Lodève

Lodève lies at the meeting of the Lergue and Soulondre rivers, where the Languedoc plain rises toward the Larzac plateau. It was an episcopal seat for centuries until the French Revolution, and its cathedral expressed the town's long religious importance. During the Wars of Religion, Huguenot captain Claude de Narbonne-Caylus attacked and burned Lodève in 1573.

Textile production became a major activity in the eighteenth century. In 1726 Cardinal Fleury, a native of Lodève, granted the town a monopoly on supplying cloth for royal infantry. This connection between local manufacture and the royal army helped shape the town's economy under Louis XV.