The church’s inner keep

 

The church’s inner keep and chapels

 

At the beginning of the 15th century, a whole was added to the church: the inner keep facing the former prison. 

The tower is built of locally quarried grey granite and pink sandstone imported from Corrèze. The regular holes in the walls are scaffolding bolts. The top of the tower is built with the same kind of schist stone as the old prison: reused stones from the old walls of the town’s fort. 

One of the tower’s buttresses was used to support the Pinot chapel, built at the end of the 15th century.

The church’s baptismal font, built in the 19th century, is another structure set between two 14th-century buttresses. 

 

The chapter house

 

This beautiful vaulted room is located on the second floor of the church’s inner keep. The canons of the Saint-Germain chapter used to meet here to settle town and parish affairs. Founded at the end of the 15th century, the chapter was dissolved during the French Revolution. 

The keystone of the chapter house bears the coat of arms of the Roger de Beaufort family: Argent, bend Azure, six roses Gules in orle. This is the same coat of arms found on the main entrance door to the Popes’ Palace in Avignon.

The chapter house is lit by a window with a wide splay: five steps lead up to a bench: a reader would sit there to read to the canons; in wartime, a guard could stand there and sound the alarm… This secret room is a fine example of Gothic architecture. 

For further information, please contact the town hall, place de l’église or the tourist office, avenue du Remblai

 

Images : 

• View of the 14th- and 15th-century side chapels.
• Family photo after mass in the early 20th century and view of the chapels.

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