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Moulin de Corps (Corps Mill) connects to a stone bridge that spans the Dourbie River in a gorge deep within the Grand Causses Regional Nature Park of southern France. Built by a French lord in the 14th century, the mill originally produced flour. But by the 20th century it had been converted to the private residence we see in today's picture. The Grand Causses Regional Nature Park is home to hundreds of mills like this one, examples of a cultural heritage that can still be found throughout the Mediterranean agro-pastoral landscape.

The Dourbie is a 72 km (45 mi) long river in southern France. It is a left tributary of the Tarn. Its source is north of Le Vigan, in the Cévennes. It flows generally west through the following departments and towns:

Gard: Dourbies Aveyron: Saint-Jean-du-Bruel, Nant The Dourbie flows into the Tarn at Millau.

The Corp mill, known as Moulin du Corp in 1840, is located on the right bank of the Dourbie, at the foot of the Causse Noir, about 1.5 km from the village of La Roque-Sainte-Marguerite, on the right bank of the Dourbie.

The name of Corp derived from Corbières, root Kor-b which would have telescoped with corvus would mean: crow, and by extension, place where crows gather. Crow colonies like rocky heights, and should we add rivers. I was able to note during previous research other equivalent names such as: the river of Corps in the Aube (10,440), Corps, chief town of canton in the Isère (38) . According to Jacques Astor, the Corp mill seems to owe its name to a large rock. Another possible explanation and in my view more likely: the name would come from Gourg: gourc (Gourgá: to form a chasm, a small chasm, speaking of water, a stream, etc. (Dictionnaire Aimé Vayssier, p.303 ,1879)).

Mentioned for the first time in 1308 " Ricard de Montméjean pays homage to the viscount of Creissels from a shore called Corp ", this mill was used for centuries to grind grain to make flour for all the peasants of the Causse Noir and the Causse du Larzac which descended to get there by mule tracks through the mountain. The lords of Montméjean demanded that the peasants of their mandate on which Saint-André depended went to grind in Corp where they perceived a duty of banality.

In 1851, the mill was equipped with two pairs of millstones, and worked 360 hectoliters of wheat per year. To access from one bank to the other, an old bridge from the 9th century spans the Dourbie, its construction is entirely in tuff and very solid. It leans against the mountain on the Larzac side and on tuff rocks on the mill side.

Corp's bridge has withstood the greatest floods which have destroyed or considerably damaged its brothers. 1454, 1745, 1792, 1875, 1900, 1920, 1933, 1963, 1982 are the dates of the greatest floods. Only the 1910 flood washed away the causeway of the mill. This very particular vertical rake roadway. Perhaps it was a device used at the time when floating logs were practiced, the teeth of the rake being used to retain the wood upstream of the roadway? Today, the teeth have disappeared, and the pavement, which was straight in profile, now has an oblique profile.

In 1963, the waves passed one meter above the bridge. The latter was still dented by the large trees and subsequently arranged as best as possible.

For at least five centuries, one and the same family served as miller from generation to generation. This is the André family.

The mill of Corp, Pierre André miller of the mill of Corp for his dwelling house which contains for the ground ten ducks four sides, with three separate members, in which are built two mills, one of the two mills to grind wheat is located in the river Dourbie and the other two millstones on the fountain that descends from the mountain of Montméjean, called Lou Valat de la Fon. The first of which contains nine canes, the second seven four-sided canes for the ground. More for the same tenement a beating mill of a mass only, containing for the ground including. A small cazal, ten canes another member under a vaulted rock, said rock serving as a cellar, oven and bakery containing twenty four-sided canes all and facing the east with the Dourbie river, from the west and north lands of Etienne Malié de Montméjean and with lands of the said André. Delivered the whole two pounds nine sols eight deniers. Know the two millstones which are on the Dourbie river, a pound 19 sols, the two from the stream and the beating mill 10 sols 8 deniers.

