Pérouges, medieval city

The city is classified among the most beautiful Villages of France and  one of the tourist places of the department. This is an old city of tisserands, whose double enclosure of ramparts could be restored. The structure intern is typical of l' time of the Middle Ages with residences dating XV and XVI centuries, but also of the streets out of rollers and a strengthened church.

The mediaeval city of Pérouges is encircled by green fields which is hide the city's ramparts. Its small cobblestoned lanes, with its central waterspout, its old well, its squirrel-type winepress, its fortress church, its picturesque houses, its stores with stalls and evocative signs ; its weaver's staff and its bookbinder, will take you to the Middle Ages.

This is the "Porte d'en Haut", through which visitors enter Pérouges. The high wall, reinforced at the corners with free stones, is made of boulders. It has a broken arch inside and is an integral part of the church. In the XVth century, "Les Pérougiens", the inhabitants of Pérouges, ploughmen, weavers, butchers, ironworkers, turned their church into a real fortress with walls dotted with loopholes. The church tower allows access to the covered way. Through the arch of this door, the visitors can see the "Maison Vernay" with its double mullion window on the first floor and its surbased arches on the ground floor.

The second door of Pérouges was almost totally destroyed during the 1468 siege. On the pediment, the following inscription can be reads :

"Perogia Perogiarum. Urbs imprenabilis.
Coquinati Delphinati Voluront prehendere illam
Ast non potuerunt
Attamen importaverunt portas, gonos, cum serris et degringolaverunt cum illis.
Biabolus importat illos!."

We can be translated by :

"Perouges of the Perougians,impregnable town,
the Dauphiné scoundrels tried to take her
but could not do so.
However, they took the doors,the hinges and the locks and fell with them.
Let the Devil take them!"

The "Place of Tilleul" is one of the best-preserved elements of the "cité", with at the centre, the tree of freedom dating back to the XIXth century.

It is situated at the end of the "Rue des Princes", near the "Ostellerie", a house dating from the XIIIth century (a listed history monument), and opposite there is the museum which shelters some looms, parchments, arms, tools, olds pieces of furniture, crockery, statues,...

Its Gothic gallery would often be chosen by the local drapen merchants as trading place.

In the "Rue des Contreforts", in the third house on the right , is kept the last "éccureil " type winepress of the village.

Located at the entrance of the village, next to the main door ("La Porte d'en Haut) there stands "The Fortress Church". It is in a remarkable condition of preservation, this building of the XVth century is a listed history monument. It was built before the siege of 1468 and destroyed by the residents of Pérouges themselves, in order to consolidate and rebuild their ramparts. Rebuild in 1469, it was finished 10 years later. During the revolution, vandals broke the statue of "Sainte Madeleine" which was situated in the Church.

The visitors can still find some frescoes on columns, some wood statues of the XIVth century (Saint Georges, Notre Dame de Gonfalon), chapels, tombs. On this picture can be seen on the second column on left and the fourth on right traces from the original frescoes.