Blanche de Lévis against massacres
And also
The tops
Lourmarin’s wolves
Raised on medieval foundations, the castle was built by Foulques d’Agoult in 1495.
In 1526, Louis d’Agoult extended it with an austere main building flanked by a round tower, later altered by d’Agoult’s widow, Blanche de Lévis. François d'Agoult, king François I’s page boy, laid out gardens and fit out big chimneys in the apartments.
Look! The gargoyles look like loups colletés, “wolves with a collar”: d’Agoult family’s emblem!
Blanche against the slaughters
Blanche de Lévis became the mortal enemy of the bloodthirsty baron d’Oppède.
In 1545, he launched a big slaughter in Lubéron: massacre of Vaudois, those “heretics”… in fact, honest peasants who advocated poverty, the reading of saint texts and rejection of religious authorities power.
Blanche could tell you, there were lots of Vaudois in Lourmarin…
The widow stood up for those ones, and even testified during the baron’s trial, when he had to answer several charges of crimes and horrible slaughters, in 1551.
Just imagine her, in front of all those men: frail little lady with a pale face, mourning ghost dressed in black, whose voice raised against the ignominy…