Roquebillière
commune in Alpes-Maritimes, France
Roquebillière (French pronunciation: [ʁɔkbiljɛʁ]; historical Italian: Roccabigliera; Occitan: Ròcabilhiera) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.
History
It was part of the historic County of Nice until 1860 as Roccabigliere. The town was at one time a Templar settlement.
Arthur Koestler describes the town in August 1939 in the opening chapter of Scum of the Earth, his memoir of the Fall of France. He and two companions spent their last summer there before the outbreak of World War II while finishing his book Darkness at Noon.
“Roquebillière” enters the record as commune in Alpes-Maritimes, France. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Roquebillière, commune and Alpes-Maritimes can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Roquebillière” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Roquebillière, commune and Alpes-Maritimes provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q273431. VIAF identifies the subject as 236151162. Authority coordinates are 44.011, 7.307. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1860 and 1939.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Roquebillière”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Roquebillière primary sources, Roquebillière archive and Roquebillière research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Roquebillière” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.