Mons = Moux on the hand-drawn Cassini map of France (1750-1820)
Earliest recorded mention of Moux (mooks, ok) also Mous, Mons.
1110. “villa de Murso”
1215 In an ownership arbitration the village known as “Mozie” was signed to the infamous count Simon de Monfort (he of the Cathar cult burnings.)
1246 In the reign of Louis IX, Mossio is assigned in favour of Raymond de Capendu .
1303 Guillelmus de Mossio is named on an inscription in Narbonne.
1309 P. de Mossio, a knight templar of the Diocèse de Narbonne was called for questioning, to Paris.
1377 Mossio is reduced to ‘10 feux d’imposition’ (feu = fire) that is, to be taxed on ten hearths, or houses (with 60 inhabitants i.e. av. 6 people per house)
1709 Mous imposé pour 46 feux (170 habitants, or av. 4 per household)
1818 Moux had 440 habitants
1830 435
1831 504
1851 676
1882 933
1900 1200
1906 1093
1910 1210
1928 1034
1962 771
1998 545
In 1906 the village had six épiceries (general grocer) one selling Spanish produce, and once a week two épiciers ambulants came to the village: Antoine of Lézignan and Caiffa from Carcassonne.There were three bakeries who delivered bread to your door,and two butchers. The charcutier (cooked/prepared meats) of Capendu came once a week.
The village needed many skilled artisans: two bourreliers (harness-makers), three maréchaux-ferrants (blacksmiths, who were also horse-vets by necessity.) One charron(cart or wagon-maker). Two cordonniers (cordwainers’ or boot/shoemakers). One shoe shop. Three barrel-makers and one foudrier, a big barrel-maker, plus one serrurier, a locksmith. For kitchenware there were two ferblantiers - tinsmiths capable of making and re-tinning copper pans, and working with zinc (fer = iron/metal + blanc.)
There were four cafés : le Grand café which was also the state-controlled tobacconist ‘bureau de Tabac’, the Café du Commerce which for a time was a small dancehall and a cinema, before becoming a cabinet-maker’s workshop,ébéniste, and now an artist’s studio. The one on the place St Régis is gone leaving no trace; and lastly the Café du Midi: it’s the only one remaining and is now run by a Harley Davidson fan and decorated with Cowboy & Injun gear, his other passion. He decided last week to hang out a load of American flags – but managed inadvertently to get the stars and the stripes upside down (no disrespect …)
There were three cammionneurs, lorry-men or truckers – quite a modern breed of driver in a rural scene where horses were still in use fifty years on.Two négociants de vin, wine wholesalers: one of whom, Marcaillou, had his own branch-line or siding and a loading-bay at the station. The other, Hippolyte Clément, left behind one of his barrels in our cellar. It’s still sound after a century, and I rolled it out today for use as a rain-butt this summer.
Then there were two animal-feed merchants. And two doctors and a dispensing chemist. Two mason-builders and three plasterers. Gastaud, the carpenter, Balestre the horloger, clockmaker. One sage-femme, mid-wife, Catherine Médus. But the four coiffeurs hairdressers were all men! And one shop selling cloth, ribbon, and fancy items – confections.
Two postmen and one priest l’abbé Sénégre. There were hundreds of children – so: four lay schools – two for boys and two for girls – and a small school run by an order of nuns. These kind souls owned a piece of land, a large walled garden just next to our house, where the children were set to work growing vegetables and fruit for the order. An elderly neighbour recalls them having to whistle while they worked – so the nuns could be sure they were not eating any of the produce.
Opposite the station was a tuilerie, tile-factory – which would have been a large building with a tall chimney: but not a trace remains. There was also a four à chaux, lime-kiln for hydrating chalk into lime suitable for plaster, built near a small quarry on the slopes of Mont Alaric behind the village. Still standing at the edge of the village on a rise, is the base of one of two windmills, for flour and other grains. In mediaeval times, the miller would also have baked the bread for the village – and also produced ‘Fuller’s Earth’ for removing the grease from wool and other hides.
The slopes of Alaric and the plain below were home to numerous flocks of sheep and goats – there were two creameries. The staging-post of former times had become a simple Post Office La Poste, its inn becoming a private house. The horse-drawn mail-coach was replaced in 1857 by the chemin de fer, and new hotels were needed, one at the station, and another, the Hôtel Montagne, at the edge of the village. This has been pulled down and is now a small park. The station was very busy in the first decades of the new century, full of passengers and merchandise – there was even a refreshments stall, and a library – but few of these buildings remain.
Not mentioned in the above list, are the ‘grandes familles’ – the landowners and wine barons. And among these dozen are the two names that interest me: the Escourrou family who in 1863 built this Maison de Maitre – and the De Longueval family who married into it, and from whom we bought it.
There is another list of names, much shorter, on the monument erected to the memory of those who lost their lives in the Great War. There were 37 who did not return to the village alive. One of the humblest was Sylvain Roquefort, one of the four coiffeurs. And one of the grandest was Jacques Escourrou – the son of the house. He was 37 when he died in 1917 – and the war was soon to bring another tragedy into the life of Claire, his sister. She had met, and fallen in love with one of two brothers, a young nobleman from the North – Francois de Longueval.
