La Brèche au Diable (The devil's gap)
the site and made it a favourite spot for people throughout history. Cut out of three sides by sheers,
the promontory constituted an easy keep to defend during insecure times.
Legend and history
According to legend, the Devil himself shaped this great site.Indeed, Saint Quentin retired there to live his isolated life. He wanted to help the people in their continuing struggle against the capricious Laizon River. To open a passage to the water of the small stream, he made a pact with the devil.
If the Devil passed a test, after having opened a break into the rock, he would be the master of his soul.
Finally the hermit asked the devil to wash a fleece in the small stream, but it was a fleece of goat and the evil couldn’t give him the whiteness of the lamb.
This permitted Saint Quentin to save his soul without renouncing his words.
A little history
The oldest remains date back to the Paleolithic age, that means about 200 000 a. J. C..
A little shelter under a rock was identified on the southern slope of the plateau in 1882.
Some rare biface were also discovered on the plateau during the searching led by M. B. Edeine in 1954.
These are the testimonies of the oldest frequentation of the site.
During the recent prehistory, about 3500 to 4000 years a. J. C., the agricultural people of the Neolithic age followed spurs.
The first group identified to have something in common with the group of Cerny, he himself comes from the population movement of the Danubians.
For the first time people took profit from natural fortifications and erected a first rampart of the soil to compensate the absence of steeps towards the East.
3000 years BC, the site was occupied by its most advanced civilization, which was based upon hunting. Many ceramic and lithic creations from this time period have been excavated.
This era also witnessed the extraction of silex in the plain.