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 for several years. Franklin however did not visit Le Ray's luxurious Chateau at Chaumont-sur-Loire in the Loire Valley but his grandson Temple did. As a result of their friendship, Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont helped obtain French support for the American cause with both money and French armed forces. Along with Benjamin Franklin, Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont worked with John Adams, Silas Deane, the Marquis de Lafayette and the Comte de Vergennes to help with the American Revolution. For an aristocrat in that day and age, what Le Ray did for ordinary Americans was astonishing. At heart, he believed