their pond, which has since disappeared as the river receded. Philip IV of France ordered the mass arrest of the Knights Templar in 1307. He gave their castle in Montricoux to his squire, Esquieu de Floyran, who had denounced the Templars as heretics. De Florian lost the château in 1322 to the Hospitaliers. On 22 March 1312 Clement V’s Papal bull Vox in excelso abolished the Templars. The May 1312 bull Ad Providam allocated all Templar assets to the Knights Hospitaller. Unlike many neighboring towns, Montricoux remained Catholic during the French Wars of Religion. Nearby Montauban in particular had a long history of religious dissidence. The first Calvinist attack in 1561 did little damage to Montricoux, but later attacks destroyed part of the town and almost all of the château burned down, except for the keep. The de Malartic family rebuilt the château in the early 18th century. Louis XIII visited Montricoux in 1626 during the sieges of St Antonin and Nègrepelisse Louis had taken St Antonin in 1622, and demolished its walls and much of the city. It avoided a massacre such as Nègrepelisse had suffered only by paying a hefty ransom. Before that he had laid siege to nearby Montauban from August to November 1621 but had had to abandon that effort when many of his men fell ill. The church of Saint Pierre until 1790 belonged to the Order of Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem. The entrance porch, built in the same style as the 13th century abbey of Beaulieu, is the oldest part of the church. The steeple dates from 1549. Like those at Nègrepelisse, Caussade, and the Basilica of Saint Sernin, it is of "Toulouse style", an octagonal brick tower with miter windows on a square stone socle, flanked by a turret. Gargoyles on each corner serve as downspouts. Today the streets of Montricoux offer many fine examples of timber framing, many of them dating from a period of rebuilding after the Hundred Years’ War. Members of the maquis, the decentralized French Resistance movement in World War II, were captured in Montricoux and hanged on July 23, 1944 by German soldiers. The Germans had intended to leave the bodies on display but yielded to the protestations of a local pharmacist. Historic sites and monuments The church of Saint-Pierre de Montricoux The interior has a fresco of the Annunciation by Marcel-Lenoir (1923). The nave and the lower part of the