There are no less than seven castles (chateaux or maison fortes) in and around the village, set among typical Dauphinois style buildings and ancient roadways, testifying to its role in religious and political history over the centuries.
Blond initially came to attention as a disciple of Alexis Carrel, and when reviewing Carrel's book L'Homme, cet inconnu for the journal Le petit dauphinois commented that Carrel was one of the few writers who would genuinely alter who people thought of themselves.
The cheese is a close cousin of another dauphinois cheese, Saint-Marcellin, and bears a similar texture and taste, though it can be almost twice as large in diameter.
It was on the very day of the Battle of the Herrings that a young French peasant girl, Joan of Arc, was meeting with Robert de Baudricourt, the Dauphinois captain of Vaucouleurs, trying to explain to the sceptical captain her divinely-ordained mission to rescue the Dauphin Charles and deliver him to his royal coronation at Rheims.