Les moulins à vent

Grinding wheat into flour has always been an important economic activity. Although the mill in the rue Notre-Dame in its current form is not very old (18th century), it seems to have been the first windmill in the town to have belonged to the lords, hence its name ” Moulin du Château “. Windmills did not appear until later. Still rare in 1540, they supported the primitive production structures of the Bure and Entole water mills.

The commune had eight windmills, five of which have disappeared and three of which remain. The Château de Gaillon windmill was rebuilt in 1871 and the Maroule windmill was built around 1820. Made famous by Alphonse Daudet, the millers’ war against small-scale milling was felt in Rieumes in 1849:

“A prodigious abuse plagues the agriculture of this department, whose products must pass entirely through the hands of the miller in Toulouse: this abuse consists in the measuring, which is always done by men of the purchasers’ choice and devotion, and which is done with such skill that the seller is always obliged to undergo a fairly considerable reduction in quantity”… “The producer must bear not only the weight of the grain, but also the cost of the milling. The producer must bear not only the enormous burden of the tax, but also the profits that the trade must legally make, and the illicit profits from false measurement”.