Largentière

French commune
nomcommune=Largentière
région=Rhône-Alpes
département=Ardèche
arrondissement=Largentière
canton=
insee=07132
cp=07710
maire=Jean-Roger Durand
mandat=2008-2014
intercomm=
longitude=4.294167
latitude=44.543611
alt moy=
alt mini=147
alt maxi=420 m
hectares=722
km²=7.22
sans=2046
date-sans=1999
dens=|

Largentière ("L'Argentièira" in Occitan) is a commune and sub-prefecture of the Ardèche department in the Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France. It is located in the narrow valley of the Ligne River, approximately ten kilometers southwest of Aubenas.

It claims to be the smallest sub-prefecture in France. [( [http://www.ardeche.com/ville_village/largentiere.php Ardeche.com] )]

Its name, adopted in the thirteenth century in place of its more ancient name Segualeriae (Ségualières), refers to the silver mines in the area between the tenth and fifteenth centuries, when the silver-bearing lead ores in intrusive veins in the Largentières sandstone [Guoxiang Chi, Pierre Rheaume, and Kees Schrijver, "The Largentière sandstone Pb-Zn-Ag deposit, Ardeche, France; fluid inclusion and geologic evidence for an epigenetic origin", "Economic Geology"n92.1 (February 1997:108-113).] were exploited under the authority of the Counts of Toulouse and the Bishops of Viviers, whose title "barons de Largentière" was linked to the bishopric.

A busy industrial town in the nineteenth century, when it housed silk mills ["Encyclopaedia Britannica" 1911.] its principal industry is now tourism. Its only railroad station was rased in 1982, leaving the town accessible only by autoroute.

Besides its twelfth- to fifteenth-century château, the picturesque town conserves its thirteenth-century church, Nôtre-Dame-des-Pommiers, ["Our Lady of the apple orchards"; an inscription of 1490 records the gift of the stone pulpit in Occitan: "hieu Pierre Guarnier de Colens ay donat aquesta chadiera al convent".] its Renaissance hôtel de ville, its "palais de justice", and the "Tour Argentière" that collected the mines' produce for guarded transport.

Notes

ee also

*Communes of the Ardèche department

References

"Based on the article in the French Wikipedia."

External links

* [http://www.largentiere.net "Office de Tourisme" Web site]
* [http://www.ardeche.com/ville_village/largentiere.php Ardeche.com: Largentière]