Transporters of Fontpédrouse: Muleteers, Carters, and Wagoners of the Catalan Pyrenees (18th to Early 20th Century)
Adrien Barrere: Contractual PhD researcher in Early Modern History, working on transport and carriers in the eastern Pyrenees in the seventeenth century at Toulouse Jean Jaurès University, under the supervision of Professor Patrice Poujade.
Mountain Communities at the Heart of Pyrenean Trade
In the eastern Pyrenees, before the arrival of the railway and the motor car, goods did not move by themselves. They were transported mainly on the backs of mules, hinnies, and donkeys, or in carts pulled by these same animals. Behind every consignment crossing the mountain passes, descending towards the plains, or making its way deeper into the mountains, there was a traginer. This is the Catalan term for someone who transports goods from one place to another using pack animals or animal-drawn vehicles. Among the communities that made transport their livelihood, Fontpédrouse occupies a remarkable position. This mountain village community in the Haut-Conflent, located five kilometres from Mont-Louis and sixty-two kilometres from Perpignan, in the valley of the River Têt, was for more than a century one of the key centres of overland transport in the western part of the department. It is this history—the history of its carriers—that I would like to tell here.
Map 1: The location of Fontpédrouse in the Pyrénées-Orientales
Why Fontpédrouse?
The village is ideally situated within the Conflent, between Prades, a foothill town and economic centre as well as the administrative capital of the arrondissement, and the Cerdan Plateau and Capcir, two mountainous natural regions. It lies along Route No. 116, now Departmental Road 66, which crosses the department from east to west while following the River Têt. This road was one of the department’s most important transport routes from at least the end of the seventeenth century onwards.
With a minimum elevation of 880 metres and a maximum elevation of 2,865 metres, the commune has a distinctly mountainous topography, marked by sharp contrasts and steep slopes. In the nineteenth century, its inhabitants were accustomed to harsh winters and suffered numerous avalanches, many of which caused fatalities.[1]
[1] During the nineteenth century alone, five major avalanches were recorded. The avalanche of 1810 is considered the deadliest in the department, killing 27 people. An avalanche at Fontpédrouse was also the subject of a short article in the New York Herald on 13 March 1898:
“[…] an avalanche occurred in the evening on the north side of Fontpedrouse, blocking the main road for a length of one kilometre and reaching to the third floor of a hotel situated at the end of the village. The population of Fontpedrouse is in a state of great fear.”
Avalanche of Snow, The New York Herald: European Edition—Paris, published in Paris, 13 March 1898, page not indicated.
Together with its two hamlets, Prats and Saint-Thomas (which were included in the municipal census from 1826 onwards), Fontpédrouse had 509 inhabitants in 1793, 560 at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and 571 in 1901. Its population reached a peak in 1851, with 890 inhabitants, a considerable figure for a village in the Haut-Conflent. That same year, among all the communes of the Haut-Conflent, only Olette exceeded Fontpédrouse, with 1,286 inhabitants.
The village itself bears witness to the importance of transport in the lives of its inhabitants: the people of Fontpédrouse were devoted to the cult of Saint Eligius, the patron saint of traginers. Wall paintings probably dating from the seventeenth century, depicting a miracle of Saint Eligius, were recently rediscovered in a side chapel of the church. This is undoubtedly evidence that the figure of the muleteer was deeply rooted in local culture.
The Animals of the Fontpédrouse Traginers
Before carriage roads were built in the Haut-Conflent in the mid-nineteenth century, the Pyrenees were travelled mainly on horseback or by pack animal. In this context, mules, hinnies, and donkeys reigned supreme. A livestock survey conducted in the district of Prades between 1791 and 1792 recorded 83 donkeys and 61 mules in Fontpédrouse, but no horses.[1] This was no coincidence: in such extreme environments, hybrid equines and donkeys were valued for their robustness, sure-footedness, and ability to carry heavy loads along narrow and steep paths. Hinnies were also present, although they were probably less effective and carried lighter loads.
The situation changed radically once roads suitable for wheeled vehicles were built in the 1850s. The 1885 livestock census shows a complete reversal: there were now 60 horses, compared with only 25 donkeys and 20 mules.[2] The horse, being better suited to pulling wheeled vehicles, gradually replaced the mule.
Nevertheless, the mule did not disappear altogether. In 1893, for example, Raphaël Salvadou, a carrier from Fontpédrouse, wrote to the prefect to report that the mayor of the commune had refused to sign a passavant allowing him to travel to Llívia, a Spanish enclave, to purchase fertiliser, which he traded. He explained that, “having been without a cart for some time […]”, he had “[…] recently bought one with two mules,”[1] which had themselves been purchased in Roussillon.
The mule remained a valued working animal to the very end. The traginers mainly acquired their animals at the major fairs held throughout the department, particularly the one at Thuir. It is also possible that some of the animals were bred locally, since according to an account from 1908, Fontpédrouse had around 90 breeding mares at the end of the 1860s.[2]
[1] Archives départementales des Pyrénées-Orientales (ADPO), L1345, État des ressources du district en grains, fourrages, chanvre, bestiaux, chevaux, cochons, cuirs et peaux, 1791–1792, canton of Montlibre. The equine population of Fontpédrouse was probably higher before the Revolution: “Since the invasion of Spain, the number of livestock has decreased by two thirds, both through seizures and through the frequent requisitions for the service of the Republic.” Ibid., table of animals and livestock in the district of Prades.
