Lectoure

Come to discover Lectoure, old Gallo-Roman City, old Evêché and principal residence of the Counts of Armagnac which, the top of sound oppidum strengthened, day before on Lomagne: a prestigious, single site in South-west.
To discover Lectoure, this is to enter in the middle of an avoided fortress of 2,7 kms of ramparts which girdle the City, and which by place are posed on rocks by the salt water, pointing out cliffs of BONIFACIO in Corsica. This is also to walk its glance on sumptuous landscapes, loss of sight, the surrounding countryside and the valley of Gers with for backdrop, the chain of the Pyrenees which appears so close Which splendid sight of the windows of the Room to Famous or trônent the Marshals of Worsen within the Old Episcopal Palate, today Town hall. To visit the historical centre of Lectoure; this is also to be confronted imposing monuments: the Saint-Gervais Cathedral, the old Royal Tannery, the Castle of the Counts of Armagnac; This is to walk among rare floors of flowers which allowed Lectoure to gain the first flower in 2003.
Do not miss the visit of the Archaeological Museum in the arched cellars of the Old Palate of the Bishops: you will discover there a remarkable collection of tauroboles and Gallo-Roman archaeological units resulting from the ancient city and its surroundings. (1st in Europe, with Rome) But to come? Lectoure, this is also to benefit from many animations: And Photographic produced by the National centre of Photography, one of the four which exists in France, Expositions Are contemporary art in the City proposed by the Footbridge of Arts, Folklore, Theatre, Festival of the Light, and especially the famous meals in the street or served some 2.500 gastronomical feasts within the framework of Melon, races landaises, Living room of the Antique dealers. Come to find the tradition of the markets every Friday morning. You will be able to find there all the products which make the fame of Gers. Lastly, halt on the way of Saint-Jacob de Compostelle, Lectoure offers more than 200 kms of pedestrian paths and marked out VTT.

The town hall built from 1676 to 1682 per the bishop Hugues de Bar, palate of the bishops untilthe Revolution then remains of the Lannes marshal and sub-prefecture until 1926, shelters a room of Famous, gallery with the Italian where appear the most notable portraits of Lectourois, a great number of the senior officers of the Revolution and the Worsen, but also, at the XIXth century, three admirals. Writers and poets are excluded from this gallery, only a portrait of Jean-François Bladé, gift of the painter Germain Massoc, is in the entry. The “famous ones” represented are:
* Jean Lannes, marshal d' Worsen
* Jean-Jacques de Laterrade, general
* Pierre Banel, general, by Justin Nichaud (1866)
* Jerome Soulès, general, by Marie Nicolas Pounce-Camus
* Jean-Baptiste Dupin, general. This rather naive anonymous table (the table (…) of the baron Dupin in tinplate breeches, writing Bladé), large-sized, had to be amputee of the sabre held with the horizontal, to enter the room
* Jacques-Gervais Subervie, by Gustave de Galard (1822)
* Joseph Lagrange, general
* Louis Antoine Marie Victor de Galard, rear-admiral (1765-1840)

With the arched basement, the Eugene-Camoreyt museum with the 21 furnace bridges taurobolic (sacrifice of bulls to the blood purifying), dedicated to the worships of Cybèle and Mithra, and found in 1540, during work of the rebuilding of the cathedral (consuls of the time having decided d' in constituting a public collection, one can regard this museum as one of oldest of France), currencies and vestiges archaeological (white marble sarcophagus of the school of Aquitaine) of the Gallo-Roman city established on the plain of Gers.
An arrow route guides towards the garden of the Chestnut trees, old garden of the bishop's palace, where an open-air theatre accomodated the troop of the Comédie-Française regularly (a plate recalls that the tragic actress Madeleine Roch played here for the last time, and an alley bears the name of the French Actor Albert Lambert). It dominates a terrace where the public swimming pool is and offers a sight on the plain of Gers towards the south jusqu' in the Pyrenees.

The route continues with the street Nationale, main axis where several private mansions are of XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, the tower of Albinhac XIIIrd century, last of the “strong houses” remaining of the Middle Ages, the gate of Cordeliers, the church of the Carmelite friars or the Holy Spirit of the XVIIth century, the hospital of the XVIIIth century raised by the bishop Mgr of Narbonne-Pellet, on the site of the castle of the counts of Armagnac, the boulevard of North skirting the ramparts (and its during in the south, the boulevard of the South), the tower of the Torturer of XIVth century, on the ramparts north, the street Weephole. With the foot of the remainders of the old castle of the counts of Armagnac, from which there remains some rare vestiges, are the alleys Montmorency, thus named according to a legend firmly established, failing this d' to be confirmed historically: in 1632, Henri II of Montmorency, governor of Languedoc, plotted against the royal capacity of Louis XIII in order to conquer the independence of its province. Beaten and been captive to the battle of Castelnaudary, the weather would have been taken along to the castle of Lectoure. 
The ladies of Lectoure decided to give an opportunity to escape. They made pass to the prisoner a cake, in which was hidden a silk scale. Unfortunately, the scale was too short: the duke fell and was wounded. He was taken again, and knew the destiny that you know, condemned to death, it was decapitated in the court of Capitole of Toulouse. Not far from l' Hospital, the Holy Spirit cemetery includes a small military cemetery with the tombs of colonial soldiers stationed with Lectoure during the First World War and decimated by the “Spanish influenza”. In the south, the Diane fountain, Hountélie in Gascon, of Roman origin, equipped with three arcades of XIIIrd century. Not far from there is old tannery of Ydrone, d' good example; industrial architecture of XVIIIth, where worked a hundred workmen. The walk of the Bastion, old southern bastion defending the main entrance, transformed into walk at the XIXth century, offers also a sight released towards the south. You reach it in the east by a broad monumental staircase which the white marble statue of the Lannes marshal surmounts, by Jean-Pierre Cortot. The bastion northern, known as “small bastion”, was replaced at the same time by dwellings and a place.
The war memorial, inaugurated on November 11, 1923, which raised in front of the cathedral Saint-Gervais and which was moved recently, is a work of the sculptor Carlo Sarrabezolles, out of gray granite of Brittany, high of 7,60 Mr.