Lauragais Color

In spring, when the winter sky finally gives way to a clear blue sky covered with a few clouds, some Lauragais hills adorn themselves with a glittering yellow clothing with lush green stitching. Reminiscence of yesteryear, evocation of a past era, of a fallen reign - that of the pastel, cultivated on a large scale in the Midi-Toulousain under the Renaissance. This plant, recognizable by the lemony brillance of its flowers, produces a remarkable blue : the famous pastel blue, a natural pigment of exceptional quality obtained from the processing of its leaves. A pigment used in dyeing and painting whose marketing made the fortune of pasteliers and traders in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and gave rise to the erection of sumptuous private mansions endowed with splendid inner courtyards, such as the Hotel d'Assezat and the Hotel de Bernuy in Toulouse, the Hotel de Reynes at Albi. Of this economical and cultural golden age remains the designation then attributed to the region : « Pays de Cocagne », blessed land where life is enjoyable.