Pride (Tarn-et-Garonne)

Orgueil is a common French, located in the department of Tarn-et-Garonne and the area the Midday-Pyrenees.

Geography

History

History of a rural village

In IXe century one finds already trace of the village of Pride, this parish depends then on the abbey of Saint-Sernin of Toulouse. About 1135 the parish is given to Hospital Pediment which does one of them sauveté. At the time the Tarn is a navigable river and Pride is a sure asylum built on the edges of the Tarn, bellow of the hill where it is currently located.

In 1211 Simon de Montfort puts at fire and to blood the grounds occitanes, Orgueil belongs then to the County of Toulouse. When the King of France takes possession of the County of Toulouse, Orgueil becomes a country house, leaves the County of Toulouse and is equipped with a charter of habits. Pride is however always the property of the Knights of Saint Jean, hospital monks, it becomes a commandery of the order.

The wars of religion will see the destruction of the village. That is rebuilt on the hill, close to the current cemetery where one finds trace of a new church about 1680. The parish depends then again on the archbishop's palace of Toulouse after being attached to the diocese of Montauban during the creation of this one in 1317 by the pope Jean XXII.

The Tarn river is then an important axis of communication and trade. Pride has a port, frontier runners make cross the river, of the mills uses the force of water. The activity of the village of pride is already turned towards the wine. Descending the Tarn, boats transport harvests towards Bordeaux and then Angleterre.Le village then shelters several brickyards which generate river traffics for the trade of bricks but also for coal necessary to the furnaces.

During the revolution, Orgueil will preserve its agricultural activity and one does not report particular disorders on the territory of the commune.

The XIXe century is the century of mechanical progress and the terrestrial axes of communication develop. In 1840, main road 13 connects Montauban to Castres. In 1872 the railroad connects Montauban to Saint-Sulpice (Tarn), the traffic on the river drops unrelentingly and the village of Pride moves third once to approach the trunk road and railway, new ways of trade and communication. Then leave ground a new church, a Town hall-school and the village develops along the trunk road where it looks at besides still and always to pass people in a hurry.

The Tarn river is forsaken, the trades related to water disappear little by little: a bridge is built to cross the river between Orgueil and Reyniès making disappear the frontier runners, the train replaces the barges and the tow path is not used any more for the horses. Pride will return in the XXe century.

the XIXe century however made return the village of Pride in the history , making of its name a name used by tens of scientists, who should not always know where this village is. Indeed on May 14th, 1864 a rare meteorite , 7 known in the world, fell on the territory from the commune. This meteorite, that the municipality immortalisé by a monument at the entry of the village, is known under the name of Orgueil and in the scientific articles one often reads: “Pride is…” to indicate the meteorite which arrived with water on ground, its race started whereas the ground probably did not exist, contains diamonds and traces of amino-acids being able to make hope that the life exists elsewhere. In 2001 the meteorite of Pride was presented in a road show on diamonds. The common one set up in 2002 a monument at the entry of the village (while coming from Labastide Saint-Pierre), on the roundabout beside the new school complex. There exists another monument commemorating the fall of the meteorite, there is located at the entry of the village with dimensions Nohic, opposite breakage car, this monument was set up by the commune to celebrate the centenary of the fall of the meteorite.

The XXe century will see evolving the village to what it is today at the dawn of XXIe century. At the beginning of the XXe century Orgueil is an agricultural commune, primarily wine. As everywhere in France, the great properties disappear little by little, it is difficult to find labor each one cultivating a small ground. The Great War will reduce even more this labor and the village as all the villages of France will pay heavy a tribe with this funny of war, the monument in the center of the village delivers the names of these young men died for France (visit the pages devoted to the war memorial and with the names engraved forever on the site devoted to the village of Pride). There will be the rising of the Tarn in 1930, the war once again but nearer to the village France being entirely occupied. In Orgueil settled German, they had even set up a course of sport where currently the panel of tennis shoe is.

