The Carrière du Roy:
Appreciated by the Romans (traces have been found in villas in the Minervois and in Spain and also in the Grand Mosque at Cardove) and deployed by medieval sculptors (pre-Romanesque capitals in the abbey and columns at Fontroide), the quarrying of red marble from Caunes was taken over by a sculptor from the Genoese Riviera around 1615.
With the development of trade between Carrara (with its white marble) and Caunes, lustrous marble became the material of choice for columns and altarpieces in religious buildings in the Midi. From 1666 marble companies were ordering red “incarnat” and blue “turquin” marble for sculptures at Versailles. The opening of the Canal du Midi in 1681 facilitated transport to the Garonne, thence by sea from Bordeaux to Le Havre and onwards up the Seine to Paris.
A roadway was built by the États du Languedoc to access the port of Puichéric. A royal decree of 1770 granted monopoly of the marble to the monarch and Louis XIV claimed for himself the quarry of Malecasse (nowadays a protected site).
Caunes marble features in the most remarkable royal and imperial monuments from Louis XIV to Napoleon III: Fontainebleau, Versailles, Marly, the Louvre, the Invalides, the Carrousel, the Opera…
The five main quarries were sold in 1807 to a society of masons who exported the marble throughout France and overseas, gaining well-deserved international renown for the village.
Since 1965 the marble has been transported in blocks directly to Italy and is shipped principally to the United States, the Arab states and Japan.
