"There are some beautiful forges among the Pétrocoriens": metallurgy enthusiasts gathered in this Dordogne village all weekend

The 12th edition of the Etouars Forges and Metallurgy Festival continues on Sunday, July 27. Meet these cast iron and iron enthusiasts

Storms and coal mining don't rhyme. Since the beginning of the week, a charcoal kiln has been glowing red day and night in a pretty orchard on the hillsides of Étouars, at the very top of the Périgord Vert (Dordogne). "And every evening, around 5 p.m., we get a thunderstorm," grumbles a former charcoal burner from Switzerland. But the fire held firm, and this Saturday, July 26, he was raking away the coal made from beech, oak, and hornbeam wood.

This demonstration of a craft dating back to the dawn of time is one of the many activities taking place at the 12th edition of the Étouars Forge and Metallurgy Festival (see below). Throughout the weekend, more than 1,500 people will be able to learn all about this craft, whose hammer blows have echoed for centuries in this part of the Dordogne.

Why here? "Because there is ore, wood and rivers," Gilbert Faurie, co-president of the 3F-3M association that is organizing the event , replies bluntly. This land was even renowned in antiquity, he smiles, referring to Strabo who, "under the dictation of Julius Caesar, wrote that the Petrocorians were the best metallurgists in the empire." The quote is a bit embellished since the great geographer simply said, in his book IV, that "there are fine forges among the Petrocorians."

The fact remains that this industry is well documented in the region, both in the Middle Ages with blast furnaces and a little later with the development of blast furnaces. These two methods of working metal are presented life-size at the festival. This includes the blast furnace that was lit on Saturday, July 26, to cast a cannon this Sunday.

The object owes nothing to chance since it was from the 17th century, with the development of the military fleet driven by Colbert, that cannons began to be manufactured in Dordogne. It then went to the shipowners of Charente-Maritime via the famous barrel and cannon route .

But by the 19th century, all that had declined. All that remained of this industry was cutlery, which was also in decline. It took a group of enthusiasts, about thirty years ago, to start making blast furnaces. "It took off," says Gilbert Faurie. "Around 2001 or 2002, they started making a blast furnace. It brought together people interested in foundry, metallurgy, and forging. At the same time, the Knife Festival was developing in Nontron."

Today, an entire ecosystem has taken shape in the village of 165 inhabitants. This is evidenced by the Iron and Forge Space, built in a former barn near the blast furnace. Cigarette in hand, Serge Roubinet grinds a fan connected to the crucible in which a mixture of coal and coke glows. With his head in the yellowish, then black, smoke, he shoves a piece of iron into the blaze. "It's the tooth of a cultivator," he says. He works with scrap metal found here and there: shock absorber springs, truck leaf springs, and helicopter rotor clutches: "They all have different properties."

He takes out his red-hot piece of metal and bangs it on his anvil. "I learned that from my grandfather, who was a wheelwright," he says. "He worked with wood and metal. And then I did advanced training courses, here or with the knife makers of Nontron." Moreover, this retired plasterer-tiler from Hautefort will be at the 29th Knife Festival, the weekend of August 2 and 3. He will be showcasing the knives he makes.