A model of Protestant architecture: the temple

This is the only temple to have withstood the destruction ordered by King Louis XIV after revoking the Edict of Nantes (which had made Protestantism an officially tolerated religion in France). The assassination of the Abbot du Chayla in Le Pont-de-Montvert on 25 July 1702 triggered the Camisard War. The first important action of a group of insurgents occurred in Le Collet on 8 September, during a meeting in the temple. 1703 was also the year when almost all villages in the Cévennes were reduced to ashes by the King’s troops as a reprisal. The parish of Le Collet was partially burnt down on 6, 7 and 8 December 1703. The “Wilderness period” (so called because Protestants had to worship in secret, often in the mountains) lasted from this violence until the French Revolution.