the forest folds over it again. Ahead the rock falls away, the last of the plateau goes with it, and the granite tips downward at last toward the high town between its two rivers, the place the whole long day has been aimed at. Saint-Angel does not keep the traveller. It is the kind of village one passes through, and thinks of afterwards as the last quiet thing before the noise.",[143,6838,146],{"id":145},[148,6840,6841,6854,6866,6874],{},[151,6842,6843,6844,162,6849,168],{},"The priory church of Saint-Michel-des-Anges, its 1840 listing and later classifications (1919, 2000), its fortified Romanesque body and later Gothic vaulting, the keystones bearing the arms of France and the Order of Saint-Michel, the 1375 burning, and the Maurist reform of 1657: ",[34,6845,6848],{"href":6846,"rel":6847,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FPrieur%C3%A9_Saint-Michel-des-Anges",[158,159],"Prieuré Saint-Michel-des-Anges, Wikipédia",[34,6850,6853],{"href":6851,"rel":6852,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fpop.culture.gouv.fr\u002Fnotice\u002Fmerimee\u002FPA00099838",[158,159],"base Mérimée PA00099838",[151,6855,6856,6857,6860,6861,168],{},"The commune of Saint-Angel: its name from the priory, the village on a ",[237,6858,6859],{},"piton rocheux"," above the Triouzoune, the 1793 merger with Saint-Fréjoux-le-Mineur and the brief renaming to Angel-la-Montagne, the population of about seven hundred, and the forestry economy: ",[34,6862,6865],{"href":6863,"rel":6864,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSaint-Angel_(Corr%C3%A8ze)",[158,159],"Saint-Angel (Corrèze), Wikipédia",[151,6867,6868,6869,168],{},"The Triouzoune as a watercourse of the Dordogne basin: ",[34,6870,6873],{"href":6871,"rel":6872,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FTriouzoune",[158,159],"Triouzoune, Wikipédia",[151,6875,6876,6877,168],{},"Jean-Baptiste Poulbrière and his histories of the Corrèze parishes: ",[34,6878,6881],{"href":6879,"rel":6880,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FJean-Baptiste_Poulbri%C3%A8re",[158,159],"Jean-Baptiste Poulbrière, Wikipédia",[232,6883],{},[27,6885,6886],{},[237,6887,6366],{},[241,6889,6891,6894],{"className":6890,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,6892,249],{"className":6893,"id":38},[248],[251,6895,6896,6910,6928],{},[151,6897,6899,6900,162,6903,260,6906],{"id":6898},"user-content-fn-charter","A charter dated 783 (some sources give 785) records the donation of the church, dedicated to the Archangel Michael, by Count Roger of Limoges and his wife Euphrasie to the abbey of Charroux in Poitou. The document's authenticity has been questioned, a 1998 study noting that it names monastic dependencies of later date; the doubt falls on the charter rather than necessarily on the foundation. Sources: ",[34,6901,6848],{"href":6846,"rel":6902,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6904,6865],{"href":6863,"rel":6905,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6907,267],{"href":6908,"ariaLabel":264,"className":6909,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-charter",[266],[151,6911,6913,6914,6917,6918,162,6921,260,6924],{"id":6912},"user-content-fn-listing","The former priory church of Saint-Michel-des-Anges was protected on the ",[237,6915,6916],{},"liste des monuments historiques de 1840",", the first national list of protected monuments, drawn up under the inspectorate of historic monuments that Prosper Mérimée headed. The chapter house and the round presbytery tower were classified on 15 July 1919, and the remaining conventual buildings together with the cemetery in 2000 (base Mérimée PA00099838). Sources: ",[34,6919,6848],{"href":6846,"rel":6920,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6922,6853],{"href":6851,"rel":6923,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6925,267],{"href":6926,"ariaLabel":281,"className":6927,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-listing",[266],[151,6929,6931,6932,6935,6936,6939,6940,260,6943],{"id":6930},"user-content-fn-poulbriere","Jean-Baptiste Poulbrière (1842-1917), priest, honorary then titular canon of Tulle and the diocese's official historiographer, compiled the ",[237,6933,6934],{},"Dictionnaire historique et archéologique des paroisses du diocèse de Tulle"," (2nd ed., 2 vols., Tulle, 1894-1899), a parish-by-parish history of the Corrèze. Among his earlier works was ",[237,6937,6938],{},"Les Églises de Saint-Angel et de Meymac : histoire et description"," (1880), which treats the two churches in a single study. Source: ",[34,6941,6881],{"href":6879,"rel":6942,"target":160},[158,159],[34,6944,267],{"href":6945,"ariaLabel":296,"className":6946,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-poulbriere",[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":6948},[6949,6950],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-26.