Travel Guide Auroux

The village nestles in the heart of the verdant Chapeauroux valley. Its houses cling to the hillside, supported by huge granite blocks. The village square has retained its market hall, with its huge granite pillars; its granite fountain bearing the statue of Notre-Dame de Garonne; and its small Pénitents chapel, a reminder that the locality was once home to a brotherhood. The Maundy Thursday procession was marked by an impressive ceremony. The penitents advanced to the haunting rhythm of a funeral chant, wearing pointed hoods pierced where the eyes should be. One of them, dressed in a red robe and barefoot, carried a four-metre-high cross. The 11th-century church, destroyed in 1830, was rebuilt in 1870. Much more recently, Auroux was one of the first villages in France to be electrified, thanks to one of its inhabitants, Casimir Coze, who was struck by modernity. This renowned beekeeper, who even won first prize for honey at the 1900 Paris trade fair, discovered electricity at one of the fairs he attended. He brought the principle home with him. In 1904, he installed a turbine on the Chapeauroux to light his apiary and sawmill, and in 1906 extended the installation to the whole village. The scientists Pierre and Marie Curie, with their daughter Irène, rented a vacation home in Auroux and praised its fresh air. Auroux's sheltered location and proximity to the Chapeauroux river attracted summer visitors and fishermen alike.