Last modified: 2025-09-06 by olivier touzeau
Keywords: lacapelle-marival | lot |
Links: FOTW homepage |
search |
disclaimer and copyright |
write us |
mirrors
![[Flag]](../images/f/fr-46-lm.gif)
Flag of Lacapelle-Marival - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 3 June 2025
See also:
Lacapelle-Marival (1,278 inhabitants, 1,161 ha) is a commune in the Lot department.
During the Roman occupation, a communication route probably crossed the Lacapelle region. It connected Lyon to Bordeaux via Clermont, Aurillac, and Agen. In the 10th century, Lacapelle-Marival is mentioned in writings related to the life of Saint Géraud.
Before the end of Saint Géraud's life, the first counts of Quercy expanded their domains and established the House of Cardaillac. In his will of 1266, Bertrand III de Cardaillac divided his inheritance among his three sons. His eldest son, Géraud I, received the Château de Cardaillac, the lands of Saint-Maurice-en-Quercy, Lacapelle, Rudelle, and Camboulit. He was the founder of the seigneury of Lacapelle-Marival. Under Bertrand III, during the Hundred Years' War, the town fell into the hands of English traders in 1388 or 1389. William II established justice in Lacapelle in 1465.
At the end of the 15th century, during the reigns of Charles VIII and Louis XII, the lord of Lacapelle, Astorg de Cardaillac, participated in the Italian Wars with Galiot de Genouillac, lord of Assier. He encouraged the establishment of a glassworks that acquired a great reputation.
During the Wars of Religion, Antoine de Cardaillac, who was also Seneschal of Quercy and gentleman-in-ordinary to King Charles IX, sold his position as Seneschal in 1576 and undertook the expansion of Lacapelle Castle and the restoration of the church after the destruction of the old 12th-century Romanesque church. Quercy was then the scene of fierce clashes between Catholics and Protestants. Antoine de Cardaillac supported the Catholic cause, while his relatives, Cardaillac and Latronquière, had converted to the Reformed faith. The inhabitants had to return to the towns where their party was strongest. Antoine de Cardaillac was able to preserve his possessions and, as governor of Figeac, he drove back the Protestants in 1569. He died in 1586 and was buried in the church of Notre-Dame de Lacapelle.
After the Edict of Nantes, Lacapelle served as a refuge for Catholics and Cardaillac for Protestants. Antoine's eldest son, François, inherited the castle. On August 15, 1595, he married Madeleine de Bourbon Malause, daughter of the chamberlain of the King of France. They had 18 children. François resumed the expansion of the castle. He continued to defend royalty and Catholicism. Wounded during a clash with the Protestant clan at Fons on March 10, 1622, he died the following day. His murderer was killed by his son, Henry-Victor de Cardaillac. Henri-Victor de Cardaillac spent his life at the court of Louis XIII. The seigneury of Lacapelle was elevated to a marquisate by Louis XIV on May 15, 1645, for Henri-Victor's services during military campaigns. From the end of the 17th century, the family fortune was swallowed up in feuds between relatives, and the lands and titles of Lacapelle were sold to the Loupiac family. During the Revolution, the last lord of Lacapelle fled. The castle was pillaged several times during the Terror.
In the 19th century, Lacapelle hosted numerous agricultural fairs where cereals and walnuts from Limargue, chestnuts from Ségala, cattle, sheep, and poultry were traded. Industry remained modest: the glassmakers of the 15th century had disappeared, and only a tile factory and two mills remained. The Benedictine convent of Notre-Dame-du-Calvaire was reestablished in the village of Lacapelle in 1843 at the instigation of Father Pierre Cadiergues. The nuns established a girls' school at Galaup Castle, which closed in 1905. With the help of the local population and the municipality, they built the Moutier-Notre-Dame monastery, where they managed a farm.
During the Second World War, on May 11, 1944, at 6:00 a.m., numerous vehicles of the 2nd SS Division Das Reich blocked the village exits. They asked the mayor, Dr. Cadiergues, to gather all men aged 16 to 60 in the village square. At 6:00 p.m., after an arbitrary selection process, 86 were loaded onto trucks and sent to Cahors, where they were deported; 10 never returned.
Olivier Touzeau, 3 June 2025
The flag of Lacapelle-Marival was observed with several other city flags in 2019 in Eguisheim (Haut-Rhin) when for the 59th Eguisheim Winegrowers' Festival, Mayor Claude Centlivre wanted to fly the flags of the "friendly" towns around the renovated old wine press (source: this article in L'Alsace newspaper).
The flag of Lacapelle-Marival is
white with the coat of arms, the names of the commune and of the
departement (Lot) and region (Occitanie).
The arms are canting: Gules, a chapel Argent.
Olivier Touzeau, 3 June 2025