page_title: Bagnères-de-Luchon
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bagnères-de-Luchon / History
caption_attribution_description: Fonds Trutat - Photographie ancienne Lieu de création&#160;: Bagnères-de-Luchon (Haute-Garonne) Observations&#160;: Notes manuscrites Trutat&#160;: &quot; Goerz Anschutz Jougla rose &quot;. Mot(s)-clé(s)&#160;: -- Rue -- Echoppe -- Epicerie -- Horlogerie -- Réverbère -- Façade -- Eglise -- Homme -- Femme -- Enfant -- Cheval -- Bagnères-de-Luchon (Haute-Garonne) -- Rue Carnot (Bagnères-de-Luchon) -- Pique (France&#160;; vallée) -- Pyrénées (France) -- 20e siècle, 1e quart
context_page_description: Bagnères-de-Luchon, also referred to as just Luchon, is a French commune and spa town in the Haute-Garonne department in the Occitanie region of south-western France.
  The inhabitants of the commune are known as Luchonnais or Luchonnaises.
  The commune has been awarded three flowers by the National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom.
context_section_description: The town has existed for more than 2,000 years. The presence of a population has been attested since Neolithic times at least in the Saint-Mamet Cave. The presence of Stone circles also attests to an ancient occupation.
  In 76 BC Pompey, returning from a policing expedition in Spain (where he founded the city of Pamplona named after him), stopped in the area and founded the new city of Lugdunum Convenarum where he brought together the scattered Convènes tribe: this was the future Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges.
  One of his soldiers who suffered from a skin disease immersed himself in the thermal waters of Luchon and its "Onésiens" baths where he discovered their thermal properties. After 21 days (the traditional and still current duration of a cure) he came out completely healed.
  In 25 BC Tiberius Claude dug three pools and developed thermal baths. The baths had a modest motto: "Balneum Lixonense post Neapolitense primum" (the Luchon baths are the best after those of Naples) which is still today the motto of the town. Julius Caesar spoke of the region his "Commentaries".
  The invasions of the Goths and Visigoths passed through the region as well as the incursions of the Moors. People took refuge in the high valleys of Larboust or Oueil. Traces of these invasions remain in some local myths and legends.
  Charlemagne and Gaston Phoebus gave the area a special status of a border March with a certain amount of autonomy between France and Spain.
  The area was relatively untouched by the Hundred Years' War, as well as by the suppression of Catharism and the Protestant Reformation. People remained loyal to a 'modified' Catholicism, which it took the bishops of Saint-Béat centuries to rein in; priests lived in communities, sometimes armed and married, and were poorly educated and poorly trained. They extorted payment for funeral Masses in the form of well-watered meals, and they were loyal to the interests of their house of origin, rather than to Rome.
  In 987 the village of "Banières" and its thermal baths around its church was described as quite successful. At Toussaint there was a major fair which did not have, however, the fame of that of Saint-Béat, which benefited more from trade with Spain.
  Around 1200 the hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem installed a commandery at Frontés, between Montauban and Juzet-de-Luchon. The goal was to control the passage to the mountain, which was a secondary road on the Camino de Santiago, and to organize hospices for pilgrims and merchants who risked their lives in winter. The building of the Hospice de France dates from this period and is the only trace remaining of the Knights Hospitaller. The opening of the Port de Venasque Pass followed later.
  Then commenced a continuous struggle for centuries between the Knights hospitaller and the people who were guided by their priests. The objective quickly became more economic than religious and it was not a question of sharing taxes. Finally the order abandoned the region.
  There have always been very few nobles in the region where the peasantry has always fought for their survival. The old treaties of Lies et passeries gave the people of both sides of the mountain free movement and free trade even if the kingdoms were at war. Any boycott would have little support as it would easily decimate the population. These treaties were systematically renewed and imposed on kings and bishops. A popular form of elected representation existed: the consuls. It was thus possible to speak of Pyrenean republics.
  The kings of France sought to put an end to this situation which seemed to them abnormal.
  In 1759 Baron Antoine Mégret d'Etigny, intendant of Gascony, was sent to Luchon. He began by creating a passable road using collective labour and expropriations. He was forced to appeal to a company of dragoons to hold the population in check as they were unaccustomed to such authoritarian treatment. In 1761 he reorganized the baths and gave them a foundation for their future development. In 1763 Marshal Duke of Richelieu came to take the waters and he returned in 1769 with mu
caption: View of Luchon in 1908 (Eugène Trutat)
exif: {}