Poët-Laval

Tonight's hotel in Poët-Laval which was a castle built by the Knights of the Order of the Hospitallers of Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem. Then a town was built around it. Of course, the castle is a ruin because King Louis ordered this one knocked down too.

Walking around town, you can still see the defensive city walls. Part of the old castle is integrated into the hotel. The main part of the castle still standing is the dungeon. For some reason the dungeon has a tower.

An interesting thing about this town and the surrounding area is that it was a hotbed of protestantism during the Reformation. There was a museum on protestantism which was very interesting. The big thing they did that was absolutely unforgivable is that they translated the Bible from Latin into French so that ordinary people could read it. We got to hand it to them because the Roman Catholics did that eventually.

There was a preserved Protestant church. One of the more amusing things was the hourglass on the pulpit. The docent said that when the preacher started his sermon, he would flip the hourglass. If the hourglass was not empty when he finished his sermon, it was too short.

After Louis XIV banned Protestantism, a lot of the locals left. A popular destination was Berlin, which was a small town at the time. It was small but its prince had big ideas and welcomed foreigners with skills. In a few years. The docent said that a third of Berlin was French-speaking Protestants.Read more