Tulle

Tulle lies in the narrow valley of the Corrèze, where the abbey of Saint-Martin and the town grew close to the river. An ecclesiastical lordship shaped its institutions, while craftsmen worked in the crowded valley. In 1690 the gunsmith Michel Pauphile received an order for gun barrels to arm Louis XIV's ships at Rochefort. The manufacture that developed at Tulle would make firearms an enduring part of the town's identity.