March 6, 1408 : Noble Albert de Montméjan yawns again at Guilhaume André Meunier, land near the Corp mill in which there is a balm that the said Montméjan can take to lock up his bestial there, if he needs it. de Brunas…the said André could have an oven built in the said area to bake bread for the service of his household (Notes Historiques Millavoises, Jules Artières, Messager de Millau, September 17, 1906).

The source of the Corp mill has been exploited by the André family since at least 1406. It dried up for the first time in 1525.

In " Les Cévennes ", his first volume on the region (Paris, Delagrave, 1889, p.192), EAMartel gives some historical details on the cave in which he could not enter because of the height of the waters. He reports that the source dried up twice during this long period: in 1525 and 1870. Error! for the second date. The spring dried up for the second time in 1610! In the 16th century, in 1525, its shutdown lasted twenty-five years. The farmer of the mill sued the Sire de Montméjean, its owner, to obtain either the freedom from any rental fee, or the construction of a new mill (which was granted to him much later) on the Dourbie itself.

During the trial, experts, commissioned to investigate whether the disappearance of the water was not attributable to a diversion of the source committed by the miller, entered the cave and walked there for three hours; they were stopped, says the report, by a large lake which held back a frail barrage of branches and dead brushwood; seized with fear, fearing a debacle which would have drowned them underground, they hurried back to the orifice. We tried to have communication of this curious document of speleological exploration in the XVIth century, it unfortunately seems to have disappeared.

Louis Balsan indicates: “ You can access the cave at any time by a side passage that opens to the ceiling of the only room, but then a rope ladder is necessary to reach its floor. The underground stream then rises for a few tens of meters to the classic wetting vault. Behind it the mystery remains whole: modern speleologists have not had the good fortune to redo the walk of the experts of the 16th century ” (Grottes et abîmes des grands Causses, 1950).

In Corp, the original mill was at the exit of the Saint-Christophe source. In 1610, it suddenly dried up for the second time. After a long trial between the inhabitants of the plateau, especially Vessac and the Andrés, the lord granted the former permission to take their wheat to the mills of their choice and the latter the possibility of building a new mill on the Dourbie.

On December 15, 1614, this second mill is seriously mentioned in an act long preserved at the Moulin de Corp: “Made by Jean de Granger, lord of Montméjean in favor of Bernard and Jean André father and son of the place of Roque Sainte Marguerite du Moulin de Corp: Which mill for three or four years could not have drawn because the water of the latter who comes from a fountain would have been lost, from which the said lord would have to expect great prejudice from the fact that he had to grind elsewhere and thereby lose the right to grind to which he is entitled and which would cause him double loss at this cause. The said lord of his own free will... yawns... to Bernard and Jean André father and son of the place of La Roque Sainte Marguerite, the place and the space to build a mill or mills on the river of Dourbie and the ditch of St Christofoul up to the mill of the said André…on the entries of 40 pounds ts and the annual tax with direct 9 setiers wheat.(Henry Forgue, deceased royal notary, sent to the applicants by Fulcrand Forgue, Archives Moulin de Corp).

From 1930, the Chassan family took over the mill. The latter ceased his activity with the André family. The activity remained however during the war of 1940, but in an artisanal way, one made grind to render service to the neighbors, as testifies some Roger Baumel (1913-2004):

“ Before the war of 1940, the mill of Corp functioned well, it worked all the year although it did not make great yields. The inhabitants made their own breads and needed flour. For this, they had to go and grind their grain. Some ox carts came down from Lanuéjols, from Mourgues to go to Corp.When we could, we went down with the horse, with six hectoliters or seven, 400 or 500 kilos that a horse could carry, we left it to the miller for 2 or 3 days, and at the end of these 2 or 3 days, we went down another trip, we rode the one we had left, so as not to wait because if there was someone in front of you, when you brought them we could wait until midnight! It was some time before the Second World War that the mill closed for good. (Oral interview, February 2003).

For Miss Eliane Chassan , current owner, “ this place is a dream and magical place. It is eternal, but that being so, for it to last, it is necessary to find the financial means to revive the old turbine, or to install a new, more modern one in order to derive some economic and energy benefits from it, allowing the maintenance of this magnificent mill ” (oral interview, November 2011).