Driving the backroads in the South of France is a pleasure. Many of the roads are lined with huge plane trees. The countryside is either flat or gently rolling hills. That is, until you come to a gigantic mass of rock sticking up as if it had dropped out of the sky and landed there. That’s Les Baux de Provence.
The name, “Les Baux,” (pronounced “lay-bo”), is derived from a similar term from the old local language that meant “rocky outcropping.” Back in the middle ages, the flat top of this rock was the perfect place to build a castle. That’s exactly what the local royalty – the Princes of Les Baux – did. It worked out pretty well for ‘em for quite awhile.
Those Were the Days
This part of present-day France, (we’re just 12 miles from Arles), was the scene of a lot of bloody turf wars. When the fighting started, a castle was the only safe place to be. At the first sign of invaders approaching, villagers living around Les Baux headed for the safety of the castle.
When bad guys attacked the castle, soldiers manning the castle walls poured boiling oil on ‘em. Then they’d hoot and holler and call them names as the bad guys ran away. (Perhaps I’ve had a bit too much exposure to Monty Python?)
That’s the way it was for a long time. Wars were won and lost, the land for many miles around ultimately became part of the expanding French territory. Just to make sure the locals in Provence didn’t get any ideas, the French king had the castle at Les Baux destroyed. That was a waste of a perfectly good castle.
Destroying the castle might have been a good move by the king. Things in Provence quieted down considerably after that. Times changed, and people moved away. Les Baux was more or less deserted for years.
Red Rocks
Then one day in 1821, a geologist was poking around Les Baux. He found a funny-looking red rock that he’d never seen before – and this guy had seen quite a few rocks.
He took it home, analyzed it, and found that it contained, among other things, quite a bit of aluminum. Not only that, but the aluminum wasn’t difficult to extract from the rest of the junk in this particular type of rock. That was huge.
You’re probably thinking, “aluminum is all over the place, so what’s the big deal?” You’re right. Aluminum is all over the place. In fact, it’s the most abundant metal on earth.
But in the 19th century it was just about impossible to separate aluminum from whatever material it was stuck in. Its usefulness was known, but it was hard to get at. It was so valuable that in those days aluminum was considered to be more valuable than gold.
It’s said that when Napoleon III threw a fancy wing-ding, aluminum utensils were reserved for use by only the most important guests. Less important guests had to make do with gold utensils. I bet that was cause for some whining and carrying on at the far end of the table, eh?
Anyway, the red rocks the geologist found at Les Baux turned out to be an important discovery. And since they were found at Les Baux, the red rocks were given the name, “bauxite.”
Today, practically all aluminum comes from bauxite. Oddly enough, there isn’t much bauxite in France. These days, the biggest producer of aluminum is Australia, followed by China. But it’s mined in many other places, too.
These Days…
Les Baux had become a quiet place, but eventually people started moving back. These days it’s quite a tourist attraction. People who live here established a village on the side of the rock. The remains of the old castle are still up on top.
Up on the flat top of the rock, there are displays and replicas of things from the middle ages, when the castle was the only safe place to be. There’s a life-size model of a trebuchet – a kind of catapult that had a big counter-weight built in to give it extra oomph.
When an invading army massed for attack at the base of the rock, the guys on top of Les Baux used trebuchets to hurl whatever they could find down on the enemy.
Some of their favorite things to hurl were loads of rocks, giant boulders, sharpened sticks, or anything they could set on fire. They’d hurl just about anything to kill or at least annoy the heck out of as many attackers as possible.
These days, the only attackers are tourists. No more boiling oil being poured on the wall-scalers. No more balls of flame raining down on screaming masses of invading troops. The trebuchets are quiet. Les Baux isn’t as exciting as it used to be, but it’s still a pretty neat place to visit.
To be continued.
