On Rural Politics in Nineteenth-Century France: The Example of Rodès, 1789–1851

Abstract

The Route nationale 116 runs west from Perpignan, away from the Mediterranean and up the valley of the Tet River towards the heights of the Pyrenees. For about thirty kilometres, the road follows the river through a district known as the Riberal, a densely populated area of substantial villages and bourgs surrounded by river flats which for centuries have nourished up to six crops of vegetables annually. Just past the peach-growing town of Ille-sur-Têt, the valley narrows to no more than a gorge, and the road has to diverge to skirt a rugged granite bluff and cross over a pass called the Col de Ternère. As the road swings back around the other side of the bluff to rejoin the river and begin ..