Lacoste, Vaucluse still. The oldest building in the town, the Maison Forte, dates back to the 9th century while the nearby Pont Julien remains one of the oldest standing examples of a working 1st century B.C. Roman bridge. Finnbar Mac Eoin, author of "Two Suitcases And A Dog" lives in Lacoste. He was the last person to drive across The Pont Julien before it closed to traffic in 2005. A plaque states, "We do not know who was the first person to cross, but an Irishman was the last". Lacoste is best known for its most notorious resident, Donatien Alphonse Francois comte
Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont that would bankrupt the government of France. When a drought caused a deep famine in 1788, there was no money available from the French Treasury, as had been done in the past, to subsidize the cost of flour for bread to prevent mass starvation. As a result of France's generosity and Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont's love of America, he inadvertently helped pave the way for the French Revolution, in 1789, that dramatically impacted on his own finances, resulting in the new French Revolutionary government seizing his assets including his beloved Chateau at Chaumont-sur-Loire. Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont Jacques-Donatien