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-26.gpx",[6954,6958],{"src":6955,"alt":6956,"author":6811,"authorUrl":6812,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":6957},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F4\u002F4b\u002FSaint-Angel_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29_Prieur%C3%A9_Saint-Michel-des-Anges_377.jpg\u002F1280px-Saint-Angel_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29_Prieur%C3%A9_Saint-Michel-des-Anges_377.jpg","The late-Gothic pointed west portal of the priory church of Saint-Michel-des-Anges at Saint-Angel","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Saint-Angel_(Corr%C3%A8ze)_Prieur%C3%A9_Saint-Michel-des-Anges_377.jpg",{"src":6959,"alt":6960,"author":6811,"authorUrl":6812,"license":21,"licenseUrl":22,"sourceUrl":6961},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002Ff\u002Ff7\u002FSaint-Angel_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29_Prieur%C3%A9_Saint-Michel-des-Anges_381.jpg\u002F1280px-Saint-Angel_%28Corr%C3%A8ze%29_Prieur%C3%A9_Saint-Michel-des-Anges_381.jpg","A weathered carved coat of arms set in a Gothic blind arch on the granite wall of the priory church at Saint-Angel","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Saint-Angel_(Corr%C3%A8ze)_Prieur%C3%A9_Saint-Michel-des-Anges_381.jpg",182,{"dataCutoff":6964},"2026-06-30","\u002Fentries\u002F26-saint-angel","2026-07-01",26,{"title":6765,"description":39},"entries\u002F26-saint-angel","Km 176-182: a priory on a rock, one of the first monuments France chose to keep, and the last village before the finish",{"fetchedAt":366,"current":6972,"forecast":359},{"temp":5710,"conditions":626,"wind":6973},"10 km\u002Fh NNE","XJgbKVo_WQLWhlRcibW2pITsFM-ji_mVf88fpQu3VUI",{"id":6976,"title":6977,"body":6978,"description":39,"draft":358,"elevationData":7323,"extension":360,"gpxFile":7324,"images":7325,"issue":359,"kmEnd":7330,"kmStart":6962,"meta":7331,"navigation":364,"path":7332,"publishDate":7333,"segment":7334,"seo":7335,"special":359,"stem":7336,"subtitle":7337,"weather":7338,"__hash__":7341},"entries\u002Fentries\u002F27-place-voltaire-the-finish-line.md","Place Voltaire: The Finish Line",{"type":8,"value":6979,"toc":7319},[6980,6983,6990,6993,7000,7006,7013,7024,7031,7041,7052,7066,7069,7072,7075,7078,7119,7127,7133,7135,7217,7219,7224],[11,6981,6977],{"id":6982},"place-voltaire-the-finish-line",[15,6984],{"alt":6985,"author":2057,"author-url":6986,"caption":6987,"license":21,"license-url":22,"lightbox-src":6988,"source-url":6986,"src":6989},"A loaded touring bicycle leaning by the Ussel town-entry sign, the road running on into the town","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Arrivant_%C3%A0_Ussel_-_panoramio.jpg","Arriving at Ussel: a loaded bicycle at the town sign, the road running gently up into the granite. The town the whole route has ridden toward.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F9\u002F9f\u002FArrivant_%C3%A0_Ussel_-_panoramio.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F9\u002F9f\u002FArrivant_%C3%A0_Ussel_-_panoramio.jpg\u002F1280px-Arrivant_%C3%A0_Ussel_-_panoramio.jpg",[27,6991,6992],{},"The road has been coming down to this for the better part of two hundred kilometres, and it arrives, in the end, quietly: a town sign at the verge, a long straight street climbing gently between houses, the granite closing in on both sides as the open country gives out behind. Ussel does not announce itself from a distance, the way a cathedral town will. It sits on its hill between two small rivers, the Diège and the Sarsonne, at something over six hundred metres, the last lift of the Plateau de Millevaches before the land tips away west toward the Dordogne. For all that height, the rivers run to the Atlantic, the Diège carrying the town's water down to the Dordogne and so to the sea, while the Loire's own headwaters rise on the same plateau a little to the north and go the other way entirely. The divide is up here somewhere, undramatic, a matter of which ditch a drop of rain happens to choose. The