The Rock-Chalais

Geography

the Rock-Chalais is located on the Dronne. The Méridien of Greenwich crosses the commune, in the west of the downtown area.

With nearly 90 km ², it is the commune the most extended from the Dordogne.

It is also the commune more in the west of the Dordogne (with Saint-Michel-of-River).

History

At the first century before J-C the legions of César invade the Périgord covered at the time by the immense forest, the Sylva Edobola quoted in the “Comments” of César; they open the first transportation routes.
Back to the 7th century the Sarrazin S coming from the South go by plundering it the valley of the Dronne; Charles Martel and the duke of Aquitaine stops the Moors with Poitiers into 732; the frank prince wants to then seize Aquitaine. A long war follows which will see the death of Waïfre, duke of Aquitaine, and the fastening of the province to the royal field. La Motte of Vaudu, on the commune of Saint-Michel-L' Locks, would be, if one believes a solid of it captions, the tomb of the Duke of Waïfre, defender of freedoms of Aquitaine at the 8th century.

With the Middle Ages: a borough at the border of three provinces

The history of the modest borough of the Rock , some houses around a castle on a rocky outcrop dominating the Drone, remains dumb until the 13th century. The Châtellenie depends then on that more important of Chalais, stronghold of the Talleyrand; it belonged to three provinces, Périgord, the Angoumois and the Saintonge - two thirds of the borough extended in Périgord but the manor house was in territory saintongeais! The Juridiction of the lord covered seven parishes (Saint-Michel-of-River, Léparon, Bost, Saint-Aigulin, Labarde, Boscamnant and Saint-Sicaire).
In 1407 the English occupy the castle which is taken again in 1451 by the king of France Charles VII; François de Talleyrand is then lord of Chalais and the Rock.
The châtellenie will be detached from that of Chalais at the 15th century; the castle of the Rock is a place of importance when Isabeau de Talleyrand marries in 1470 Jeannot De Lanes , Viscount of Belhade, in the Moors. Is this at that time that one added “Chalais” in the name of the seigniory of the Rock?

Wars of religion and the Protestant influence

At the 16th century the De Lanes , Barons of the Rock-Chalais, enter the clan of the Réforme. Jean De Lanes must take refuge in Geneva, city of the Calvinisme, where he dies; his/her son Guy-Odet De Lanes (1545-1605) made castle a fortified town of the Protestantism, a place of resistance that Blaise de Monluc, lieutenant general of the king in Guyenne, will reduce by taking the village and by setting fire to the manor house in 1568, at the time of the third wars of religion; Monluc there installs a garrison, massacres the Protestant troops and makes imprison at the height of Hâ of Bordeaux Guy-Odet De Lanes which will save its head against an enormous poured ransom with Monluc. In 1574 Calvinistes drive out castle the troops of Monluc.
In 1587, at the time of the Battle of Coutras opposing the troops of Huguenots of Henri de Navarre to the catholic soldiers of the Duke of Merry and Trémouille, the Rock-Chalais will be successively occupied by the two adversaries, the final victory returning to the King de Navarre.
The son of Guy-Odet, Charles De Lanes (about 1592-1651) titrates Marquis Rock-Chalais and becomes baron of important the châtellenie of Cubzaguais. A later alliance of the descendants at the 17th century with the the Tower of the Pine, Counts de Paulin, allots the marquisat Rock-Chalais to this owner family of the castle of Bouilh close to Saint-Andrew de Cubzac.
Louis XIII cabin with the castle in 1615 at the time of its voyage to Bordeaux to marry there Anne of Austria, but the lords of the Rock-Chalais do not live any more the manor house; the buildings are used as quarterings with the small garrisons which pass regularly to maintain the order at the borders of the three provinces, the Angoumois, Saintonge and Périgord.
Old acts attest an important economic activity around the Rock-Chalais with the S: a factory of tapestries and a mill with paper whose production was important; it functioned in lower part of the castle, on the current site of the Island Faydeau.
Active hearth of the Calvinism, the Rock-Chalais will undergo during two centuries the pressures of the royal authority to return to orthodoxy Roman Catholique. The Protestants meet in secrecy initially with Champion, close of Vêque, then with the desert of Jarnicot, close to Parcoul.
After a relative religious peace until 1755, the Parlement of Bordeaux then begins persecutions on the Protestant community: continuations, banishments, judgments with the galères, prohibition to follow its occupation… the appeasing came only about 1780.
Jean Of the Tower of the Pine abjures Protestantism; his/her son Jean-Frederic (1727 - 1794), which will be Minister for the War of Louis XVI before the night of August 4th, and guillotine in 1794, undertakes in 1759 the demolition of the castle of the Rock-Chalais, taking into account the abandonment, of the dilapidation, the labor costs to be carried out… and the debt of the lieutenant-general. With the Abolition of the Feudality, he was thus “the last marquis of the Rock”. The son of the precedent, Séraphin Of the Tower Of the Pine-Gouvernet (1757 - 1837) made sell all that remains goods of the marquisat: grounds, buildings, mill, and in particular the “terrace of the castle” on which it yields in 1806 to the municipality the ground to build the first church of the Rock there. The crumbling of the inheritance peerage-book will last until in the An X.

