Lauragais

The Lauragais (in Occitan Lauragués ) is an area of the south-west of the France

Geography

Lauragais is located Banlieue Is of Toulouse until Fanjeaux while passing by Castelnaudary around the central axis which constitutes the Canal of midday to horse on 4 departments which are the Ariège, the Aude, the Haute-Garonne and the Tarn. It is vast a Plaine located between the crumpling of the Trap the Black Montagne and the Cabardès. The plain is tightened on the level of the western part of the Aude to a small collar who represents the point of division of water of the Mediterranean and those of the Atlantic Ocean: the Threshold of Naurouze to 194 Mr.

History

Lauragais draws its name from the Château of Laurac located close to the village éponyme at south-east to Castelnaudary. City for the first time in 1070, acquired after the Crusade against the Albigensians by the Count de Toulouse Raymond VII, it enters in 1271 the royal field. Its territory is then about fixed. Set up by Louis XI in county with the profit of the family of the Tower of Auvergne in 1477, it returns in the royal field by the marriage of Catherine de Médicis, countess of Lauragais, with the future Henri II in October 1533. The queen obtains the creation of the royal Sénéchaussée in 1553 by dismemberment of that of Toulouse, and Castelnaudary then becomes the seat of a présidial.

Its territory is known with precision like electoral constituency of the deputies to the General states of 1789. The administrative reforms and legal of the French revolution divide it into two districts, one of Castelnaudary and the other of Villefranche-with-Lauragais.

Lauragais and particularly the area of Castelnaudary knew two great booms. First is related to the culture of the pastel, plant tinctorial whose feasts were dispatched by the Toulouse merchants in all Europe. Lauragais is then known like the Pays of Feast. This speculation which develops starting from 1515 declines after 1560 under the combined effect of the wars of religion and the competition of the tropical Indigo imported America lately conquered.

The second period of great economic growth dates from the 18th century. This one is attached initially to the culture of the Maïs, imported of America, which is with dimensions for the first time on the market of Castelnaudary and in France on October 5th 1637. This new cereal, equipped with good outputs, makes it possible to nourish the population and releases from the surpluses of Blé which are then exported, via the Canal of the South (1666 - 1681), towards the areas the overdrawn Mediterranean. These exports enrich the landowners who revolve around the seneschalsy but also the Négociant S of the town of Castelnaudary. The fortune of the area reaches its apogee under the First Empire. Thereafter the reduction in the price of corn involves the decline of what was called “the machine with corn”. The city and the West audois will find the growth through a dynamic agriculture only after the Second world war.

External bonds

Tourist gate on Lauragais

Gate of the Lauragais Country

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