finish is in the town.",[27,6994,6995,6996,6999],{},"The name is the oldest thing about the place, and the most fitting. Ussel comes down from a Gaulish word, ",[237,6997,6998],{},"uxello",", the high one, the elevated place; the Lemovices who gave it marked the obvious, that this was high ground, and the name has carried the fact for two thousand years. There is a neatness here that a writer ought to be wary of leaning on, and will lean on anyway. A stage that has spent its whole day climbing, over the Naves and the Suc au May and the Croix de Pey, across the roof of the Corrèze at Mont Bessou, comes to rest at last in a town whose name means, simply, the heights. The riders have been climbing toward a word.",[27,7001,7002,7003,7005],{},"The finish, to be exact about it, is on the Avenue Thiers, the town's long main street, and the sprint is judged a little beyond it, at the Place Voltaire. The two are one straight, the same hundred metres of granite-sided road; the recorded line of the route, as it happens, stops a couple of hundred metres short of the square, a shortfall in the trace rather than a different place, and the riders will cover the gap without knowing it is there. What they will know is that, after a day with barely a level kilometre in it, the run-in is flat. The last counted climb, the Côte des Gardes, is fourteen kilometres back; from its crest the road comes down and stays down, and the final stretch into Ussel is as near to flat as the day has been able to offer. What that produces is anyone's guess, a reduced bunch most likely, thinned by three and a half thousand metres of climbing, or a breakaway that has read the day right and held to the line. Whatever it is, it will not be a whole peloton. The day has seen to that. Why a finish at Ussel should be a century overdue, and what the race and its near-misses have done in this country before, is the business of this stage's companion essay, ",[34,7004,6],{"href":365},"; this one is about the town, and the arriving.",[15,7007],{"alt":7008,"author":2490,"author-url":2491,"caption":7009,"license":1100,"license-url":52,"lightbox-src":7010,"source-url":7011,"src":7012},"The granite Roman eagle of Ussel on its plinth against the sky, its head a later addition","The Aigle romaine on the Place Voltaire: a Roman funerary eagle carved in local granite, found headless, its head supplied in 1804 by the sculptor Pic for Napoleon's coronation. The sprint is judged beneath it.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F7\u002F72\u002FUssel_-_l%27aigle.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Ussel_-_l%27aigle.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F7\u002F72\u002FUssel_-_l%27aigle.jpg\u002F1280px-Ussel_-_l%27aigle.jpg",[27,7014,7015,7016,7023],{},"And the sprint, if it comes to a sprint, will be judged under the eye of the strangest finishing-line fixture in France. On the Place Voltaire stands an eagle, carved in the local granite, Roman work of perhaps the third century, found long ago near a mill on the Sarsonne where it had probably once crowned a tomb. It came out of the ground without its head. The head it wears now was cut and fitted in 1804, by a sculptor named Pic, when the town raised the eagle again to mark the coronation of Napoleon, so that the bird keeping the line is eighteen centuries old from the wings down and a little over two from the neck up.",[31,7017,7018],{},[34,7019,41],{"href":7020,"ariaDescribedBy":7021,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":7022},"#user-content-fn-eagle",[38],"user-content-fnref-eagle"," There is no arranging a thing like that. A Tour de France will be settled, on a July afternoon, beside a re-headed Roman eagle that has stood in one square or another of this town since before the town had a name that anyone now remembers.",[15,7025],{"alt":7026,"author":2490,"author-url":2491,"caption":7027,"license":1100,"license-url":52,"lightbox-src":7028,"source-url":7029,"src":7030},"A granite Renaissance corner stair-tower on a narrow street in the old town of Ussel","A Renaissance stair-tower in the granite old town of Ussel, the kind of bourgeois-and-noble house the town filled with when it became the seat of the duchy of Ventadour.","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002F4\u002F43\u002FUssel_11.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Ussel_11.