Armous-et-Cau
The village is the birthplace of the Midour, a 105km-long, essentially Gascon waterway once lined with grinding mills, and home to Caesar's Road.
Otherwise known as the Ténarèze, this ancient prehistoric route in south-western France once linked Bordeaux to the central Pyrenees without crossing bridges or fords, and for several centuries was one of the major cross-border and transhumance routes.
Separating the Adour basin from the Garonne basin, it was used and consolidated by the Romans.
Local place names, Mauran and Fontarabie, evoke the retreat of the Moorish troops defeated in Poitiers by Charles Martel in 732, and who came up against the future Saint Fris and his comrades-in-arms at Bassoues.
Armous and Cau, once separated, initially belonged to the lords of Saint Christaud, then in the 12th century to the Gers abbey of La Case-Dieu, one of the main monastic communities in Gascony in the Middle Ages.
In the 11th century, the church of Armous (no longer in existence) was attached to the Benedictine abbey of Saint Mont.
The current church (19th century) was built using stones from the ancient churches of Armous and Cau.
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