- Sep 20, 2017
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Stage 15: Muret – Carcassonne (169.3k)
The last stage before the final rest day is one the breakaway specialists will have spent all race waiting for.Map and profile
Start
After a three-day sojourn in the Pyrenees, the peloton is back in the Toulouse area, just 22 kilometres south of Wednesday’s finish. Although founded in the 11th century and certainly walled by the early 13th century, Muret has always been firmly in the shadow of Toulouse. In fact, its main contribution to history is directly linked to its proximity to its much larger neighbour. In 1213, it had been occupied by the Albigensian Crusaders when the Duke of Toulouse sought the help of his brother-in-law, the King of Aragon, to expel the invaders, precipitating the Battle of Muret. Despite modern historians estimating their numerical advantage at a minimum of three to one, their combined armies still managed to get flanked, causing a decisive loss that saw thousands of their men, including the King of Aragon, killed. While the fighting was not yet over, the loss of so many troops, coupled with the Aragonese deciding to withdraw, made this battle the decisive blow, and the next decades would be characterised by the mass murder of Cathars. Muret itself then spent most of its history trundling along as a fairly nondescript provincial town, until suburbanisation caused its population to more than quintuple in the first 65 years after the Second World War. It has hosted two previous Tour stages, both times as the start: in 2015 and 2021.
(picture by Krzysztof Golik at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
The stage starts by skirting around the towns already visited by the Tour on Wednesday. This means that we are crossing the same ranges of hills seen in the second half of that stage, however this time the terrain is rolling at best. When the familiar terrain gets out of sight, the intermediate sprint in Saint-Félix-Lauragais draws near. It’s an uphill one, 2.4k at 3.3% as per PCS.
After passing through Revel, a key location in the development of the Vino/Other legend, it’s time to start climbing. Côte de Saint-Ferréol – for whatever reason – is used whenever the Tour is in this area, with seven KOMs and an intermediate sprint since 1990.
Its descent backs into the next KOM, Côte de Sorèze. Although they ride the profile in full, the KOM comes 3.7k before the actual summit, right after the marked junction towards Saint-Jammes.
A shallow, but somewhat technical descent gives way to a stretch of valley and the main obstacle of the day, Pas du Sant. Although not quite as steep as the official profile suggests, this is a very good mid-mountain climb. After its summit, the road continues to rise up to Col de Fontbruno.
Finish
From there, the next 30 kilometres are downhill, but the gradients are similar to the section from Pas du Sant to the summit and the road is now a lot wider. The final kilometres are the same as they always are in Carcassonne, we’ll see whether the chauvinistic motards from the last outing in 2022 return as well.
As so often in recent years, the Tour finds itself in Carcassonne, the world’s most famous medieval city that isn’t actually quite as medieval as it seems. The strategic significance of the hill overlooking the Aude on which the fortress is built was identified early, and has been continuously fortified since the 6th century BC. It was relatively unassuming during the heights of the Roman era, but the need for defensible towns from Late Antiquity onwards caused it to grow in prominence. During this time, it was part of what was then known as Septimania (basically the area between here and the western extremity of the Rhône delta), which was the only part of France the Visigoths held onto after 508. Carcassonne then became a border city, which only increased its significance as the repeated failure of Frankish attempts to take the region was often caused by ill-fated attempts to take Carcassonne. In the 8th century, the fortress was finally captured, first by the Umayyads as they swept aside the last vestiges of the Visigothic Kingdom, then after forty years of Muslim rule, the Franks finally managed to conquer both Carcassonne and Septimania.
Under Frankish rule, Carcassonne became the seat of a county. After the line of counts was extinguished in the 11th century, it fell briefly to Barcelona before being seized by the House of Trencavel, who controlled large swaths of southern France at the time. Although the citizens of Carcassonne initially revolted twice, the Trencavels oversaw a period of strong growth, which saw the city fortifications expand to fully occupy their current location for the first time. However, Trencavel power was broken as a result of their support of the Cathars, and from the mid-13th century onwards the town came under direct royal control. The fortifications were expanded on multiple occasions in the next centuries, until France gained what is now French Catalonia from Spain in 1659, thereby pushing the border away from Carcassonne and ending its military significance. Town life then gradually shifted from the old fortress towards the lower town. It did continue to boast a booming wool trade until the French Revolution, but after the collapse of this industry the town became quite impoverished and unimportant. The fortress itself was decommissioned by Napoleon.
Thus did things stand in 1849, when the French government announced plans to demolish the crumbling fortress. This sparked an uproar, and within a few years the decision was completely reversed with funding being approved for a large-scale restoration. Although the architect, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, steered clear of the worst of the romanticised representation of the Middle Ages that had gained popularity by that time, his blueprint still included a variety of errors, most notably adding conical roofs typical of Northern France to the towers where there should have been flat ones. Current policy is to treat his alterations as part of the fortress’ history, which summarises the degree of authenticity that has been lost. Having said that, the sheer size of the fortress still means that the town’s fame is to a large degree deserved, even though mass tourism (which already started to develop immediately after the restoration) has rendered the fortress a de facto open-air museum given that the number of permanent inhabitants has dropped to about 50. Annual visitor numbers have reached three million, and the town’s economy is almost entirely dependent on this. It has hosted the Tour on seventeen previous occasions, all but five of those coming since 2003 with the most recent instance being a stage finish (Jasper Philipsen), rest day and start in 2022.
(picture by Chensiyuan at Wikimedia Commons)
What to expect?
Although it’s not completely inconceivable that this stage ends in a reduced sprint, I don’t see who’s supposed to keep what will inevitably be a massive breakaway in check.
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