YELLOW ROUTE
HISTORICAL TOUR OF THE BASTIDE* NEUVE
SITE 5
RUE GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC
The street bears the name of a man who in the 19th century was a popular figure in Gascony, Bernard-Adolphe de Cassagnac (1806-1880). He was known as a writer, a journalist and also a local MP. A private consultant of emperor Napoleon III , he managed,with the help of his son Paul, to keep the département of Gers a stronghold of the bonapartist party until 1893. He lived in Couloumé House. Mayor of Couloumé-Mondébat from 1862 to 1865 first, he then was mayor of Plaisance from 1865 until1874.
The street was given his name because it two of his economic achievements. First Cassagnac canal which was used for irrigation, fed with the water from river Adour pumped in the village of Tieste. The canal was inaugurated in 1861 and you can see a plaque commemorating the event above the mill door. Then, two years later, two mills were added, a large one and a small one, known as « Les Grand et Petit moulins ». Both are good examples of industrial architecture at the time of the Second Empire. Built quite close to the « place aux grains » ( a square where grains were sold and bought), the « Grand Moulin » (large mill) symbolizes the importance of the milling industry in Plaisance economy between 1860 and 1960. For a hundred years Plaisance was a millers' town.
bastide: a walled town in the South West of France