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F4\u002F43\u002FUssel_11.jpg\u002F1280px-Ussel_11.jpg",[27,7032,7033,7034],{},"The eagle is the oldest of the town's keepings, but not the one this stage was told to expect. Two segments back, at the abbey of Meymac, the road left a name with the reader and a promise to redeem it: the viscounts of Ventadour, who raised that abbey to its rank in 1146, and who would, it was said, have the last word in this stage, spoken at Ussel. Here it is. The lords of Ventadour began as viscounts on a high rock to the south, a line old enough to have given, in Ebles the Singer and his court, one of the cradles of the troubadour art; over the centuries the viscounty was made a county and then a duchy, and somewhere in the Renaissance the family did the sensible thing and gave up their cold fortress for the comforts of the town. They settled at Ussel, in an elegant granite hôtel that still stands in the rue des Ventadours, and made the place the seat of the duchy's business, its justice brought here from Égletons. The house that built the abbey at the top of the climb came down, in the end, to live at the foot of it. The road has carried that family the length of a stage and the better part of seven hundred years, and set them down, as promised, at Ussel.",[31,7035,7036],{},[34,7037,66],{"href":7038,"ariaDescribedBy":7039,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":7040},"#user-content-fn-ventadour",[38],"user-content-fnref-ventadour",[27,7042,7043,7044,7051],{},"It is a small town to have been the capital of a duchy, and it has the habit, for a small town, of being where larger things start. It was here, in the spring of 1967, that a young man of thirty-four named Jacques Chirac won an election for the first time, taking the Ussel seat in the National Assembly, a constituency the left had long held, and binding to the Corrèze a career that would not afterwards let go of it.",[31,7045,7046],{},[34,7047,84],{"href":7048,"ariaDescribedBy":7049,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":7050},"#user-content-fn-chirac",[38],"user-content-fnref-chirac"," He went a very long way from Ussel in the years that followed, as men do; but the first seat was here, on this high ground, in this grey granite town, and the department kept him to the last.",[27,7053,7054,7055,7057,7058,7065],{},"The town keeps, too, its own quiet roster of those who lived and ended here, and among them is a man who closes a circle the stage opened a long way back. Early in the day, down in the valley at Tulle, the road passed the workshop where the Maugein accordions have been made for a hundred years, the instrument of the ",[237,7056,2268],{}," and, for a certain French generation, the sound of the thing itself. The accordion does not return to the route until here, at the finish, in René Limouzin, who played it: a farmer's son from a commune just outside Ussel who spent his young years a musician of the dances and the weddings, then put the instrument down for a pen and wrote, into his nineties, book upon book about the old life of this country, and died at Ussel in 2020.",[31,7059,7060],{},[34,7061,96],{"href":7062,"ariaDescribedBy":7063,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":7064},"#user-content-fn-limouzin",[38],"user-content-fnref-limouzin"," The dance tune that started at Tulle finds, at the line, the man who played it and outlived it.",[27,7067,7068],{},"Our own four arrive too, and it is right that they should arrive together. By the careful, capped, half-imaginary reckoning the standings have kept since April, holding each of them to two kilometres a day, they have come up the route abreast for weeks, and they reach Ussel level, as they reached every town before it level, no one of them ahead. The truer count says a thing the cap was built to hide and cannot quite: that each of the four passed the whole hundred and eighty-five kilometres of this route long before the road did, by the plain arithmetic of ground actually walked, and simply kept walking, so that the line they cross here is one they each crossed, in private, weeks ago. Both are true. They arrive together at the high place, by the count that flatters them with company; and each of them, alone, got here a good while before.",[27,7070,7071],{},"That is the generous reading, the one the capped reckoning keeps, and it is true. A finish line is less generous. Asked the plain question a line asks, the four do not, in the event, coast across it abreast: they wind it up on the Avenue Thiers, and in the