St. Gaudens gets its name from a boy of thirteen years who was martyred in 475 for holding to the Christian faith under the persecution of Euric, King of the Visigoths. It is a dusty little town, with a busy market-place and a beautiful Romanesque church, dating from the beginning of the twelfth century, when the place began to grow prosperous with the establishment of a college of canons at the martyr’s tomb. The church was formerly fortified, and the upper part of the Romanesque tower has been rebuilt by Laffolye, who restored the sculpture of the small tower door of the same period, the carving having been badly mutilated by Montgomery’s Huguenots. One enters by a fine Flamboyant doorway, and finds a very dark interior, with walls hung with old tapestries, and a horrible atmosphere, suggesting an entire lack of ventilation. It is worth while, however, to endure this polluted air in order to examine the finely carved capitals, showing Biblical scenes, including a very interesting Nebuchadnezzar in the fields. The sacristy, with a vaulted roof, and the carved choir-stalls should also be seen.
No. 15. ST. GAUDENS TO CARCASSONNE.
The road follows the Garonne, and on nearing St. Martory runs close beside it, with a great wall of orange-coloured rock on the left.
ST. MARTORY
is a curious town with two imposing eighteenth-century gateways, one of them by the bridge which is crossed on the way southwards to St. Girons. Arthur Young marvelled at their magnificence when he saw them in 1787. He thought they could only have been built to please the eye of travellers! The gendarmerie is built of the stone brought from the ruined Abbey of Bonnefont, and the Romanesque doorway of the church (sixteenth century) comes from the same monastery, a little south of the town.
A Renaissance château stands on the right bank of the river.
After crossing the hills south of St. Martory, the road drops down to the village of Mane, on the Salat, and all the way to St. Girons one follows that river without crossing it. At a point about 6 kilometres from Mane, where there is a bridge to Lacave, one is tempted to cross the river, as the road appears to be entering a stone quarry, but one must not be deterred by this.
ST. LIZIER