From this now vanished village, only a chapel dedicated to Saint Martin from the 13th century and a more recent castle, four centuries old, remain. Both buildings were restored at the end of the 20th century.
The fiefdom was the appanage of the d’Aillaud family. Méouilles is mentioned in records dating back to 1278. At that time, the parish depended on Senez. We are in the 13th century, and cities are gradually opening up and expanding beyond their ancient walls. Méouilles, situated on its well-defended promontory, no longer fears ravages and pillages.
A landslide destroyed most of the dwellings, prompting a crossing of the Verdon to establish a new village, more accessible and better positioned on the routes to Digne, Castellane, and the Verdon Valley joining the Durance. Méouilles was dying, soon deserted and even forgotten. In the mid-19th century, Mr. Philips, a native of Saint André les Alpes, was a decorator in Toulon.
Deeply religious, he did not forget his village. He knew its history including the fate of Méouilles, its chapel, and its castle. He restored both the chapel of Saint Martin, with its cemetery where the deceased still rest today in consecrated ground, and the castle, more of a lordly residence.
Mr. Philips endowed this promontory on the Verdon with two stone statues from the region of Arles. Saint Peter and Saint Paul, who hardly appreciated one another, find themselves together, dominating from a ridge the places below.
It was on July 29, 1891, that they were both installed on their pedestals and have since been the guardians of the land and the lake of Castillon. The hiker, the lover of lavender scents, absolute silence, and untouched nature, cannot help but marvel at this panorama.
The green waters of the lake, mountains ranging from blue to mauve, a clear and cloudless sky, the bell tower of Saint André ringing the hours, one dozes off forgetting time in this paradise, far from the noise and foolish throbbing of modern life.
Méouilles, an invitation to discover life, the real one, far and even very far from this artificial and poetry-less world. Narcissus has no place here, and that’s fortunate.
Thierry Jan
