The Miller of the Fond de Quarreux

Hubert Chefneux was the miller of the Fond de Quarreux, a solitary man who dreamed of a mill so grand that the whole valley would bring its grain to be ground. One night the devil appeared at his door and offered him the finest mill in the Ardennes — with millstones of pure quartzite and wheels that never stopped turning. The price: his soul, to be collected on the day the mill ground its last sack of flour.

The next morning the mill stood there. Colossal, built on the rocks above the Amblève, with wheels that turned without water or wind. Farmers came from far and wide. Hubert became the wealthiest man in the valley. But his wife, a devout woman who prayed in the chapel of Notre-Dame de Dieupart, saw the shadow falling over their lives.

On the evening the devil came to claim his due, Hubert’s wife hid inside the mill clutching a silver medal of Notre-Dame de Dieupart to her heart. The mill wheels, which had never stopped, ground to a halt with a groan. The devil roared with fury — his mill refused to work in the presence of the holy.

In his rage Satan smashed the mill to pieces. The colossal stone blocks rolled down the mountain and fell into the bed of the Amblève, where they remain to this day. Hubert survived, broken but with his soul saved. And those who walk through the Fonds de Quarreux can still see the enormous quartzite boulders — the remains of the devil’s mill, veined white as the flour once ground there.