History History

The very first inhabitants of the Aude have left traces as early as 1,500,000 BC and the Tautavel man, 450,000 years before our era, may have lived in the whole region.

Monuments such as menhirs testify to a religious activity at this period.

It was during the Bronze Age that an economic organisation began to be set up, with the extraction of ore in the Black Mountain. Trade extended to Italy, Greece and Spain during the Iron Age. At that time, the department belonged to the confederation of the Volques Tectosages, a Celtic people settled in the Garonne valley. A period of peace and development followed.

Rome founded its first colony outside Italy in Narbonne. Chosen for its location on the banks of the Aude, near the sea and at the crossroads of two major traffic routes, the city, which became the capital of the Narbonne province, enjoyed a great period of prosperity thanks to its port, a hub for trade with the entire Roman West. Its decline began in the first half of the 3rd century and was accentuated by the invasions of 275.

Carcassonne becomes Latin; it has rich cereal farms. Vineyards appeared and wine was marketed. But the Roman Empire declined and the region was invaded from the year 250. The region enjoyed a long period without major conflicts: the Pax Romana.

It is after the Visigoth invasions, in 435, that the region becomes Septimanie. The Arabs invaded the region at the beginning of the 8th century, but were driven out by Pepin Le Bref around 760. His son, Charlemagne, divided the Aude into counties. It was during this period that many Benedictine abbeys were built, such as that of Lagrasse, whose foundation charter is carefully preserved in the Departmental Archives of the Aude. The counts to whom the Carolingians had entrusted territories became, little by little, very powerful. This is the case of Raymond Roger Trencavel whose House controlled Carcassonne, Albi, Béziers and the Razès.

The appearance of a dissident Christianity, Catharism, upsets the balance of this region. It was in the 12th century that it developed in the Aude. Living like the first Christians and preaching the word of Christ from village to village, the Cathars highlighted the abuses of the Church of Rome. In order to eradicate Catharism, which was then considered a heresy, Pope Innocent III called for a crusade.

During this crusade, the Aude is put to fire and blood. The city of Carcassonne fell to the crusaders in August 1209. In 1229, Carcassonne, attached to the Kingdom of France, became the seat of a new judicial, administrative and military institution: the seneschaussée. The construction of a network of sentinel castles began in the surrounding mountains to assert the new royal power and continued for half a century.

Since warlike conflicts were unable to overcome "heresy", Pope Gregory IX established the Inquisition in 1233, a ruthless religious tribunal that would claim many victims over the centuries. This was the time of the burning and persecution. The last bastions, the castle of Montségur and Quéribus, fell in 1244 and 1255 respectively. The last "perfect", Guilhem Bélibaste, was burned alive in Villerouge-Termenès in 1321.

The pharaonic construction of the "Canal Royal en Languedoc" began, under the aegis of a genius entrepreneur from Béziers, Pierre Paul Riquet. It was he who, at the age of 53, imagined the canal project and wrote to Colbert, Louis XIV's powerful Minister of Finance, to tell him about it. To convince the minister (the same one who requisitioned the forests of the Plateau de Sault to supply the shipbuilding industry), he had a test channel dug in the Montagne Noire and as far as Naurouze with his own money, thus showing that this canal would not lack water. For 14 years, 12,000 workers dug the earth, built engineering structures - no less than 63 locks, 130 bridges, 55 aqueducts, 7 canal bridges and 6 dams - and planted 45,000 plane, cypress and other trees along the banks.

The Revolutionaries renamed the canal the "Canal du Midi" because they wanted to give it a more democratic and popular name.

For the anecdote, it is to a Carcassonnais, Philippe François Nazaire Fabre, called Fabre d'Eglantine, that we owe the revolutionary calendar! The department of Aude was created after the French Revolution, in 1790, at the request of the deputies of Carcassonne, Limoux and Castelnaudary. The majority of the popular societies were attached to the Jacobin club. The law of 28 pluviôse year 8 created four arrondissements (reduced to three by Poincaré in 1926) and thirty-one cantons.

The cloth industry, which had once flourished, went into sharp decline. At the same time, wine growing began to flourish. The "red gold" made the joy - and the fortune! - of many landowners, who took advantage of it to build exuberant "châteaux pinardiers". In 1853, the restoration of Carcassonne by Viollet-le-Duc began.

The Aude has transformed part of its arid plains into superb vineyards. But the department is suffering, like its neighbours in the Hérault, Gard and Pyrenees, from overproduction of wine, which is resulting in a slump in sales and a sharp drop in prices, divided by two or three in a few years. For many small wine growers and merchants in the Aude region, it was ruin. The crisis turned into a winegrowers' revolt in 1907. An entire region united and rose up to save its culture, its traditions, its know-how and its livelihood. At their head, a man : Marcelin Albert, a native of Argeliers, a wine grower, mobilized the crowds. On May 26, 1907, a demonstration brought together nearly 250,000 people at the foot of the ramparts of Carcassonne. "Forward to defend our rights! "shouted these angry winegrowers. Their slogans were written in French, Occitan and Catalan. Some of them have remained famous, such as "Death to fraudsters" or "Lou darnié croustet" accompanied by a loaf of bread. On 19 June 1907, the crisis in the Languedoc wine industry led to tragic clashes between the police and demonstrators, resulting in several deaths. Even today, 1907 remains a reference point for identity, a myth for the winegrowers of the Midi.

In 1941, Pétain demanded that civil servants, soldiers and magistrates take an oath of loyalty. Only one judge in France refused to do so: Paul Didier, a man from Aude, who was immediately dismissed and arrested. In October 1941, 28 young people were arrested for distributing communist leaflets in the Narbonne region during the harvest. They were brought before the special section of the Montpellier military court. 26 were sentenced to imprisonment or forced labour. One of them, Gabriel Pelouze, led the uprising at the Eysses power station in Villeneuve-sur-Lot in February 1944; after the revolt failed, he was shot. Still in the Aude, Abbot Albert Gau set up an organisation to save the Jews (baptism certificates, false papers to facilitate passage to Spain, accommodation for families, etc.). On 8 August 1944, in Trassanel, 41 Resistance fighters were killed by German bullets. The department has 28 Righteous Among the Nations, an expression that distinguishes those who have shown extraordinary courage to save Jews, sometimes at the risk of their lives.

In 1992, l'Aude suffered deadly floods. Between the 12th and 13th November 1999, a deluge hit the department again. The coastline, the low plains, the Minervois and the Corbières were under water: 25 dead and one missing.

In 2003, the Narbonnaise en Méditerranée Regional Nature Park was created. In 2016, the Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées regions were combined into a single territory: the Occitanie region, of which Aude is now an integral part alongside 12 other departments. On March 23, 2018, a terrorist with an S record killed four people in attacks in Carcassonne, and especially in a supermarket in Trèbes. During the hostage crisis, Lieutenant Colonel Arnaud Beltrame lost his life while taking the place of a hostage. And in October 2018, torrential rains hit the department again, costing the lives of 15 people.