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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: TOO-TUM |
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TOULOUSE , a city of south-western France, capital of the department of Haute-Garonne, 443 M. S. by W. of Paris by the Orleans railway, and 159 M. S.E. of Bordeaux by the Southern railway. Pop. (1906), town, 125,856; commune, 149,438. Toulouse is situated on the right bank of the Garonne, which here changes a north-easterly for a north-westerly direction, describing a curve round which the city extends in the form of a crescent. On the left bank is the suburb of St Cyprien, which is exposed to the inundations of the river owing to its low situation. The river is spanned by three bridgesthat of St Pierre to the north, that of St Michel to the south, and the Pont Neuf in the centre; the last, a fine structure of seven arches was begun in 1543 by Nicolas Bachelier, the sculptor, whose work is to he seen in many of the churches and mansions of the city. East and north of the city runs the Canal du Midi, which here joins the lateral canal of the Garonne. Between the Canal du Midi and the city proper extends a long line of boulevards leading southwards by the Allee St Etienne to the Grand Rond, a promenade whence a series of allees branch out in all directions. South-west the Allee St Michel leads towards the Garonne, and south the Grande Allee towards the Faubourg St Michel. These boulevards take the place of the old city walls. Between them and the canal lie the more modern faubourgs of St Pierre, Arnaud- Bernard
The most interesting building in Toulouse is the church of St Sernin or Saturnin, whom legend represents as the first preacher of the gospel in Toulouse, where he was perhaps martyred about the middle of the 3rd century. The choir, the oldest part of the present building, was consecrated by Urban II. in 1096. The church is the largest Romanesque basilica in existence, being 375 ft. from east to west and 210 ft. in extreme breadth. The nave (12th and 13th centuries) has double aisles. Four pillars, supporting the central tower, are surrounded by heavy masonry, which somewhat spoils the general harmony of the interior. In the southern transept is the " portail des comtes," so named because near it lie the tombs of William Taillefer, Pons, and other early counts of Toulouse. The little chapel in which these tombs (ascribed to the 11th century) are found was restored by the capitols of Toulouse in 1648. Another chapel contains a Byzantine Christ of late 11th-century workmanship. The choir (11th and 12th centuries) ends in an apse , or rather chevet, surrounded by a range of columns, marking off an aisle, which in its turn opens into five chapels. The stalls are of 16th-century work and grotesquely carved. Against the northern wall
The cathedral, dedicated to St Stephen, dates from three different epochs. The walls of the nave belong to a,Romanesque cathedral of the 11th century, but its roof dates from the first half of the 13th century. The choir was begun by Bishop Bertrand de 1'Ile (c. 1272), who wished to build another church in place of the old one. This wish was unfulfilled and the original nave, the axis of which is to the south of that of the choir, remains. The choir was burned in 1690 but restored soon after. It is surrounded by seven-teen chapels, finished by the cardinal d'Orleans, nephew of Louis XI., about the beginning of the 16th century, and adorned with glass dating from the 15th to the 17th century. The western gate, flanked by a huge square tower, was constructed by Peter du Moulin, archbishop of Toulouse, from 1439 to 1451. It has been greatly battered, and presents but a poor approximation to its ancient beauty. Over this gate, which was once ornamented with the statues of St Sernin, St Exuperius and the twelve apostles, as well as those of the two brother archbishops of Toulouse, Denis (14231439) and Peter du Moulin, there is a beautiful 13th-century rose-window, whose centre, however, is not in a perpendicular line with the point of the Gothic arch below. Among other remarkable churches may be noticed Notre-Dame de la Daurade, near the Pont Neuf, built on the site of a 9th-century Benedictine
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TcAilouse is singularly rich in mansions of the 16th and 17th centuries. Among these may be mentioned the Hotel Bernuy, a fine Renaissance building now used by the lycee and the Hotel d'Assezat of the same period, now the property of the Academie des Jeux Floraux (see below), and of the learned societies of the city. In the court of the, latter there is a statue of Clemence Isaure, a lady of Toulouse, traditionally supposed to have enriched the Academie by a bequest in the 15th century. The Maison de Pierre has an elaborate stone facade of 1612. Toulouse is the seat of an archbishopric, of a court of appeal, a court of assizes and of a prefect. It is also the headquarters of the XVII. army corps and centre of an educational circumscription (academie). There are tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitration, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. The educational institutions include faculties of law, medicine and pharmacy, science andletters, a Catholic institute with faculties of theelhusy and letters, higher and lower ecclesiastical seminaries, lycees and training colleges for both sexes, and schools of veterinary science, fine arts and industrial sciences and music. Toulouse, the principal commercial and industrial centre of Languedoc
flowers
ToLosA, chief town of the Volcae Tectosages, does not seem to have been a place of great importance during the early centuries of the Roman rule in Gaul, though in rob B.C. the pillage of its temple by Q. S. Cepio, afterwards routed by the Cimbri, gave rise to the famous Latin proverb habet aurum Tolosanum, in allusion' to ill-gotten gains. It possessed a circus and an amphitheatre, but its most remarkable remains are to be found on the heights of Old Toulouse (vetus Tolosa) some 6 or 7 M. to the east, where huge accumulations of broken pottery and fragments of an old earthen v'all mark the site of an ancient settlement. The numerous coins that have been discovered on the same spot do not date back farther than the 2nd century B.C., and seem to indicate the position of a Roman manufacturing centre then beginning to occupy the Gallic hill-fortress that, in earlier days, had in times of peril been the stronghold of the native tribes dwelling on the river bank. Tolosa does not seem to have