These medieval city walls finally came down in 1629 after the Edict of Alès which, despite allowing some concessions for Huguenots, insisted on the pulling down of fortifications at perceived 'strongholds'.

Florac was visited by a young Robert Louis Stevenson and features as a chapter in his droll Victorian bestseller Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879).

The Protestant church is at the end of the Esplanade, beneath Place de Souvenir (Remembrance Square).

In 2011 there was a major restoration project under local architect Francois Coulomb, with the result that the interior today provides a stunning example of the ideals of the first builders.

The overall shape is neatly echoed in a modest portico of two Roman Tuscan columns, an entablature bearing the name and a simple unadorned pediment.

There is a sense of civic virtue and pride in the colonnaded balconies which are a deliberate invocation of public space in Roman architecture.

A neo-classical temple, the deliberately imposing west facade has a high Roman Doric portico, with unfluted columns, unrendered stone and an unadorned entablature and pediment, contrasting with the modest wooden doors, stained a very dark brown.

There are two fonts: one is neoclassical black and grey marble; the second looks more like polished limestone and is standing incongruously on what looks like the base to a no-longer-existing column, very probably belonging to the former structure.