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Origin and history

The Protestant Temple of Calmont, located on Temple Street, is a neoclassical architecture building built in the 19th century. Very sober and undenatured, it is 23.80 m long for 9.70 m wide, with an apparent brick facade decorated with four doric pilasters and a small bell tower surmounted by a girouette. Inside, the room adopts a basilical plan with an apse housing the pastoral chair, accessible by a staircase leading also to the room of the presbyteral council. Two golden wooden chandeliers and a white marble communion table complete the original furnishings.

The Protestant history of Calmont dates back to 1560, when Jeanne d'Albret, Countess of Foix, converted to the Reformation, was imitated by local lords such as François de Château-Verdun. The city became a major home of regional Protestantism, including the seat of the Consistory before Toulouse in 1804. The present temple, the fourth building built on the site, replaces three precedents: the first, destroyed in 1625, the second in 1641, and the third, located on the riverside, deemed unsatisfactory in 1841.

The construction of the present temple was entrusted to the departmental architect Jean-Pierre Laffon in 1835, for an initial cost estimated at 27,377 francs. Faced with the financial difficulties of the community, the project was revised to 19,287.63 francs and completed in 1846 under the direction of Laffon. A bell tower was added in 1846 to house a bell offered by Londoners. The building, which has been fully protected since 2015, retains original elements such as metopes, triglyphs and a false ceiling replacing the old plaster vault.

The temple bears witness to the persistence of Protestantism in the region, despite the successive destruction of its places of worship. Its clean architecture and its turbulent history make it a symbol of the resilience of the reformed communities in Occitanie, marked by figures such as Jeanne d'Albret and local architects such as Laffon.

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