The Tilleul de Pérouges (Liberty Tree)

France planted liberty trees by the thousand in the 1790s and cut most of them down within a generation. This one went into the ground on 21 April 1792, in the exact centre of the main square of Pérouges, and it is still standing there. It has cost the town some effort. The lime is hollow. It stood twenty metres tall in 1948, and heavy limbs breaking under their own weight brought it down to about eight. What is left is a low, wide crown, described as a pair of butterfly wings, resting on seven wooden props. Cars were banned from parking at the foot of it in 2010 so the roots could recover, and the winter road salt that had been poisoning them was stopped as well. Whether that worked depends on who you ask. The official classification file says the tree reached senescence and has since stabilised. French accounts closer to the town say it is dying, slowly. Both descriptions fit the same propped, leafy tree that photographs from 2021 and 2022 show in the square. It is the only classified tree in the whole Ain department, which is an odd distinction for a region that size. Pérouges is a walled medieval hilltop town that people already travel to, and the square at the top of it is called Place du Tilleul, after this one lime.