Historical. “Patient zero”, thousands of deaths … A look back at the terrible plague of 1628 in Toulouse
By Toulouse editorial staff
Published on
For nearly three centuries, between 1348 and 1653, “the contagious disease” so named to evoke the plague, regularly struck Toulouse. Yercin’s bacillus (which will only be discovered at the end of the 19thand century), the pathogenic agent of this terrible scourge, proliferates regularly in the heat of fine weather. The New Wave is no exception.
A “zero patient” Jacobin brother
August 18, 1628, a monk who we later learned had left the Jacobin convent in Cahors (a city infected with the virus) a few days earlier, returned to the Languedoc capital through the Porte de Saint-Cyprien. The man, lodged at the Auberge de la Couronne d’or, near the Sainte-Claire du Salin church, died on the night of the 18th to the 19th.
three doctors Queyratz, Rey de Chasteau and Purpan (the one who was to give his name to the district that we know) and six surgeons confirm that the monk in question was carried away by the plague. In order not to excite the population, his body is obviously buried at night, outside the city, near the current Saint-Aubin church.
His possessions are burned and the inn is closed. Laborie, the tenant, is afraid to encourage a fine of 500 pounds (which corresponds to two and a half times the salary of a day-labourer) for having disobeyed the rule of June 28 which stipulates the prohibition made to “guests, innkeepers and other inhabitants of the said city and suburbs not to lodge any foreigner in their house without a cartel signed by one of the said sieurs capitouls”.
“Run early, go far and come back late”
Toulouse does not escape, as in all infected cities, the flight of elites and good people. Parliamentarians (with the exception of its first president Gilles Le Mazuyer) just like Archbishop Charles de Montchal, doctors, lawyers, bourgeois and other merchants apply to the letter the famous adage “Ciro, longe, tarde” (“Flee early, go far and come back late”) attributed to Hippocrates. They rejoice in their vacation in the countryside so as not to witness the cries and stench. Public processions and prayers, including that of November 12 which is part of Saint-Etienne Cathedral, are legion. But the “wrath” of God is much more strong incantations than these derisory ones. In the fall, there are already nearly 5,000 deceased inhabitants!
The city at a standstill
The surgeons, pledged by the city, take care of the most needy while the doctors transfer the sick at the Saint-Sébastien hospital (a saint reported to fight the plague) which later took the name of La Grave, as well as near Terre Cabade, Sept-Deniers and Bourrassol. Economic activity is suspended. The capitouls cancel fairs and markets, including that of Saint-Barthémy, for fear that the fairgrounds will harm the disease. Food reserves, essential to the survival of confined Toulouse residents, are dwindling.
In 1630, the first magistrates of the city end up requisitioning in all the castles and villages ten leagues away the round of food and proceed to the distribution of wheat at “common price”.
Matthew Arnal
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