The influence of military, political and economic conditions on the townscape and town walls Founded on 22 November 1284 by a contract of paréage between the lord of the land, Jourdain de l’Isle and Jean de Grailly, the King of England’s representative, Vianne is one of the most interesting bastides because of its formal plan and its well-preserved walls and gates. Its map shows building plots which were originally equal in size - the same size as those in Montauban, i.e. about 11.70 metres in front by 23.40 metres at the sides (24 rases by 48, the « rase » being a medieval unit of measure) as appears in the 1287 custom. The Pythagorean triangle seems to have been used to calculate how to divide up the land into parcels and for the fencing. Over an inside area of about 10 hectares, only part of the land was allotted to the first inhabitants and the space in the town was far from being wholly occupied by housing. The gardens have at all times taken up a lot of space. The overall structure includes two road axes : one, nearly 350 metres long, runs parallel with the Baïse, the other, about 250 metres long, lies perpendicular to the first. A street runs parallel to each of these, and neither of them leads to any of the town gates. These streets are 7.68 metres wide. The narrower streets are half as wide. Up to the 19th century, the town developed within its walls, its subsistence economy was meagrely maintained as it was a farming town, very often a victim of the vicissitudes of many wars throughout its history. During the Saint-Sardos war, the French were the first to cause damage. During the Hundred Years War, the French retook Vianne from the English in 1337. It was then retaken in 1340 by the English who again surrendered it to the French in 1342. The Catholic-Protestant wars ravaged the country in the 16th century. Things then calmed down, but the respite was of no benefit to the town which in a way simply vegetated. The cadastral survey of 1837 only numbers about a hundred houses and their gardens in Vianne. In the 1860s, the railway line ran at a tangent to its walls and later on served the fair-sized glassworks which was set up outside the wall in 1927, attracting a lot of foreign labourers. The extension made necessary by this increase in population was developed in symmetry with the factory, north of the bastide, by parcelling up the land among green spaces. This was also meant to revitalize local trade. In the bastide which has come down to us, the inside plots of ground not built on have not been used for development of the town, which makes Vianne’s peculiarity even more unusual and original. The architecture of the bastide offers very few interesting examples apart from a few 19th century houses, since practically all those dating back to the 14th, 15th or 18th centuries have disappeared. Today, in order to boost economic activities, a policy of environmental rehabilitation has been started, relying on art crafts and tourist information. This has meant that local trade and all-year-round handicrafts are well on the way to becoming re-established. All this has notably stimulated the development of tourism. River tourism on the Baïse is another asset, as well as the mill, built several centuries ago at right angles to the millrace and which may prove to be the start of a true stopping place on the river. The remaining sights which, on the side, also benefit a tourism which is growing year by year, depending on what the commune can afford, are the fortifications which have become an identifying image of the town. In fact, the first fence round the town was mentioned in a letter to the King and Duke dated May 287. The site was unsuitable for making Vianne into a fortified town, or for considering it as strategic either, but on account of the French-English hostilities in 1323-1325, fortification of the bastide became a matter of urgency. However, the defensive mechanisms seem to have followed quite a rudimentary design and a rather repetitive pattern. The gates are topped by square towers, while round towers stand at the corners of the surrounding wall. There are few and far-between arrow slits and there are no intermediate military engineering works whatsoever. The curtain walls, formerly isolated by ditches fed by the river, are reduced in height and now reach six or eight metres at their highest points. The rampart walk is still discernible in many places. However, it must be pointed out again that Vianne is the only bastide to have preserved all its ramparts practically intact, and their alignment remains although buildings have absorbed and taken over the walls in many places east and southwards. Thriftiness having been used in building the gates and walls, the main concern would be to restore the wall facing the river to its original state, as it appears in cartouches engraved in 1613 and in 1619. The whole of the bastide has been listed as a historic monument since 12th July 1886. Surveys had previously been drawn up by M. Benouville, as well as a restoration project, but it was only in 1901 that a new project was proposed by Rapine, a government architect, in order to provide the funding for putting it into effect. Things dragged on, with many mishaps, interventions and financial commitments. Eventually, in 1909 and long before his election as President, Senator Gaston Doumergue signed a new subsidizing decree which provided financing for the works on the ramparts.