> Diary

                                             

 

> More News in the Tarn :  HERE

> In Puylaurens :
- Fairs and Markets : Every Wednesday Morning General and produce             market from  8 o'clock to noon.
- Horse fair : Every 1st Sunday in the month.
- Duck and Goose market : From November to March every  Wednesday Morning.


> Country walks

There are some suggested circuits and walks in our area.




Useful informations

> Eating out
> Accommodation > Hotels
> Accommodation > B&B
> Accommodation  > Gites
> Accommodation  > Furnished
> Sports and Free Time activities > Sports 
> Sports and Free Time activities > Free Time activities

Road transport

    Puylaurens Tourist Office in Pays de Cocagne

Open all year round :

Winter : Tuesday – Saturday: 9.30 – 12.00 and 2 – 5.30

Summer: Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00 – 12.00 and 2.00 – 6.00 pm

      The Region    

It is a mosaic of tastes and emotions that awaits you in the Pays de Cocagne. For this area in the heart of the Midi-Pyrenees region, the description seems natural: sunlight on the fields of sunflowers, the warmth of brick, rainbow cultivated fields, abundance of colour, light, local generosity, friendliness of the local inhabitants.

Served by the A68 motorway (Toulouse / Albi) and the RN 126, the Pays de Cocagne includes towns and villages in almost seven cantons.
Crossed by the Agoût, Dadou and Sor rivers, the region is made up of rolling hills dominated by mixed farming with sunny landscapes punctuated by the silhouettes of the many dovecotes and windmills.

A little ball with the value of gold ...

From its scientific name "isatis Tinctoria" pastel resembles a kind of big green lettuce.

Picked from June to September, it is from its leaves that the substance is drawn which provides the precious dye. Washed, dried and crushed in animal driven mills, the leaves are then shaped into balls (the renowned cocagne).
After fermentation, they become "agranat", grainy black paste, which is used to obtain the dye.

Pure, pastel makes a very strong blue; when mixed with other plants used in dyes, green, purple or violet, resistant to sun and water.

And Pastel made the wealth of the Languedoc ...

It appears from the twelfth century in Languedoc, originated without doubt in Spain or the Orient. Its cultivation developed in the Midi-Pyrénées since the region has ideal geological and climatic conditions (loose soil, mild winter, wet spring and summer sun). A dye of great quality, it's of interest to the large cloth manufacturers of northern Europe, and from the Middle Ages trade routes are created for its transport to the Atlantic ports (Bordeaux and Bayonne). Indeed, it is not the farmers who grow rich but the merchants responsible for export.
Witness to this period of abundance, mansions and castles that are built by the big merchant families.

It is from the crash of 1561 of the financial markets of northern Europe that the decline of the activity begins. Bad harvests, speculation and fraud, troubles of the Wars of Religion that disrupt trade routes; competition from indigo appeared in the sixteenth century leading the decline and demise of the cultivation of pastel.
The word Cocagne comes from còca ("biscuit" in Occitan), and describes the ball or shell which was obtained after drying and grinding of the pastel.

Tourist Offices in the Pays de Cocagne

Puèglaurenç : Occitan walled city

In ancient times, many peoples have crossed our country, Celts, Ruthenians, Romans, Visigoths, and Saracens.

It was the Visigoths who first gave a name to this mound of rounded stones on which our city is built. Puylaurens was still written Puy Laurens earlier in the century confirming the original form Occitan Pueg Laurens and the Latin XIIth century Laurentii Podio. Podio Laurentii is known in history by a charter of 1106 describing a division of church property.

A hundred years later, the Crusaders of Simon de Montfort bring the war into the region; Sicard, Lord of Puylaurens, joined Raymond Count of Toulouse and for nine years the Crusaders occupied our town. In 1220, Sicard regains his city and with him come the Cathars. In 1228, King Louis VIII passes through and spends the night in Puylaurens, Sicard and must bow to the power of the crown. In 1337, the Black Prince's English troops ravage the country, and the inhabitants of the plain of Ray take refuge within the city walls. At the heart of the Pays de Cocagne, this fortified city from the Middle Ages was to become one of the jewels in the "Pays de Cocagne" in the sixteenth century because of these famous "cocanhas" of pastel which, in giving blue dye to the whole of Europe, would make the wealth and fame in the region. The molins pastelièrs (pastel mills) favourable to the dissemination of ideas supported the development of Protestantism.


      The Protestant Academy

Then comes the time of the wars of religion. Almost all the inhabitants of Puylaurens are followers of Calvin. On May 15, 1585, Henri de Navarre, heir to the French throne, passes through Puylaurens on his way from Montauban to Castres.

Its in 1660 that our city becomes the Geneva of the Upper Languedoc by the transfer of the Academy of Montauban to within its walls. For twenty five years, almost two hundred students came to receive an education. Among them, Mr. Dacier, the top expert of his time in the Greek language and especially Pierre Bayle who became famous for his Historical and Critical Dictionary, were paving the way for compilers of encyclopedias.

In 1685, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes leads to the closure of the Academy and the destruction of the temple. But a few decades later, the members of the reformed church ended up in meetings in the wilderness.

 

Marianne

In the old village, in rue Foulimou, Guillaume Lavabre was born and lived, cobbler-minstrel, who in October 1792 gave the fledgling republic its name of "Marianne", a widely used name at the time in this Occitan country. So his song "La Garison de Marianna" marks the date and therefore allows the village of Puylaurens to rightly claim to be called "the Occitan cradle of the Republican Marianne".

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