TOULOUSE AND SOUTHWEST FRANCE

In planning our French Leave itinerary, we decided to drift south as the seasons changed, thinking to find more moderate temperatures in southern climes.  Good idea; it just didn’t pan out.  Nearly all of France was gripped by a cold spell in November, and southwest France was no exception.  But we found plenty of other reasons to enjoy our three-week visit to the region.

From the “cliffs, caves and castles” of Dordogne we drove south to TOULOUSE, France’s fourth largest city and the capital of the southwest.

In Toulouse, the Pont Neuf (new, that is, in 1632) spans the Garonne River.

We turned in our car and took a taxi to our rented apartment, which our driver found with some difficulty after inching down streets barely wide enough to accommodate her vehicle.

The rue Darquier, where we lived in Toulouse.

Toulouse is known as “La Ville Rose” (the red city) because many of the buildings – including the most notable ones – are constructed of red brick, a building material rarely seen in other parts of France.  Under certain light conditions, the city fairly glows with a rosy hue.

Toulouse's Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall).

The St.-Sernin Basilica, the world's largest Romanesque church.

A former private 17th century mansion, in Toulouse's characteristic "rose" hue.

Toulouse is a university city, so students abound.  Also, as the home of Airbus, it’s prominent in 21st century aviation.  However, like so many French cities, Toulouse has carefully preserved the charm of its centuries-old core, and looking out over the courtyard our apartment faced, one has only to squint to think you’re back in the 17th century.

Shops, markets and restaurants were within easy walking distance of our apartment, as were most of the museums and historical buildings we wanted to see.  We reverted to our Lyon practice of walking almost everywhere, resorting only occasionally to the métro (subway).  But unlike in summery Lyon, in autumnal Toulouse we pulled on coats, hats, scarves and gloves, and sometimes had to lower our heads to buck nippy winds.

After two weeks in Toulouse we became vagabonds again, but this time by train.  Wanting to see a bit more of the southwest, we rode the rails to PAU, just a short distance from the Pyrenees Mountains and France’s border with Spain, and then to CARCASSONNE to see its medieval walled city.

From the welter of things we saw and did as we explored southwest France, two themes emerged that are worth noting .  First, the southwest was a seedbed of religious dissent.  Second, we were struck by the number of old buildings that have been creatively “recycled” as cultural venues.

A HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS DISSENT

Over a number of centuries, a defining element in the history of southwest France was protest against the religious and political hegemony of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Cathars

The first major outbreak of religious dissent was the rise of the Cathars – also called Albigensians – in southern France (as well as in other parts of Europe) in the 12th century.   The Cathars’ religious beliefs (about which only fragmentary information remains) were denounced as heretical by Rome.  Equally dangerous, the Cathars’ simple, ascetic lifestyle was a rebuke to the wealth and pomp of official Christendom.

At first a succession of Popes tried to halt the spread of Catharism in the part of southern France known as Languedoc through preaching and diplomacy, but when those efforts were unsuccessful, Rome – with the acquiescence of French kings – recruited French noblemen from northern France to launch a series of violent crusades against the Cathars, with the promise of Languedoc fiefdoms as their reward.  Over the 13th century, crusades and inquisitions, which included some indiscriminate massacres of Cathars, largely wiped out the sect.

The conflict became a regional war as well as a religious one.  Southern nobles and landowners, who had coexisted peaceably with the Cathars, recognized the persecution by northern forces as a regional invasion and resisted.  Some Cathars took refuge in the fortress at Carcassonne, which was captured by the invaders after a siege in 1209; Cathars were put to the sword, and the non-Albigensian baron died in captivity.

The medieval walled city and fortress of Carcassonne.

A courtyard inside Carcassonne's walled city.

In ALBI, northeast of Toulouse, the enormous and lavishly decorated Sainte Cécile Cathedral was erected to herald the return of the region to Catholic control.  We visited Albi on a bus day-trip from Toulouse.

Sainte Cécile Cathedral, Albi.

The lavish portico on the austere Sainte Cécile Cathedral.

Saint Cécile Cathedral's ornately decorated interior.

Politically, the Albigensian crusades ended the independence of the Languedoc nobles and is regarded as a significant milestone in the centuries-long unification of France.