[2] ADPO, 8M 92, Projets, créations, modifications : instructions, tableaux, plans, correspondances, 1885, file concerning the establishment of a fair at Fontpédrouse. There are indeed several livestock censuses from the nineteenth century, but these never specifically mention Fontpédrouse
What the Judicial Archives Tell Us
To reconstruct the lives of these carriers, the records of the Justice of the Peace of the canton of Mont-Louis are an invaluable source. This local court, established in 1790, dealt with everyday disputes. Traginers appear frequently in its records, both as plaintiffs and as offenders.
The 169 citations for violations of road-traffic regulations found in these archives are particularly revealing. Among the most common offences were failure to use lights at night (59 cases), drivers falling asleep or sitting at the rear of the vehicle (37 cases), and carriers keeping too far away from their teams (36 cases).
These documents also provide information about the composition of the teams: 58 cases concerned carriers travelling exclusively with horses, 12 with mules, and a few cases involved mixed teams (horses and mules, mules and donkeys, or horses and cattle). A judgment from 1877 even records a team of seven horses pulling a two-wheeled cart, in violation of regulations limiting the number to five.[1]
These documents show that the convoys of Fontpédrouse traginers rarely consisted of more than three animals—a modest amount of capital, although their upkeep (food, shelter, veterinary care, and equipment) represented a genuine expense.
The carriers of Fontpédrouse also appear to have used cattle to pull their carts. This is indicated by the account of a hearing before the Justice of the Peace of Mont-Louis concerning a carrier from Fontpédrouse who was fined under road-traffic regulations in 1859.
The traginer in question was Joseph Aspéro, who was also an innkeeper. He had allowed his ten-year-old son, Jean, to drive alone a cart drawn by two cows, a draft animal, and a horse on Route No. 116 in the territory of Fontpédrouse:
“[…] this officer [of the police] encountered the cart belonging to the said Joseph Aspéro, known as Descordat, drawn first by a draft animal, then by two cows, and finally by another horse, travelling along Imperial Road No. 116 between kilometre markers Nos. 68 and 69, in the territory of Fontpédrouse, under the control of the said Jean Aspéro, aged ten, who was incapable of guiding his team.”[1]
Was this child really driving his father’s cart, or was he merely sitting at the front? It is impossible to determine. Likewise, it is difficult to establish whether this was agricultural transport. Such cases appear to have been relatively rare, since the other documents examined contain no mention of them.
[1] ADPO, 4U 617, Justice de paix du canton de Mont-Louis, Jugements de simple police, unnumbered, 2 November 1877. The person concerned was Pierre Clerc, a domestic carter working for Gaudérique Blanqué, known as Bitchi, a carrier from Fontpédrouse.
A Trade Passed Down and Learned Within the Family
Transport in Fontpédrouse was above all a family affair. In 1901, half of the households of traginers in the commune included at least two carriers. Fathers and sons often worked together, with sons driving their fathers’ carts, sometimes from childhood. For example, in 1860, a man named Michel Marty was fined after falling asleep on his father’s cart, which was drawn by a horse and a mule.[1]
The transmission of the trade did not exclusively benefit the eldest son or heir of the casa[2] in Fontpédrouse. Indeed, there were many Fontpédrousate families in which several brothers worked as carriers. The case of the four Margail brothers illustrates this particularly well. Their names were Michel, Jean Pierre, Guillaume, and Raphaël, and their father, François, was also a carrier.
These four brothers were traginers in Fontpédrouse from the end of the eighteenth century until the first two decades of the nineteenth century. In the absence of additional information, it is difficult to determine whether they worked together.
The trade could also pass to the widows of carriers. The 1906 census lists Marguerite Marty as a female head of household working as a carrier, alongside her two sons, François and Pierre Bigorre.[3] Her husband, Michel, a carrier in Fontpédrouse, had died in 1882,[4] leaving their children still minors.
In 1887, during a hearing before the Justice of the Peace of the canton of Mont-Louis,[1] Joseph Pagès, a drinks seller (limonadier) in Fontpédrouse, was accused by Marguerite of having struck Pierre, allegedly preventing his mother from carrying out her “gardening trade”.[2] The justice of the peace ultimately ruled that it was not these blows that had prevented Marguerite from working, but the snow-blocked roads between Prades and Mont-Louis.
The carrier’s trade in Fontpédrouse was therefore a family occupation, practised according to a variety of family arrangements.
[1] ADPO, 4U 596, Justice de paix du canton de Mont-Louis, actes et jugements civils et de simple police, fol. 58 verso, no. 176, 16 November 1887.
[2] Ibid. What exactly did Marguerite mean by “gardening trade”? Was she trading in and transporting objects connected with what she called “gardening”?
The End of a World
The decline of the carriers of Fontpédrouse had already begun in the 1870s. The construction of the new carriage road made travel easier, but it also opened the way to competition. Some traginers left to settle elsewhere, particularly in Cerdanya, in the western part of the department, where they could continue their trade under better conditions.
The final blow came in 1910 with the arrival of the Yellow Train (Train Jaune), which could transport volumes of goods vastly greater than those that the last local carriers were able to move.
The world of the Fontpédrouse traginers did not disappear overnight, since a few carriers continued to work after 1910. Nevertheless, during the first half of the twentieth century, this activity—which had shaped the village’s economic and social life for centuries—disappeared permanently.
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