Travel Guide Sauveterre

5 km from Lombez, the agricultural commune of Sauveterre, 265 inhabitants, is home to the highest point of the Savès Gersois (314m) and dominates the Save valley from an ancient feudal mound. There is a sumptuous panorama on the Pyrenees with an orientation table which makes it possible to locate the principal tops of the chain and one of the picnic tables disseminated on the commune. In the South of France, the name of Sauveterre was given to the villages in which "sauvetés" were founded in the 11th and 12th centuries. They were places of refuge for fugitives and wanderers who enjoyed the right of asylum there. The site is distinguished by the richness of the fossils that have been discovered there: those of a Mastodon, an elephant with four tusks from the end of the Tertiary period, and those of a giant ox. Other exhumed remains testify to an ancient human occupation. Fief of the Counts of Astarac, the village was established around the castle and the parish church. The village and the medieval castle would have been massively destroyed during the 14th century, by Edward of Woodstock lieutenant of Gascony known as the Black Prince. The current castle was built in 1820 by Jules de Rességuier. It now belongs to a prestigious English college which sends its students to immerse themselves in the French language and culture. The village keeps the memory of Jean de Lescun d'Armagnac, Count of Comminges, also known as Batard d'Armagnac, Marshal of France in the 15th century. Natural son of Arnaud Guilhem de Lescun, bishop of Aire sur Adour and Annette d'Armagnac de Termes, he was Lord of Sauveterre.The commune shelters several sites where it is pleasant to make a stopover. At 3 km from the village on the edge of the road D 234 leading to Simorre, the site of Saint-Christophe registered with the inventory of the Historic Monuments. 4 km from the village, the site of the Vierge du Séjour or "fountain of the Séjour", on the road between Lombez and Boulogne-sur-Gesse, reveals a small brick basin bearing a 20 cm high virgin. On a marble plaque, are engraved four verses attributed to Victor Hugo, to whom these verses are attributed during a visit to Sauveterre:"Tired traveller, suspend your race here - To the Virgin of the place, address a pious greeting - Come and quench your thirst at this pure source.- Life is a path of which heaven is the goal." Victor Hugo was the friend of the poet of Sauveterre Jules de Resseguier (1788-1862).