last hundred metres the tie the standings held all spring comes quietly apart. It is Nan who comes off the wheel first, a half-length that the capped column never showed but the legs always knew: Nan across, then Justin, then Marian, then Wally, in the order the true count had them all along. Level on the scoreboard, and sorted on the road.",[27,7073,7074],{},"The road ends on the Avenue Thiers, a little short of the eagle, and there is nothing past it but the town going on about its July. Twenty-seven times the road has come into a place, and the blog has tried to say what the place was; this is the last of them, a high granite town between two small rivers, a Roman bird with a borrowed head, a duke's house in a narrow street, and a finish line a century of the Tour somehow never found until now. The riders, the real and the imagined, are in. There is no next essay, and no need of one. The road runs out of plateau and out of places, on a flat street under the eagle, and stops, where it always meant to, at the heights.",[27,7076,7077],{},"A last liberty, and an invented one. This blog has kept a rule against putting words in living mouths, and it sets the rule down this once, at the line, marking what follows plainly as a wish and not a report. Christian Prudhomme, who has directed the Tour de France since 2007 and who took his own love of the race, by his account, from Raymond Poulidor, has of course never heard of us. But if he were to look up the long road to Ussel and find four riders and their readers waiting at the top of it, he might, one likes to think, say something not far from this.",[7079,7080,7081,7084,7101],"blockquote",{},[27,7082,7083],{},"Mes amis. You have ridden all spring toward a town whose name means the high place, and you have arrived. I did not give the Tour its finish at Ussel; you did, months before the race will, and you kept it company the whole way, with the granite and the abbeys, the accordion at Tulle.",[27,7085,7086,7087,7090,7091,7096,7097,7100],{},"Raymond Poulidor, our Poupou, l'éternel second, the ",[237,7088,7089],{},"maillot jaune des cœurs"," who never once wore the real one, said the truest thing anyone has said about winning and not winning. «J'aurais bien sûr aimé l'emporter. Mais si je l'avais fait, je ne sais pas si on parlerait encore de moi.»",[31,7092,7093],{},[34,7094,108],{"href":63,"ariaDescribedBy":7095,"dataFootnoteRef":39,"id":65},[38]," And for those of you who require a translation: he would, of course, have loved to win it, but had he done so, he is not sure anyone would still be speaking of him now. It was Poulidor who gave me the love of this race. What you have done, these months, from wherever in the world you did it, is keep that love alive out of season, when the roads are empty and no one is watching. ",[237,7098,7099],{},"Merci d'avoir gardé l'esprit du Tour vivant toute l'année, et partout."," Thank you for keeping the spirit of the Tour alive all year, and everywhere.",[27,7102,7103,7104,7109,7110,260,7115,7118],{},"And now come and watch ",[34,7105,7108],{"href":7106,"rel":7107,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.letour.fr\u002Fen\u002F",[158,159],"the real one",". It ",[34,7111,7114],{"href":7112,"rel":7113,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.letour.fr\u002Fen\u002Fstage-1",[158,159],"begins today",[237,7116,7117],{},"Le Tour commence aujourd'hui",": we roll out of Barcelona this afternoon, and there is a whole race between here and Paris. Vous avez fait votre route; venez voir la nôtre. You have made your road; come and see ours.",[2293,7120],{"headline":7121,"kind":7122,"publication":7123,"summary":7124,"url":7125,"date":7126},"The Top Job","Further reading","inrng.com","What the job of Tour de France director actually involves, and how the role took its modern shape: the post Christian Prudhomme holds.","https:\u002F\u002Finrng.com\u002F2024\u002F07\u002Fthe-top-job\u002F","July 2024",[2293,7128],{"headline":7129,"kind":7122,"publication":7130,"summary":7131,"url":7132},"Prudhomme: my journey from fan to journalist to Tour de France race director","Cyclingnews","Christian Prudhomme in his own words, on how he came to love the race and then to run it.","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.cyclingnews.com\u002Ffeatures\u002Fprudhomme-my-journey-from-fan-to-journalist-to-tour-de-france-race-director\u002F",[143,7134,146],{"id":145},[148,7136,7137,7148,7161,7169,7177,7184,7190,7209],{},[151,7138,7139,7140,7142,7143,168],{},"The