in the Haute-Loire
department in south-central France
.
A former stronghold of the Gévaudan
, Saugues grew in the 12th century under the authority of the Bishops of Mende
and the Lords of Mercœur
. A fire in 1788 destroyed most of the town's historical centre.
It is in the mountains around and near Saugues that the famous beast of Gévaudan
is said to have originated.
Saugues is situated on the Via Podiensis
, a variant route of the Way of St. James
pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela
.
Pilgrims arrive in the town from Monistrol-d'Allier, and continue to the next communes of Chanaleilles, La Dômerie du Sauvage and La Chapelle Saint-Roch.
Saugues was the traditional meeting point for pilgrims coming from Auvergne, as the path coming from Brioude
made them able to avoid Le Puy-en-Velay
and instead wind though the Allier River
valley through Langeac, Chanteuges and Pourcheresse forest, connecting them to the secondary tracks that took pilgrims from Cantal
and Puy-de-Dôme
.
The Confrérie des Pénitents, or the Confraternity of Penitents, was founded in Saugues on 14 May 1652, with the permission of the Monseigneur
of Marcillac and under the leadership of five of the town's nobles; Lord of Courère Antoine de Langlade, Lord of Valletta Jacques de Langlade, both canons
of the local collegiate church
of Saint Médard, the Royal Notary Jacques de Langlade, the bourgeois Benoît Paparic, and the apothecary
Antoine Pichot.
I sit there and say, 'Please don't call me up, I am too shy.' But once I get up there, I take control of myself. Being onstage is magic. There's nothing like it. You feel the energy of everybody who's out there. You feel it all over your body. When the lights hit you, it's all over, I swear it is.
Snakes are very misunderstood. Snakes, I suggest, may be the oldest victims of bad press.
I have begun to see that even my father's harshness was a kind of love. An imperfect love, to be sure, but love nonetheless. He pushed me because he loved me, because he wanted no man to ever look down at his offspring. Now with time, rather than bitterness I feel blessing.… My initial fury has slowly given way to forgiveness.
I put a lot of mannequins in my room in the past, and I still have mannequins in my room, because I used to be very lonely, painfully lonely. You have no idea. I used to walk the streets looking for people to talk to. I'm talking about the height of one's career…. I would walk up to them, strangers, and say, "will you be my friend?" They'd go, "my god, Michael Jackson!" and that's not what I wanted.
The record companies really do conspire against the artists. They steal. They cheat. They do whatever they can, especially the black artists.… Sony's Tommy Mottola is the president of the record division. He is mean. He is a racist, and he's very, very, very devilish.