been a Roman colony; but its importance must have increased greatly towards the middle of the 4th century. It is to be found entered in more than one itinerary dating from about this time; and Ausonius, in his Ordo nobilium urbium, alludes to it in terms implying that it then had a large population. In 419 it was made the capital of his kingdom by Wallia, king of the Visigoths, under whom or whose successors it became the seat of the great Teutonic kingdom of the West-Gothsa kingdom that within fifty years had extended itself from the Loire to Gibraltar and from the Rhone to the Atlantic. On the defeat of Alaric II. (507) Toulouse fell into the hands of Clovis, who carried away the royal treasures to Angouleme. Under the Merovingian kings it seems to have remained the greatest city of southern Gaul, and is said to have been governed by dukes or counts dependent on one or other of the rival kings descended from the great founder of the Frankish monarchy. It figures prominently in the pages of Gregory of Tours and Sidonius Apollinaris. About 628 Dagobert erected South Aquitaine into a kingdom for his brother Charibert, who chose Toulouse as his capital. For the next eighty years its history is obscure, till we reach the days of Charles Martel, when it was besieged by Serrfa, the leader of the Saracens from Spain (c. 715-720), but delivered by Eudes, " princeps Aquitaniae," in whom later writers discovered the ancestor of all the later counts of Toulouse. Modern criticism, however, has discredited this genealogy; and the real history of Toulouse recommences in 780 or 781, when Charlemagne appointed his little son Louis king of Aquitaine, with Toulouse for his chief city.During the minority of the young king his tutor Chorson ruled at Toulouse with the title of duke or count. Being deposed at the Council of Worms (790), he was succeeded by William Courtnez, the traditional hero of southern France, who in 8o6 retired to his newly founded monastery at Gellone, where he died in 812. In the unhappy days of the emperor Louis the Pious and his children Toulouse suffered in common with the rest of western Europe. It was besieged by Charles the Bald in 844, and taken four years later by the Normans, who in 843 had sailed up the Garonne as far as its walls. About 852 Raymond I., count of Quercy, succeeded his brother Fridolo as count of Rouergue and Toulouse; it is from this noble that all the later counts of Toulouse trace their descent. Raymond I.'s grandchildren divided their parents' estates; of these Raymond II. (d. 924) became count of Toulouse, and Ermengaud, count of Rouergue, while the hereditary titles of Gothia, Quercy and Albi were shared between them. Raymond II.'s grandson, William Taillefer (d. c. 1037), married Emma of Provence, and handed down part of that lordship to his younger son Bertrand.' William's elder son Pons left two children, of whom William IV. succeeded his father in Toulouse, Albi, Quercy, &c.; while the younger, Raymond IV. of St Gilles (c. ro66), made him-self master of the vast possessions of the counts of Rouergue, married his cousin the heiress of Provence, and about ro85 began to rule the immense estates of his elder brother, who was still living. From this time the counts of Toulouse were the greatest lords in southern France. Raymond IV., the hero of the first crusade, assumed the formal titles of marquis of Provence, duke of Narbonne and count of Toulouse. While Raymond was away in the Holy Land, Toulouse was seized by William IX., duke of Aquitaine, who claimed the city in right of his wife Philippa, the daughter of William IV., but was unable to hold it long (1098-1100). Raymond's son and successor Bertrand followed his father's example and set out for the Holy Land in 1109, leaving his great estates at his death to his brother Alphonse Jourdain. The rule of this prince was disturbed by the ambition of William IX. and his grand-daughter Eleanor, who urged her husband Louis VII. to support her claims to Toulouse by war. On her divorce from Louis and her marriage with Henry II., Eleanor's claims passed on to this monarch, who at last forced Raymond V. to do him homage for Toulouse in 1173. Raymond V., the patron of the troubadours, died in 1194, and was succeeded by his son Raymond VI., under whose rule Languedoc
' About 975 there was a partition of the estates which William Taillefer and his cousin Raymond II. of Auvergne held in common, Albi, Quercy, &c., falling to William, and Gothia, &c., to Raymond. s List
Raymond III. . . 924-c. 950 William Taillefer c. 950c. 1037 Pons . . . 1037-1060 William IV. . 1060-c. 1093 Raymond IV. . 1093-1096 Bertrand . 10961109 Alphonse Jourdain . 11091148 Raymond V.. . . 1148-1194 Raymond VI. . . 1194-1222 Raymond VII. . . 1222-1249 Alfonso and Joan . 1249--1271 parlement of Toulouse was established as a permanent court in 1443. Louis XI. transferred it to Montpellier in 1467, but restored it to Toulouse before the close of the next year. This parlement was for Languedoc and southern France what the parlement of Paris was for the north. During the religious wars of the 16th century the Protestants of the town made two unsuccessful attempts to hand it over to the prince de Conde. After St Bartholomew's Day (1572) 300 of the party were massacred. Towards the end of the 16th century, during the wars of the League, the parlement was split up into three different sections, sitting respectively at Carcassonne or Beziers, at Castle Sarrasin, and at Toulouse. The three were reunited in 1596. Under Francis I. it began to persecute heretics, and in 1619 rendered itself notorious by burning the philosopher Vanini. In 1762 Jean Calas, an old man falsely accused of murdering his eldest son to prevent him becoming a Roman Catholic, was broken on the wheel. By the exertions of Voltaire his character was afterwards rehabilitated. The university of Toulouse owes its origin to the action of Gregory IX., who in 1229 bound Raymond VII. to maintain four masters to teach theology and eikbt others for canon law, grammar, and the liberal arts. Civil law and medicine. were taught only a few years later. The famous " Floral Games " of Toulouse, in which the poets of Languedoc contended (May 1-3) for the prize of the golden amaranth and other gold or silver flowers
See L. Ariste and L. Brand, Histoire popujaire de Toulouse depuis les origines jusqu'a ce jour (Toulouse, 1898). This work contains an exhaustive bibliography. End of Article: TOULOUSE If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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