Not cats nor animals of any kind, but here is a map of Tolouse in the Roman era. You can see the Modern rue de Metz and smack dab in the middle of today' Place Esquirol, was the Forum of Roman Tolosa.
Second, a model of the temple of Athena that graced the Forum of Roman Tolosa, on display in the Musée St Raymond.
One finds a fragment of the Roman wall of Toulouse on rue bida just south of the Cathedral of St Etienne. I'm not sure when this was excavated. Sometime between 1920 and today. The regular pattern of white stone alternating with pink brick is very characteristic of Roman construction.
The first photo of the fragments is one that I took a couple years ago. The second photo is a screenshot from google maps. I've put a blue arrow to indicate the location of the Roman wall fragment.
I don't know if the history of the old walls of Toulouse can generalize to other walled cities. I think of walls as fairly permanent structures, but the walls of Toulouse were built, fortified, and demolished at least twice.
The original Roman walls were built in the 1st century. Toulouse was well inside the pax Romana guaranteed by Roman empire, but the walls were erected as a mark of Toulouse's distinction. This wall, roughly three kilmeters long, had three gates and enclosed an area of 90 hetares (220 acres).
In the 3rd century, menaced by barbarians as the empire began to crumble, the Toulousains fortified the Roman walls. The foundations of this wall were built in haste--building materials included fragments of statuary and bas-relief from destroyed buildings. And by the 5th century, Rome had handed over southwestern France to the Visigoths; well-fortified Toulouse became the capitol of the Visigothic kingdom.
Eight hundred years later, in 1213, Toulouse was captured by wicked Simon de Montfort during the Albigensian crusade. de Montfort ordered the Toulousains to destroy their walls, knock down their towers and fill in the moat which surrounded the city. Before the work was finished, a group of Toulousain women lobbed rocks from a tribuchet and crushed Simon de Montfort' skull. This halted demolition for a few years, but in 1229, the peace treaty that ended the Albigensian crusade signed by the King of France and the Count of Toulouse still required the demolition of Toulouse's walls.
Then, just a little over 100 years later, in 1345, the Toulousains were authorized to rebuild their walls. The Hundred Years War had started and this time the Toulousains needed to defend the city against the "Black Prince" and his English armies. These new wall enclosed land that had formerly been outside the city wall (notably Saint-Sernin.)
By the 18th century, these walls were choking the city. Most were knocked down in urban renewal projects in the 1860s. But traces remain.
The first picture is one that I took last summer. This tower is visible from the jardin Royale, and it gives you some idea of how big these towers were.
The second picture is a satellite view from google maps. The red circles are existing towers--the one pictured above is the circle in the upper right corner-- the line connecting them gives you an idea of the placement of the old wall.
The lower tower was incorporated into the wall of a prison, Haut-Murat (third photo) The building is from the 19th century and had a tower at both ends. One remains but the other is a shell (last photo)
I was delighted to find an illustrated text of events from Toulouse's history that included an artist's rendition of the Gallo-Roman city, Tolosa. If you click on the image, it should become larger.
The artist has accurately rendered what is known about Roman Toulouse. You can easilty pick out the temple and the forum, in the heart of town. There, the north-south road, the Cardio Maximus (which runs right to left here) intersects the Decumanus, the east-west road (which leaves town near the temple where the Cathedral of St Etienne stands today.) Other notable features include the theatre just west of the forum, the aqueduct that brings water across the Garonne River (approximately where the Pont Neuf stands today) and the arch of Triumph (on the far lower right) just outside the city walls. As mentioned in an earlier post, the arch was incorporated into the Château Narbonnais years later.
Update: Every civilized Roman city had certain features as essential to them as gas stations, city hall and churches are to our urban landscape: city wall, forum, temple, cardio maximus/decumanus, theatre, baths, victory arch, aqueduct and colliseum/ampitheatre. You may have noticed that this artist's rendition of Tolosa has all these amenities EXCEPT for an ampitheatre. But there was an ampitheatre, an arena, (as well as baths) about 2 miles out of town on the other side of the river, possibly part of a military camp or rural retreat. Built of characteristic Toulousain red brick in the 1st century, the arena served as a venue for gladiator battles until around 400 AD. The area is now it is a suburb of Toulouse, between the airport and Purpan hospital.
Rue du Taur joins Saint Sernin and the Capitole. In the Gallo-Roman period this route was outside the wall of Toulouse, a necropolis lined with the sarcophagi of the dead who wanted to rest near Saint Sernin. On Judgment Day, these lucky dead hoped to be swept into heaven on the powerful mojo of of the saint.
Update: this is looking towards the Capitole with Saint Sernin at your back. You can make out the high clock-tower wall of Eglise du Taur in the distance.
The Parlement of Toulouse-France's second, after Paris--was established by King Charles VII in 1463. It was a court of law; its functions was the administration of the King's justice. Gem!
Update: I was so sleepy last night I wasn't able to add this. The image is from the Annals of Toulouse, the annual records of the deliberations of the Capitouls of Toulouse, most of which were destroyed in a bonfire at the time of the Revolution. This particular image shows at the top, the Virgin Mary (showing that justice comes from God); in the middle, the capitouls in their red robes, sitting in judgment; and at the bottom three lawyers and the accused.