name of Ussel from Gaulish ",[237,7141,6998],{}," (\"high, elevated\"), the town's altitude and site between the Diège and the Sarsonne, and the Diège as a tributary of the Dordogne (Atlantic drainage): ",[34,7144,7147],{"href":7145,"rel":7146,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUssel_(Corr%C3%A8ze)",[158,159],"Ussel (Corrèze), Wikipédia",[151,7149,7150,7151,162,7156,168],{},"The Roman eagle, its granite, its missing and 1804-replaced head, and its place on the Place Voltaire: ",[34,7152,7155],{"href":7153,"rel":7154,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.tourismecorreze.com\u002Fen\u002Frandonnees\u002Faigle-romaine\u002F18109\u002Fpoi\u002F2079541",[158,159],"Aigle romaine, Tourisme Corrèze",[34,7157,7160],{"href":7158,"rel":7159,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FUssel,_Corr%C3%A8ze",[158,159],"Ussel, Corrèze, Wikipedia",[151,7162,7163,7164,168],{},"The duchy of Ventadour, its capitals, its move to Ussel, and the Hôtel ducal des Ventadour: ",[34,7165,7168],{"href":7166,"rel":7167,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FCh%C3%A2teau_de_Ventadour_(Corr%C3%A8ze)",[158,159],"Château de Ventadour (Corrèze), Wikipédia",[151,7170,7171,7172,168],{},"Jacques Chirac's first election as deputy for the Ussel constituency in 1967: ",[34,7173,7176],{"href":7174,"rel":7175,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww2.assemblee-nationale.fr\u002Fsycomore\u002Ffiche\u002F(num_dept)\u002F1798",[158,159],"Assemblée nationale",[151,7178,7179,7180,168],{},"René Limouzin, accordionist and writer of the Haute-Corrèze: ",[34,7181,2864],{"href":7182,"rel":7183,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffrance3-regions.franceinfo.fr\u002Fnouvelle-aquitaine\u002Fcorreze\u002Fussel\u002Fparoles-anciens-rene-limouzin-accordeon-puis-ecriture-n-plus-finir-1657806.html",[158,159],[151,7185,7186,7187,168],{},"The Stage 9 finale: the Côte des Gardes as the last climb about fourteen kilometres out, roughly 3,500 m of climbing over 185 km, and the flat run-in to Ussel: ",[34,7188,6587],{"href":1866,"rel":7189,"target":160},[158,159],[151,7191,7192,7193,1979,7196,7198,7199,162,7204,168],{},"Raymond Poulidor as ",[237,7194,7195],{},"l'éternel second",[237,7197,7089],{},", his quotation on winning, and Christian Prudhomme's tribute that Poulidor gave him the love of the Tour de France: ",[34,7200,7203],{"href":7201,"rel":7202,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.franceinfo.fr\u002Fsports\u002Fcyclisme\u002Fmort-de-raymond-poulidor-eternel-second-mais-maillot-jaune-des-coeurs_4456449.html",[158,159],"franceinfo, Poulidor's death",[34,7205,7208],{"href":7206,"rel":7207,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.franceinfo.fr\u002Fsports\u002Fcyclisme\u002Fraymond-poulidor-le-directeur-du-tour-christian-prudhomme-lui-rend-hommage_3701141.html",[158,159],"franceinfo, Prudhomme's tribute",[151,7210,7211,7212,168],{},"The 2026 Tour de France Grand Départ, a team time trial through Barcelona on 4 July 2026: ",[34,7213,7216],{"href":7214,"rel":7215,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.cyclingstage.com\u002Ftour-de-france-2026-route\u002Fstage-1-tdf-2026\u002F",[158,159],"Tour de France 2026, Stage 1, cyclingstage.com",[232,7218],{},[27,7220,7221],{},[237,7222,7223],{},"Pair-written by Justin Simpson and Claude Opus 4.8. Voice register: tls-essay (simpson-registers), closing with an envoi in the imagined voice of Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme; that address is invented, the Poulidor quotation within it genuine. This is the twenty-seventh and final entry of the Corrèze Stage 9 travelogue.",[241,7225,7227,7230],{"className":7226,"dataFootnotes":39},[244],[143,7228,249],{"className":7229,"id":38},[248],[251,7231,7232,7249,7266,7283,7299],{},[151,7233,503,7235,7238,7239,162,7242,260,7245],{"id":7234},"user-content-fn-eagle",[237,7236,7237],{},"Aigle romaine"," of Ussel is a funerary eagle carved in granite, generally dated to the Roman period (about the second or third century), found near the moulin du Peuch on the Sarsonne, where it is thought to have crowned a lost funerary monument. It was discovered without its head; the present head was added in 1804 by a sculptor named Pic when the eagle was re-erected to mark Napoleon's coronation, and it now stands on the Place Voltaire (cleaned and given greater prominence during the square's refurbishment in 2009). Sources: ",[34,7240,7155],{"href":7153,"rel":7241,"target":160},[158,159],[34,7243,7160],{"href":7158,"rel":7244,"target":160},[158,159],[34,7246,267],{"href":7247,"ariaLabel":264,"className":7248,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-eagle",[266],[151,7250,7252,7253,7255,7256,162,7259,260,7262],{"id":7251},"user-content-fn-ventadour","The lordship of Ventadour, seated at the Château de Ventadour south of Égletons, was a vicomté raised to a comté in 1350 and to a duché in 1578 (a duché-pairie from 1589 under the house of Lévis). Its principal towns were Égletons, Ussel and Meymac. During the Renaissance the family abandoned the austere castle and installed themselves at Ussel, in the Hôtel ducal des Ventadour (rue des Ventadours, late sixteenth century, a ",[237,7254,2872],{}," since 1932); in the sixteenth century Ussel became the administrative seat of the duchy, its justice transferred there from Égletons. The medieval line included Ebles II \"lo Cantador,\" a patron of the troubadours and a founder of the Ventadour poetic school that produced Bernart de Ventadorn. Sources: ",[34,7257,7168],{"href":7166,"rel":7258,"target":160},[158,159],[34,7260,7147],{"href":7145,"rel":7261,"target":160},[158,159],[34,7263,267],{"href":7264,"ariaLabel":281,"className":7265,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-ventadour",[266],[151,7267,7269,7270,162,7274,260,7279],{"id":7268},"user-content-fn-chirac","Jacques Chirac (1932-2019) was first elected to the National Assembly on 3 April 1967, as deputy for the third constituency of the Corrèze, the Ussel constituency, taking a long-held seat of the left; it was his first elected office, and the Corrèze remained his political base for the rest of his career. Source: ",[34,7271,7273],{"href":7174,"rel":7272,"target":160},[158,159],"Jacques Chirac, fiche, Assemblée nationale",[34,7275,7278],{"href":7276,"rel":7277,"target":160},"https:\u002F\u002Ffr.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FTroisi%C3%A8me_circonscription_de_la_Corr%C3%A8ze",[158,159],"Troisième circonscription de la Corrèze, Wikipédia",[34,7280,267],{"href":7281,"ariaLabel":296,"className":7282,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-chirac",[266],[151,7284,7286,7287,7290,7291,260,7295],{"id":7285},"user-content-fn-limouzin","René Limouzin (1926-2020) was an accordionist and writer of the Haute-Corrèze, born at Saint-Pardoux-le-Vieux, near Ussel, and a player of the dance-hall and wedding circuit in his youth before turning to writing; he published many books on the traditional life of the Limousin (among them the best-selling ",[237,7288,7289],{},"Les Cèpes de la colère",") and died at Ussel. Source: ",[34,7292,7294],{"href":7182,"rel":7293,"target":160},[158,159],"René Limouzin, France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine",[34,7296,267],{"href":7297,"ariaLabel":308,"className":7298,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},"#user-content-fnref-limouzin",[266],[151,7300,7301,7302,7304,7305,7307,7308,162,7312,260,7316],{"id":270},"The address from Christian Prudhomme is invented for this entry; the material inside it is not. Raymond Poulidor (1936-2019), eight times a Tour de France podium finisher and never once in the yellow jersey, was universally ",[237,7303,7195],{}," and the ",[237,7306,7089],{},", the yellow jersey of hearts; the quotation is genuine and widely reported at his death. Prudhomme's remark that Poulidor gave him his own love of the Tour de France is likewise genuine, from his tribute at that time. Sources: ",[34,7309,7311],{"href":7201,"rel":7310,"target":160},[158,159],"Mort de Raymond Poulidor, franceinfo",[34,7313,7315],{"href":7206,"rel":7314,"target":160},[158,159],"Le directeur du Tour lui rend hommage, franceinfo",[34,7317,267],{"href":280,"ariaLabel":323,"className":7318,"dataFootnoteBackref":39},[266],{"title":39,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":7320},[7321,7322],{"id":145,"depth":354,"text":146},{"id":38,"depth":354,"text":249},"\u002Fdata\u002Felevation\u002Fsegment-27.json","\u002Fgpx\u002Fsegment-27.gpx",[7326],{"src":7327,"alt":7328,"author":2490,"authorUrl":2491,"license":1100,"licenseUrl":52,"sourceUrl":7329},"https:\u002F\u002Fupload.wikimedia.org\u002Fwikipedia\u002Fcommons\u002Fthumb\u002F1\u002F1d\u002FUssel_-_Porte_gothique.jpg\u002F1280px-Ussel_-_Porte_gothique.jpg","A Gothic stone gateway in the medieval old town of 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