After this war, progress invades the everyday life and the village evolves/moves. In the Fifties, one finds in the village commercial, a forging mill,…, immigrants settle, the Sixties pass very quickly. From the Seventies, the trade disappear little by little, the Eighties will see them disappearing as disappear little by little the farms. However the village continues to develop and the population increases unrelentingly: 535 inhabitants in 1915,630 in 1982,823 in 1990,1000 in 1995. The new century will see this population increasing further: 1149 inhabitants in 2001 and 1165 in October 2002. More than 46% of increase in twenty years, an annual rate of growth of 2%! 400 permanent hearths and only 7 second home.

So that a village lives, is needed that young people settles and it seems, to look at manpower of the Elementary school, that Orgueil succeeded in attracting them: 25 pupils in 1984,41 in 1988,75 in 1990,89 in 1992,91 in 1995,109 in 1996,126 in 1997,143 in 1999,150 in 2000,160 in 2001 and 176 with the re-entry 2002. The re-entry 2002 saw the opening of the 7th class, it is the fifth opening of class since 1989!! To accommodate the children a new school complex left ground. It still remains following building it, the day when the commune will find the money necessary, indeed not easy to find money in our country and yet we are ensured to have a manpower of 5 primary classes until 2009.

Pride is always a rural district, in full zone of the AOC coasts of frontonnais, but the majority of its population works apart from the village: Pride being located in the basin of population serving Toulouse, which is only with 40 kilometers, and Montauban, located at less than 20 kilometers.

Administration

Demography

Places and monuments

The village of PRIDE is known universally for its “meteorite”. A piece of this meteorite is visible with the natural history museum of natural history of Montauban-82 and the largest museums of the world have fragments of Pride in their collections: Natural history museum of Natural history of Paris, Natural History Museum of London, American Museum off Natural History in New York.

This meteorite which crossed the French sky on May 14th, 1864 and was crushed in a field of the commune of Pride is a meteorite of a very rare species, only 7 known in the world, that of Pride being largest. It contained a rare gas, the XENON-HL, it comes from a star located apart from our solar system, system which did not exist besides when it was formed.

This meteorite helped all the scientists of the world to study what could be the universe before the birth of the ground, Orgueil to the same composition as the sun. The meteorite contained diamond dust.

The municipality of Pride is aware of this characteristic and two monuments were drawn up in the honor of this meteorite: for the centenary of the fall, it is located beside the field where the largest piece of this meteorite fell in 1864 and one sculpture was especially installation on the roundabout at the entry of the village in 2002.

Fragments of this meteorite were sent in the whole world to be used for the scientific studies, the National museum of Natural history preserves a piece of 11 kg in its collection. By traversing the pages on the collection of meteorite of the Natural history museum of Natural history of Paris you will learn that Orgueil is very much used by the scientists and that it was used to determine the composition of the sun. The evolution of the scientific instruments allows more thorough studies of the stones and the meteorite of Pride studied more in detail seems to make it possible to explain the birth of the life on ground!

And the studies of Pride do not miss and continue nowadays:

2001: of the studies was made by a research team of three laboratories: the Scripps Institution off Oceanography (California), the Leiden Observatory (Netherlands) and the NASA Hearts Research Center

8/2/2004: at the time of the International symposium of Sciences and Optical Techniques which was taken place in Denver in Colorado, Richard B. Hoover (NASA/NSSTC) used images of the meteorite of Pride at the time of an entitled conference " Instruments, methods, and Missions for Astrobiology VIII". The majority of the images of the meteorite had been obtained between the 21 and on July 23rd, 2004 in the space center of NASA of Huntsville (Alabama).

2006: the Stardust mission is of return after 7 years in space. This probe brings back on ground some dust of the Wild-2 comet. Some laboratories sorted on the shutter in the whole world will receive some grains to study them and check theories. With the natural history museum of Natural history of Paris, the cosmochimists will be able to thus check if Pride were or not a piece of comet, for that they will compare the composition of the comet dust and the Orgueil meteorite.

Personalities related to the commune

See too

Common of Tarn-et-Garonne

External bonds

a personal site dedicated to the village: history, current events, albums photographs, etc
Pride on the site of the national geographical Institute
Pride on the site of INSEE
Pride on the site of Quid
Localization of Pride on a chart of France and communes bordering
Plane on Pride on Mapquest

Random links: