Château de Luc

[1] The castle, as a strategic point between the two provinces of Gévaudan and Vivarais, guarded a link to the south of France of the Auvergne frequently used by pilgrims of Saint Gilles, also known as the Regordane Way, on which it was a toll-gate.

In 1878, local parishioners renovated the keep into a chapel, installing a shrine to the Virgin Mary.

In the same year, the English writer Robert Louis Stevenson passed through on his travel-adventure, as he recorded in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes: ... [the hill] came to a point in the ruins of the castle of Luc, which pricked up impudently from below my feet, carrying on a pinnacle a tall white statue of Our Lady, which, I heard with interest, weighed fifty quintals, and was to be dedicated on the 6th of October ... Luc itself was a straggling double file of houses wedged between hill and river.

It had no beauty, nor was there any notable feature, save the old castle overhead with its fifty quintals of brand-new Madonna.

[2]It remains in ruins today and attracts hikers who re-trace Stevenson's route on the GR 70.