The Rock-Chalais with the Revolution

The day before the Revolution the situation of the Rock-Chalais and its châtellenie is always that of a large borough at the border between two provinces, Guyenne/Gascogne and Angoumois /Saintonge, two governments military, those of Bordeaux and La Rochelle, two Elections, those of Saintes and Périgueux, two évêchés, and with horse on three General information.

The revolutionary decree of January 26th, 1790 creates, in the district of Ribérac, the canton of the Rock-Chalais alias canton of Meeting of Drone including/understanding the parishes of Saint-Michel-the-Cluses, Léparon, Saint-Sicaire, Puymangou and Bost. Two communes form part in 1791 of it: small Saint-Aigulin in the north (commune known as of the Friend of the Laws ) which went until Balan and Rabouin. In the south the territory of the other commune took again the old parish of Saint-Michel-of-River.

The 6 Nivôse An III (December 26th, 1794) the two communes are joined together under the name of the Rock-Chalais ; the first mayor is Jean-Pierre Trigant-Gautier the 27 Floréal An XII (May 1804). In July 1808 the municipal council asks for the name change while proposing… The Rock Napoleon.
Under the Concordat the Rock-Chalais becomes parish; a subscription allows the construction of the first church out of wooden dedicated to… holy Napoleon, on the site of the old castle (it becomes ND of the Assomption in 1815). It will be replaced in 1868 by the current church, of style neogothic, and devoted on September 7th, 1872 by the Bishop of Périgueux.

It is at the end of the 19th century that the small town of the Rock-Chalais truly started to develop

The South of the territory becomes in December 1888 the commune of Saint-Michel-of-River.
During the Great War of 1914 - 1918 a provisional hospital is installed in the buildings of the Institution Jeanne-with Arc.
The first January 1973 a fusion with association of Communes gathers the Rock-Chalais, Saint-Michel-of-River and Saint-Michel-the Lock-and-Léparon; the commune thus formed takes to the name of the Rock-of-Saint-Michel , but this toponym is abandoned a few months later, replaced by “the Rock - Chalais” .
To the 20th century the installation of a small industry of shoes, then in 1966 of a factory of pumps and industrial valves and fittings become in 1994 French subsidiary company of an important German industry group contributed to create nonagricultural jobs.

Second half of the century saw the construction of communal sports equipment (stage, swimming pool, tennis, halls sports) and cultural (village hall, cinema, library, tourist bureau); finally the maintenance of active small shops and the opening of modern supermarkets, all this largely contributed to avoid with the Rock-Chalais knowing the turning into a desert of the majority of the rural villages.

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