Moulin d'Alphonse Daudet, Historic windmill in Fontvieille, France.
Moulin d'Alphonse Daudet is a cylindrical windmill of rough light-coloured stone with darker streaks, 5.40 m in diameter and 5.78 m high, with 1.20 m thick walls. Its conical roof of vertical wooden slats carries four wooden lattice blades with linen sails from Arles, and a wooden ladder leans against the tower. A small square opening sits near the top, a larger rectangular one below.
Built in 1814, the mill ground grain for more than a century, including during World War I, when it supplied the armies. In 1935 the association Les Amis d'Alphonse Daudet undertook its restoration to turn it into a museum devoted to the writer. It has been classified as a monument historique since 6 March 1931.
The mill is nicknamed after Alphonse Daudet, who stayed at the Château de Montauban nearby and often visited the village mills for inspiration while writing the Lettres de mon moulin. He never owned or lived in it, though he considered buying it. In 1935 the association Les Amis d'Alphonse Daudet restored the building as a museum devoted to the writer.
The mill is a private property that reopened to visitors in 2016 after the owner ended the municipal lease and restored it. Access is on foot within Fontvieille, in the Bouches-du-Rhône. The interior spiral staircase along the wall leads to the upper floor, where the Tourne-au-Vent turning gear stands.
The mill's roof, with its four 6-metre sails, can be turned to face the prevailing wind using a "Tourne-au-Vent" mechanism on the first floor. The sails carry four linen cloths from Arles. Inside, a wooden owl sits on the framework beside the lantern, echoing the "tenant of more than twenty years" in Daudet's Lettres de mon moulin.
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