Overlooking the city from a height of fifty metres on le Rocher (the Rock) sits a fortress of Carolingian origin belonging to the barons of Meyrueis, the youngest branch of the Anduze family.

Meyrueis is also the seat of local viguerie (administrative court) representing the Viscount of Nîmes over a territory extending from the Causse Méjean to the upper valley of the Hérault river.

Three-yearly fairs, including that of St Michael (Saint-Michel), lasting ten days until the end of September, and its weekly market attested from 1033, attract vendors and buyers from the three provinces.

These crowds justify the existence of many hostels, inns and pubs (including Maison Portalier) and the presence of a tiny Jewish quarter (the Judarié).

The important fair of St Michael also marks the period for local credit payments, hiring shepherds and other workers, and concluding farm contracts.

[7] Despite the turmoil of the late Middle Ages (crusade against the Cathars, the Hundred Years' War, plagues and famines,...) Meyrueis continues to grow.

The office of "viguier" (governor of the castle and court judge) is now owned by the family Pagès de Pourcares (who also hold the barony of Roquedols).

[8] Some years later, Jean Gely of Costelongue, Lieutenant of the Royal Viguier, collects all the official titles and acts of the barony of Meyrueis and transcribes them in a register, the Thalamus (1620).

With the revolt of the Protestant cities of western and southern France against the young King Louis XIII, the castle loses his last seat in May 1628.

Around 1655, Anthyme Denis Cohon, Bishop of Nîmes in charge of the parish of Meyrueis, entrusts a Jesuit community with the restoration of Catholic worship.

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, recognized locally by the erection of a cross "de la Contre-Réforme", sees the destruction of the first Protestant church that had been built around 1580.

The Joly de Morey house recalls the history of this distinguished Protestant family after a dragoons' captain married the housemaid, Judith Vallat Lisside.

[11] The same year, Meyrueis witnesses the execution of Father Geraud Arnal, refractory priest of Saint-Pierre-des-Tripiers and one of the introducers of the steamboat in France (1781) and inventor of a steam mill (Nîmes, 1783).

Antoine Sylvestre Bragouse de Saint-Sauveur, born in a newly converted family, takes refuge in his hometown during the revolutionary events and becomes interim parish priest (1794).

The Thomassy family, which has built its fortune on the trading of wool and silk and the exploitation of its large agricultural estates (Causses, Montpellier), is one of the most wealthy and influential in the country.

However, after 1880, geographic isolation, compounded by the lack of modern means of transportation (roads and railways) and the beginning of the exodus to big cities, endangers this dynamism.

Under the leadership of Edward Alfred Martel, explorer of the region and the father of modern speleology and Club Cévenol, is created in 1893 the Syndicat d'Initiatives, forerunner of today's tourist office.

The wars of the 20th century are remembered at Meyrueis: a memorial by sculptor Auguste Verdier (Millau), built jointly with Gatuzières (1920), located in Place Jean-Séquier, named after a resistance fighter who died while being deportated; a plaque on the house of Claude Nogues, a member of the Maquis Bir Hakeim who fell under German bullets.

Several workshops, companies, nursing care buildings (3rd age, disabled) and two colleges (public and private schools) provide a pool of jobs that allow the people of Meyrueis to expect a bright future.

Mentioned for the first time in 1402, the arms of Meyrueis are confirmed by a certificate of authentication signed by Charles d'Hozier, general keeper of the Armorial of France in September 1697.

Seat of a viguerie, which extended from the Causse Méjean to the upper valley of the Hérault River, the castle belonged to the barons of Meyrueis, the youngest branch of the Anduze family, as early as the 10th century.

The Méjeane gate (middle) and portal Prieirou (priory) always provide access to the medieval district, called "La Ville", and contains remains of the Jewish Quarter (Judarié), of the first Protestant church (16th century) and the Maison des Consuls on the small square named the "Planet".

[15] His son Herail Pagès joined the Protestant troops in 1560, first with Francis of Airebaudouze, Baron d'Anduze, then with Captain Matthew Merle after the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572.

[16] According to oral tradition, Herail Pagès and his son Jean greeted the king several times in their castle, and Maximilien de Bethune, better known as Sully.

In 1617, Baron Porcarès had among his "noble" possessions: "a castle called Roquedols, with its towers and moats, field and other lands, mills to grind wheat with their lock, mulching, threshing grain, gardens, oven, canabière (hemp), poultry farm, ...." In 1726, Marguerite d'Albignac possesses at "the village of Rocadols" a castle with four towers, a dovecote, gristmill and sawmill, pines, meadows, and other wood and ploughable lands, ...

During the French Revolution, they saved the castle from public sale as national property by removing the roofing of the corner towers, considered as an aristocratic symbol.

The priory of Saint- Martin des Ayres, near the Jonte, 1 km northeast of the city is transformed into a castle in the 16th century by the Galtier family.

The Church of St. Peter was built in 1663 by the Jesuit order at the request of Cohon, bishop of Nîmes, which sought to restore the Catholic faith in Meyrueis.

A high bell tower, decked in 1848 by a disproportionate pyramidal slate spire replacing a roof terrace with a balustrade, is attached to the south of the building.

As early as 1797, the Protestant community of Meyrueis started erecting a temple at a place called "The Cooler", on a piece of land that was used since the 16th century as a cemetery to the Huguenots.