Needless to say, from 1443 when the king established Parlement to administer his justice, the Capitouls--who also had the authority to administer justice from the charter given to them by the Count of Toulouse in the mid-12th century-- and the Parlement were competing over who got to administer justice.
Toulouse had, as I have mentioned before, all the appointments of a proper Roman city--wall, baths, theatre, forum, temples, arena, aqueduct--but it didn't seem to have an arc de triomphe.
However, the château of the Counts of Toulouse, Château Narbonnais, was situated
where the via Aquitania-the Roman road from Narbonne to
Toulouse--entered the city. When the Château was demolished in the 16th century, a white stone gate of singular workmanship was unearthed. More than 24 feet high, above its door was carved a tree full of Roman trophies with two bound captives. This iconography and its location have led some to spectulate that this was a fragment of Toulouse's Arc of Triumph (although it can not be ruled out that this particular gate had been moved to this location.) An inscription in the base establishes that this, the gate Maximus, was built in the era of Augustus.It commemorates the victory of the General Marius over several Germanic tribes who had been looting and pillaging the territory.
The famous arc in Orange (photographed during our 2011 visit) is 60 feet tall. The Maximus gate in Toulouse, at 24 feet, was less than half as high. So, Arc de Triomphe or ?
My husband asked me to provide a timeline of Toulouse history, so here goes, off the top of my head:
The Celts were settled in Tolosa before the 2nd century BC, their oppidum high on the hills above today's city. Excavations have turned up wine amphorae, jewelry and burial urns that can be seen at musée St-Raymond today.
The Romans conquered what became Narbonnensis in 170 BC or so. Toulouse became a Roman city, beloved enough of the Emporor Augustus that he built a wall around it. Like all Roman provincial towns, it had temples, a forum, a theatre, an arena, a decent water system, an aqueduct, baths, a triumphal arch. Today, it is still possible to see traces of the wall, here and there; the arena is still visible. Roman statues and columns turn up every so often. In the underground of the Palais de Justice one can see the old Roman road leading into town from Narbonne. One incident from the later Roman period had great importance--the martyrdom of Saturninus, St. Sernin, first Bishop of Toulouse, who was dragged to death behind an oxen in 250 AD after refusing to worship a Roman diety.
The empire disintegrated in the 4th & 5th century, and Toulouse was handed over in 418 AD to the Visigoths, as payment for their help fighting for Rome. Toulouse became the head of the Visigoth kingdom which stretched from the Iberian pennisula north. Recent excavations in Toulouse have turned up the foundations of what is believed to be the palace of the Visigothic kings (shown here) near St Pierre de Cuisine. This kingdom was defeated by the Franks in 507 under Clovis, the founder of the Merovingian dynasty.
That's enough for tonight.
I've mentioned the bell tower of the Notre-Dame de la Dalbade before (though I don't have time to find that original article.) The bell tower dated to 1580, and, though restored in 1888, it collapsed on the night of Aprill 11, 1926, killing a baker and his wife, and crushing the interior of the church.
I found some good images of the clocher and am confident that they are self-explanatory. Several views of the bell tower which dominated the skyline of Toulouse--the first from the state's inquiry into the collapse--it was the highest point in the city, and then two views of the wreckage.
The bad news today is that, as of this morning, my camera, a Canon Powershot SD 950 that I bought in 2008, is kaput. It just no longer turns on. This may explain some of the irritating things that have been happening recently--such as setting it to a sans-flash setting, only to have the camera flash when taking the photo. So I have to rely on my husband's iPhone camera for the remainder of the trip.
The good news is that I will get a new camera when I get back to the USA.
I was surprised to learn that Puy de Dome is considered one of eleven "Grand Sites de France," sites, places that "represent France and which appeal to a very wide public" and that have been classified as having "artistic, historical scientific, legendary or picturesque character." Le Pont du Gard and Mont-St-Michel are two others. So I was not just surprised, but I have a new travel agenda: One Grand site de France per year.
Over 100,000 people a year visit Puy de Dome--I think about 1000 of them were there yesterday--and one of the goals of a Grand Site is to achieve sustainable and responsible tourism. Thus, the old road that one drove to the top of the mountain and the parking lot at the top have been replaced--as of May 26, 2012-- by an sleekly modern welcome center at the foot of the mountain and a train that runs around the clock every half hour. 12 minutes up, 12 minutes down, 6 minutes to load and unload. One also has the option of walking or riding a bike to the top or down. We opted to ride up and walk the 8 km down. So we bought our tickets, waited with families, dogs, and travellers of all ages-obviously, having a train makes the ride to the top accessible to everyone--and were carried to the top of Puy de Dome in comfort.
The views at the top and the fields of wildflowers are spectacular. Excellent paths allow visitors to explore easily and the whole experience is made even more thrilling by the men who were paragliding over the edge with their colorful chutes.
Puy de Dome was sacred to the Romans. They built a temple to Mercury at the top (using 50 kinds of marble)--the foundations are still visible--and erected a statue of Mercury that was considered one of the Wonders of the World.
When we had absorbed all the glory we could, we walked down using what is called the Chemin de Muletiers--the old path that the Romans used to haul all that marble up the mountain. This was a descent as glorious as the views from the mountain top. At the foot of the mountain, we walked sensible paths through beautiful forests of pine and beech. All in all, a thoroughly agreeable day.