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Marmande

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Lot-et-Garonne, 35 m. N.W. of Agen, on the Southern railway from Bordeaux to Cette. Pop. (1906), town 6373; commune, 9748. Marmande is situated at the confluence of the Trec with the Garonne on the right bank of the latter river, which is here crossed by a suspension bridge. Public institutions include the sub-prefecture, the tribunals of first instance and commerce, the communal college and schools of commerce and industry and of agriculture. Apart from the administrative offices, the only building of importance is the church of Notre-Dame, which dates from the 13th, ,4th and 15th centuries. The graceful windows of the nave, the altarpiece of the i 8th century, and in particular, the Renaissance cloister adjoining the south side, are its most interesting features. Among the industries are iron-founding, steam sawing, the manufacture of woollens, carriage-making, cooperage and brandy-distilling. There is a large trade in wine, plums, cattle, grain and other agricultural produce.

Marmande was a bastide founded about 1195 on the g ite of a more ancient town by Richard Coeur de Lion, who granted it a liberal measure of self-government. Its position on the banks of the Garonne made it an important place of toll. It soon passed into the hands of the counts of Toulouse, and was three times besieged and taken during the Albigensian crusade, its capture by Amaury de Montfort in 1219 being followed by a massacre of the inhabitants. It was united to the French crown under Louis IX. A short occupation by the English in 1447, an unsuccessful siege by Henry IV. in 1577 and its resistance of a month to a division of Wellington's army in 1814, are the chief events in its subsequent history.