THE PAINTING SCHOOL OF MONTMIRAL

Montmiral was founded in 1222, by the young Count Raymond VII of Toulouse, during a lull in the fast failing fortunes of his still very powerful family. He was taking advantage of an unexpected turn of events to reassert and buttress his claim to a long-disputed region North of the river Tarn. The origin of both his troubles and his opportunity was an alarming increase in influence of a religious sect known as the Cathars and the attempts by the Roman Catholic Church to eradicate its adherents. The result was a crusade undertaken by ambitious and land hungry knights from the north which was to destabilise the political situation and, eventually, to facilitate a take-over of the county of Toulouse by the Capetian kings. In the following century, which saw the start of The Hundred Years War and the passage of marauding bands of soldiers led by the Black Prince and others, Montmiral came into the posession of the Counts of Armagnac. This was a small step in a process of aquisition that led, by the early 15th century to their becoming one of the two most powerful baronial families in France. It was the rivalry with the other family, the Counts of Burgundy, that gave the English, under Henry V, the chance to divide and conquer at the Battle of Agincourt, and it was their failure at that battle that led, eventually, to the Armagnacs being ousted from power and dispossessed of their titles and lands. The last of their line was pensioned off, out of harm's way, in Montmiral and, on his death, he left to the town's people the jewelled reliquary cross, which can be found in the church today. During the Wars of Religion Montmiral remained a Catholic stronghold in a largely Protestant region and played host to King Louis XIII and his unruly retinue on their way to suppress a last flaring up of revolt in 1621. The townspeople had just built a new and imposing esplanade and were sharing in a new prosperity that was to underpin the country's rise to European preeminence under Louis XIV.