La forêt de Rieumes

The “Gratecuq” district, to the west of the town, seems to take its name from the rosehip hedges whose red berries make you itch. The presence of these shrubs is a reminder that we are on the ancient limits of the immense primeval forest of Bouconne. The forest originally linked the Garonne to Granada and the Pyrenees. The Rieumes forest was very large before the devastating clearings that began in the 1830s. This forest provided Rieumes with most of its income. Logging provided firewood and timber for construction, and nothing was wasted as the falls fed the charcoal pits from which charcoal was extracted.

But this area of forest was also the crossing point for packs of wolves. In 1805, fifteen were shot. Two years later, the mayor of Rieumes organised a hunt in the woods of his commune : “a cart driver and two other people accompanying him were stopped at the start of the night on the edge of the forest by twenty or thirty wolves, who had great difficulty escaping”. The last great horde passed through in 1870.