The passage of the bridge of Tanus is an occasion to discover the fortified village of Sauveterre de Rouergue, cradle of the Résseguier du Pouget family.
We leave the road from Rodez to Naucelle-gare, to go towards the villa of Naucelle, then a few kilometers beyond towards the bastide of Sauveterre.
The ramparts have disappeared, but one notices the geometrical plan, which dates from the XIV century, around a beautiful square and the collegiate church of Saint Christophe, with 8 streams of houses forming a very authentic and charming authentic and full of charm.
The parish acts have kept the trace of the baptism in April 1717 of Marguerite de Résséguier, the last of the four children
children of noble Jean Jacques de Résséguier
(the two older brothers did not reach adulthood, and his older sister Anne married in 1736 to Jacques de Genton, already living in Albi), Commander of the second battalion of infanterie of the Condé regiment, who died at Sauveterre in January 1725, when she was only 8 years old.
On October 4 October 1740 will be celebrated in Sauveterre her marriage with noble Victor Joseph de Galaup, before she joined her home in Albi, and the Gö farm.
She was obviously going to visit her mother in Sauveterre, born Françoise de Moly (died in 1764), and her grandmother Antoinette de Dalmas,
from whom came by inheritance the big family house of Sauveterre. It is even claimed even in Sauveterre that his first child Jean François de Galaup,
future Lapérouse, was scheduled to be born at Sauveterre near his maternal grandmother, if family events had not brought his mother back to Gö.
Later, the elder sister of Lapérouse Jacquette Martianne will marry in Sauveterre on April 30, 1765 Pierre Jean Antoine Dalmas de la Bessière, native of Sauveterre, (as the family of Azemar, author of a genealogical work genealogical work on Lapérouse), but it will be domiciled in Villefranche de Rouergue.
The present presbytery (in front of the bakery of Sauveterre) is the former Dalmas house, occupied by the family Résséguier, where Lapérouse as a child had the opportunity to stay with his mother; It includes in particular in facade the coat of arms of Dalmas.
You can also see the site of the old grain mill on the Lézert stream (on which is built a bridge between Naucelle and Sauveterre) which was for a long time a Dalmas property (thus related to the family of the mother of Lapérouse’s mother), currently transformed into private house.
To finish this description, Sauveterre, tourist city, has the excellent restaurant “le Sénéchal”, a little a little expensive. Some people prefer a better quality-price ratio in Naucelle-gare or in Castelpers.
Article published on le journal de bord N°10. Author P. Bérard