Escaliers du Roy

This staircase, known as the "royal staircase", owes its fame to a famous legend dating back to 1650, featuring the young King Louis XIV, a fruit tree and a monk. Indeed, the young king Louis XIV had come to Bourg to escape the troubles of the Fronde in Bordeaux. Legend has it that while strolling through a garden in Bourg, he wanted to pick a fig. The fig was out of reach for the twelve-year-old king. A monk came to his aid and lifted him off the ground. However, a guard saw the scene and locked the monk up for the crime of lèse Majesté, i.e. having touched the king. Fortunately, Queen Mother Anne of Austria pardoned the monk. In memory of this event, the inhabitants planted many fig trees throughout the town, inspiring the 20th-century Bourg confectioner to create the village's emblematic confection, the Figue de Bourg.