An ancient monument very well known by the Poitevins, La Pierre Levée situated at 1 rue du Dolmen is very anchored in the local culture.
An ancient monument very well known by the Poitevins, La Pierre Levée situated at 1 rue du Dolmen is very anchored in the local culture.
In a small square in the Dunes district of Poitiers, stands a dolmen dating from the Neolithic period.
It was located not far from the Roman road Lemonum (Poitiers) – Avaricum (Bourges) – Lugdunum (Lyon).
6 m long and 3 m wide, the inclined stone rests on 9 pillars. On its upper side, there is a sculpture in the shape of two axes.
Rabelais refers to it in the chapter of the Facts of the noble Pantagruel in his youth and Saint Radegonde would have carried the enormous block of stone on her head to make a table of it but the devil would have stolen one of the pillars from where its inclination.
Finally, the Pierre levée is a place of initiation of the Bitards, a student brotherhood of the University of Poitiers.
Parodying everyone from classic authors to his own contemporaries, the dazzling and exuberant stories of Rabelais expose human follies with mischievous and often obscene humor. Gargantua depicts a young giant who becomes a cultured Christian knight. Pantagruel portrays Gargantua’s bookish son who becomes a Renaissance Socrates, divinely guided by wisdom and by his idiotic, self-loving companion, Panurge.
