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Bastide (planned town)Haute-Garonne

Montréjeau

Montréjeau

Dimensions
The central square surrounded by arcades and the chequerboard of the streets recall the foundation of 1272. The church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, of the 13th century, received in the 17th and 18th centuries its octagonal bell-tower, the former porte Saint-Jean, and holds 18th-century altarpieces by Marc Ferrère. The hôtel de Lassus, built in 1760, and its orangery of the end of the 17th century bear witness to the town of the king's marble. The ramparts disappeared in the 18th century; the old market hall no longer exists.
Period
13th century (paréage 1272); commercial growth in the 14th; Protestant occupation 1569; ramparts pulled down in the 18th century.
What stands there
The hôtel de Lassus has been inscribed as a monument historique since 2005, the bridge over the Garonne since 1984; the château de Valmirande, raised from 1893 to 1899 to the designs of Louis Garros, has been classified since 1992. Montréjeau numbered 2,676 inhabitants in 2022.

On a height overlooking the confluence of the Neste and the Garonne, Montréjeau, the Mont-Royal of Rivière, was born of a treaty of paréage concluded in 1272 at the château de Montespan between the seneschal of Toulouse Eustache de Beaumarchais, for King Philip III the Bold, and Arnaud d'Espagne-Montespan, viscount of Couserans. The new town follows the model of the bastides: a quadrilateral, a central square lined with arcades, streets on a chequerboard, an enclosure pierced by four gates. From the 14th century a bridge over the Garonne made it a trading crossroads towards the Barousse and the Luchonnais. Occupied by Montgomery in 1569, marked by the Fronde and transformed in the 18th century by the intendant d'Étigny, who did away with the ramparts, it keeps from its prosperity the hôtel de Lassus and the orangery, as well as the bell-tower of the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, a remnant of the porte Saint-Jean.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the town. The orangery of Lassus houses a museum space of popular traditions.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

See it on the map OpenStreetMap Directions

Ambient sound

Montréjeau
Patrice Bon · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

In the same department

All places — Haute-Garonne (42).