The Protestant Huguenots

Two centuries later, southwest France saw another surge of religious dissent, when it became the center of the Protestant Reformed Church of France, influenced by the writings of John Calvin in the 1530s; the adherents became known as Huguenots.  The 16th century was a period of religious warfare until King Henri IV – a former Protestant who converted to Catholicism upon ascending to the throne – ended the strife in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed Protestants certain religious liberties.

In Pau we visited the Château de Pau, where Henri IV was born in 1553.  Though the future king never actually resided in the château, which was his maternal grandparents’ home, it has become a museum largely dedicated to his memory, with paintings or marble busts in nearly every room.  Henri IV was one of France’s most revered kings (“bon roi [good king] Henri”), owing to his ending the wars of religion (temporarily), his hearty bonhomie, and his populist connection with French common-folk (“père du peuple [father of the people]”).

The Château de Pau, birthplace of the future King Henri IV.

What is thought to be one of the best likenesses of Henri IV (1553-1610).

A whimsical depiction of the people's affection for "Good King Henri."

HISTORICAL NOTES:  Henri IV was fatally stabbed in his carriage in 1610 by François Ravaillac, a young Catholic zealot who assumed his deed would make him a heroic martyr; in fact, Catholics denounced the assassin and raised no protest against his interrogation under torture and swift execution.  Religious strife resumed during the 17th century, however, and in 1685 King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes with the Edict of Fountainebleau; French historians regard that as one of Louis XIV’s greatest mistakes, as it resulted in a “brain drain” flight of hundreds of thousands of French Protestants.

ARCHITECTURAL ‘RECYCLING’

Although this phenomenon is hardly unique to southwestern France, we were particularly struck by the number of wonderful old edifices that have been preserved not because of their own historical significance, but rather as superb museums and other cultural venues unconnected to the buildings’ original purposes.  The result can be a lovely juxtaposition of architecture and art that are mutually enhancing.  A few examples:

In Toulouse the Musée des Augustins, a medieval Augustinian convent, houses a marvelous collection of religious paintings, Romanesque sculpture, many pieces having been rescued from old churches that were demolished in the course of urban redevelopment, and other, nonreligious sculpture (we also attended an organ concert in the convent’s former chapel); the Hôtel d’Assézat, a private mansion built in 1555 by Nicholas Bachelier, a famous Renaissance architect, is now home to the Bemberg Foundation’s fine collection of 18th and 19th century paintings; and at the Musée Saint-Raymond, a classical 17th century mansion is filled with Roman antiquities discovered in archeological excavations in and around Toulouse.

Toulouse's Musée des Augustins, a former convent.

Staircase in the Musée des Augustins.

Musée des Augustins: Gargoyles from a demolished church.

Rare sculpture showing Virgin and Infant facing opposite directions (1450).

The Hôtel d'Assézat (1555), now houses a collection of modern-era paintings.

The Musée St-Raymond is a wonderful setting for Roman antiquities.

Musée St-Raymond: Bust from a Roman villa excavated near Toulouse.

Part of a mosaic floor from the Roman villa.

Similarly, in Albi, the birthplace of the 19th century painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the largest collection of Toulouse-Lautrec’s paintings and lithograph posters resides in the Palais de la Berbie, built in 1265 as a residence for the city’s archbishops.

Albi's Toulouse-Lautrec museum is in a former bishop's palace.

In a delightful blog we’ve discovered, an American who lives in France listed things that the French “get” and things they “don’t get.”  Among the things the French “get,” she wrote, is historical preservation, and the ingenious and resourceful conversion of buildings in order to preserve the nation’s patrimoine (heritage) is further proof of that.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

Walking through Toulouse on November 11, we happened upon an Armistice Day ceremony commemorating the end of World War I in 1918; with military color-guards, a band, and the singing of the “Marseillaise,” the French national anthem, it was a moving event.

Armistice Day ceremony in Toulouse, November 11, 2013.

From Pau on a clear day, there’s a marvelous view of the snow-capped Pyrenees Mountains.  Unfortunately, the city was socked in during our two-day visit.  For a glorious few minutes, though, the clouds parted, and our hearts soared, as they always do at the sight of majestic peaks.

From cloudy Pau, a momentary glimpse of the Pyrenees Mountains.

Also in Pau, we had a delightful after-church lunch with Christian Science practitioner Marie Taillefer, all in French.

At a B&B breakfast in Carcassonne, we ate with the only other guests, a retired French couple, and again acquitted ourselves admirably (or so we thought, at least) in the native tongue.

Now it’s on to Provence, where we think it really will be warmer.