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Bastide (planned town)Gers

Montréal-du-Gers

Montréal

Dimensions
The very regular plan of the bastide, drawn out from east to west, with streets and carrelots leading to the central square surrounded by arcaded corners on three sides; the collegiate church of Saint-Philippe-et-Saint-Jacques, raised about 1300 over an earlier church dedicated to the Virgin, partly fortified; in the extension of its south wall, a fortified town gate; fragments of the fortifications; the 17th-century town hall; two kilometres away, the Gallo-Roman villa of Séviac.
Period
Founded in 1255; English in 1279, French in 1324, English in 1360; collegiate church of 1300 restored in the 17th century; fire after 1565; fortifications destroyed at the Revolution.
What stands there
Classed among the most beautiful villages in France. Six buildings protected as monuments historiques, including the collegiate church and the town gate (inscribed in 1925), the château de Balarin (1942), the church of Genens (1979), Notre-Dame de Luzanet (1984) and the villa of Séviac (1978 and 2014). The first bastide of the Gers.

Montréal-du-Gers, on a height overlooking the Auzoue, is one of the first Gascon bastides and the first in the Gers. Guillaume de Balneolis, seneschal for the Agenais, came himself to choose the site in the spring of 1255 on behalf of Alphonse of Poitiers, brother of St Louis, and a notary of Agen, Pons Maynard, was charged with drawing up the plan and writing the customs. Its name of Mont Royal was chosen to the glory of the Capetian dynasty. The bastide, on a very regular plan drawn out from east to west, leads by its streets and carrelots to the central square surrounded by arcaded corners on three sides. The collegiate church of Saint-Philippe-et-Saint-Jacques, partly fortified, extends a town gate, and fragments of the fortifications destroyed at the Revolution remain. Classed among the most beautiful villages in France, Montréal is also the gateway to the Gallo-Roman villa of Séviac.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the village. Tourist office in the village, giving access to the archaeological museum of the Séviac excavations; traditional market on Friday morning.

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

Montréal-du-Gers
MOSSOT · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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In the same department

All places — Gers (34).