Quatre-Vallées
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Quatre-Vallées (literally, "Four Valleys") (
General characteristics
The Aure and Barousse valleys are contiguous. The Neste valley is also contiguous with Barousse and Aure, but most of the Neste valley was under the jurisdiction of Gascony and Comminges, and there were only two small enclaves in the Neste Valley that were part of the Quatre-Vallées province, these two enclaves being surrounded by villages under the jurisdiction of Gascony and Comminges, and physically separated from the Aure and Barousse valleys. The Aure, Barousse, and Neste valleys are all located in the Pyrenees mountains, in the southeast of the present-day département of Hautes-Pyrénées.
The Magnoac valley is located further north in the hilly countryside of Gascony, and is now the northeast of Hautes-Pyrénées. Magnoac was separated from Aure and Barousse by 19 km.(12 miles) of land not part of Quatre-Vallées.
Thus, the Quatre-Vallée province was altogether made up of four geographically detached parts, from south to north:
- Aure and Barousse valleys
- Neste valley (enclave #1)
- Neste valley (enclave #2)
- Magnoac valley
However, politically and administratively speaking, and no matter whether contiguous or detached, the four constituent parts of the Quatre-Vallée province were, from south to north:
- Aure valley
- Barousse valley
- Neste valley
- Magnoac valley
Quatre-Vallées had a land area of 878 km2 (339 sq. miles), 58% being Aure, 22% being Magnoac, 17% being Barousse, and 3% being Neste. At the 1999 French census, there were 13,451 inhabitants on the territory of the former Quatre-Vallées province, 42% of these in Aure, 28% in Magnoac, 17% in Barousse, and 13% in Neste. The average density is thus very low for Europe, at 15 inh. per km2 (40 inh. per sq. mile), ranging from 11 inh. per km2 (28 inh. per sq. mile) in the Aure valley to 75 inh. per km2 (194 inh. per sq. mile) in the Neste valley.
There is no urban area on the territory of the former Quatre-Vallées province. In 1999 the largest villages were La Barthe-de-Neste (1,056 inhabitants) in the Neste valley and the ski resort of Saint-Lary-Soulan (1,024 inhabitants) in the Aure valley.
History
Originally part of
In June 1300, Count Bernard of Labarthe granted the 53 articles of the "Statutes, Customs, and Privileges of the Country of Quatre-Vallées". These statutes, written in the native Romance language of the inhabitants, were quite ahead of their time: they granted full liberty to the inhabitants of the Quatre-Vallées, free ownership of land, free use of communal ovens, free usage of the forests, and so on, as well as the right to be ruled by consuls representing the people. All these privileges and liberties were unprecedented in rural areas of medieval Europe, and were normally found only in chartered cities. The Statutes of 1300 are the origin of the special privileges and distinct character that the Quatre-Vallées kept until the French Revolution.
The Quatre-Vallées were a buffer zone between the county of Comminges and the powerful county of
At the same time, in 1475, as the king of France obtained Roussillon from the king of Aragon, the Quatre-Vallées were officially detached from the kingdom of Aragon and entered the kingdom of France. However, they were still not part of the royal domain, and were just one of the many independent fiefs of the kingdom of France.
Eventually, the maneuvering of Gaston de Lyon alerted higher authorities. Gaston de Lyon then sent his private doctor to Isabelle, and this one saw to it that she would not live long enough to embarrass his master. In August 1476, the paralyzed and forlorn Isabelle of Armagnac, who in her youth had been promised to the king of England, died in horrible pain after drinking a potion prepared by the doctor to "cure" her. She was only 45. Gaston de Lyon immediately claimed the Quatre-Vallées. His attitude was so revolting that the duke of Alençon and the duke of Vendôme, relatives of Isabelle of Armagnac, sued Gaston de Lyon to prevent him from obtaining the Quatre-Vallées. The trial lasted for more than a century. At last, ruined and discouraged, the descendants of Gaston de Lyon ceded the Quatre-Vallées to Henry III of Navarre, who owned many Pyrenean fiefs (Béarn, Lower Navarre, Bigorre, County of Foix, Nébouzan).
In 1589, Henry III of Navarre became king
At the start of the French Revolution, the Quatre-Vallées remained quiet. They had been freed and exempted from feudal taxes and
In 1790, when the
The area remained very traditional well into the 20th century, and modernity progressed only slowly. Like the rest of the Pyrenees, Quatre-Vallées suffered a lot from
References
- ^ Table des matières des noms de lieux et des noms de personnes, contenus dans les procès-verbaux des séances de lÁssemblée constituante depuis le 5 mai 1789 jusqu'au 30 septembre 1791 inclusivement (in French). De l'Imprimerie nationale. 1805. pp. 531–532.
- ^ Blaquière, Henri (1955). "Les Quatre Vallées : Sarramon (Dr A.), Les Quatre Vallées, Albi, 1954". Annales du Midi (in French). 67 (32): 341–342.