Caussade

Caussade
The tower of Arlet, in Caussade The tower of Arlet, in Caussade
Coat of arms of Caussade Coat of arms
Caussade
Location within Midi-Pyrénées region Caussade
Coordinates:
Country	France
Region	Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénées
Department	Tarn-et-Garonne
Arrondissement	Montauban
Canton	Caussade
Intercommunality	Quercy caussadais
Government
• Mayor (2008–2014)	François Bonhomme
Area1	45.73 km2 (17.66 sq mi)
Population (2006)2	6,728
• Density	150/km2 (380/sq mi)
INSEE/Postal code	82037 / 82300
Elevation	95–208 m (312–682 ft) (avg. 109 m or 358 ft)
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. 2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Caussade is a commune in the district of Montauban, located in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in the south of France.

Caussade, an ancient city of the white Quercy or lower Quercy, is located in the hills of Quercy and nicknamed "hat city" due to milliner production in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The straw hat, the famous boater was made in Caussade.

The inhabitants are called the Caussadais and Caussadaises .

Geography

For two kilometres, geological mutations overwhelm the landscape a geomorphologist warned. Leaving the plateau of Limognes and its western and southern extension as a low Jurassic plateau, further descent is made into the former Oligocene Gulf of Monteils to reach the former floodplain of the Aveyron which meets the Tarn downstream from Montauban. The plateau, from karstic rock edaphic soil is poor and dry but gives way to green valleys and fruit, common in the Valley of the Garonne. The difference is explained by the soil and geological base.

The plateaus of limestone are permeable, with the notable exception of sinkholes, and ouvalas covered with clay and siderolithic deposits of Phosphor. Precipitation sometimes exceeds 850 mm annually .

Caussade is situated in the valley of the Lère, a tributary of the Aveyron . The town had 3042 inhabitants in with 5971 households in the 1999 census and a population density of more than 130 per square kilometre in 2004. With 6268 inhabitants, the municipality has a population density of 131 per square kilometre, in common with neighbouring Monteils a small town of 7046 inhabitants in 2004. The home ownership rate is 51.7%.

Toponymy

The town takes its name from the Occitan caussada", French equivalent of "floor" (and from low Latin (via) calciata designating a route consists of tightly packed stones, calciare" "tread or pack" in the sense of "high road", "road furnished". The tower in the coat of arms symbolises heavy stone construction, the strength of the world.

History

Gallo-Roman relics are often found around Caussade. In particular the Bénéchie, vases, medals, bronzes, gold coins and silver coins in particular struck at the time of Titus. Wooden spindles showing a wool textile industry have been unearthed at the bottom of a well filled in 1710.

However, most ceramic deposits cannot be associated with the Gallo-Roman period. Observation shows they date from the late medieval or modern times. Remains of furnaces or remnants of deposits for production, in the form of bricks and tiles, are located near populated areas and on farms or in villages.

The southern Quercy area is already a world apart at the end of the 12th Century . The prodigious growth of the fortified town of Mons Albanus or Mont Alban, allows the new town of Montauban to shine on the flat country where the Tarn and Aveyron rivers converge. At the expense of Moissac Abbey, the austere cahorsin Jacques Duez, Pope under the name John XXII, seals the domination by creating the diocese of Montauban in 1317.

Following the breakup of the County of Rodez in 1486, Caussade becomes the capital of a fortified barony. The last count of Rodez, Charles d'Armagnac had been in favor of his illegitimate son Pierre taking the lordship. In 1562, the barony falls to Cardinal Georges d'Armagnac. In retaliation, the town is sacked by the Huguenot Duras. Georges d' Armagnac sold it in 1583 to Jacques Villeneuve, prior of the bream in Toulouse. The nephew of the prior resells to the Duke of Sully. The son of the Duke pledges to Alliès family until the Revolution.

From 1560, Caussade is a Protestant area in the orbit of Montauban, the capital of a Reformed Southwest . Besieged, the small Calvinist fortress goes to the troops of Louis XIII during the first campaign in 1621. Caussade depends on the election and stewardship of Montauban and the parliament of Toulouse. Contrasting with the slow erasure of Haut-Quercy, the last two centuries of the Ancien Régime are the economic heyday of this prosperous southern area, diversified agriculture, viticulture and arboriculture refined the remarkable industrial dynamics, driven by textile and mills.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, Bordeaux's proximity begins to touch the valleys of the Quercy. Old polyculture here and there supplemented by dyeing and textile crops, declines. Industrial crops regress in 1830, apart from tobacco .

After 1850, fruit and vegetable crops characterize the country of the Garonne. Until 1900, rail encourages the production and export of tomatoes, peas, beans, onions, asparagus and cauliflower plus artichokes and melons in a few areas. After the crises of the vine by phylloxera between 1880 and 1900, fruit crops are grown, especially plum, cherries and table grapes.

Economic change in industrial France after 1850 dramatically increase emigration to attractive areas or major cities and the lands to the north, causing an exodus compounded by the population decline of the world wars. Caussade, does not escape the demographic decline .

The Straw Hat industry is born from a cottage industry, using "pailloles" braided by shepherdesses of sheep as straw hats. Gathered at Caussade and Septfonds the pailloles are sewn and are used to make hats. The initiative comes from lady Petronilla Cantecor (1762-1846), born "Gleye" at a place called Bourrou", in the parish of St. Martin de Cesquières, a town of Caussade and of peasant origin selling at the market. In 1860, the services of the railway are a boon to the hat industry, since heavy modern machines ship easily to the station platform. Soon local straw is insufficient, it is imported from Italy or in the form of rice straw from the Far East .

Benefiting from the arrival of the railroad, attractive Caussade shows a slight increase in population . The imperial census published 10 January 1867 reveals a population of 4208 inhabitants, more than half, or 2495 in the caussadaise agglomeration.

But the demographic stagnation gives way to a slow decline . In the early 1880s, the pretty town in the middle of a beautiful and fertile plain, popular in tourist guides, is 22 kilometers north-east of Montauban by rail . This small town which preserved houses of the 13th and 14th century is rebuilt around wide boulevards instead of ancient fortifications and greatly expands its suburbs, now exceeding 4000 inhabitants. Straw hat Factories, stamens and cadis animate the heart of the old city, while in the neighborhood or surrounding areas, a considerable number of lime kiln and brick kilns remain in business . The agricultural show promotes agricultural production, and fruit farms. A stallion station confirms the ancient forage quality of the plain. Besides this common canvas, the once flourishing trade of grains, flour, saffron, fruits, truffles and poultry continues.

The hat industry suffers the vagaries of fashion and collapses. Chapelleries are still active in 1930, they use other materials, felt or textiles of knit takes over.

In 1923 the population is 3630 inhabitants . By road the village is 24 kilometers from Montauban. It is served by the railway Orléans-Limoges-Toulouse. Activities in order of importance are Electromechanical, headgear, grains, the farming of poultry, and phosphates

The railway station at Caussade used to export phosphate of lime. Deposits cantons de Caylus, Caussade and Saint-Antonin were operated from 1870 by an industrial company, Compagnie des Phosphates du Midi. These compact masses phosphorite whitish, pale gray or yellow or red in colour are similar to the Natterjack and are also crushed and used as fertilizer locally.

Caussade is also the headquarters of large international groups such as Caussade Seeds (creating and placing on the market genetics seeds for arable crops and forage production) and EMPA (human machine interface)

References

• INSEE