Last modified: 2024-05-11 by olivier touzeau
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Flag of Soule - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 4 June 2022
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In 1449, an army of several thousand men commanded by Gaston IV of Foix-Béarn came to take possession of the castle of Mauléon in the name of the King of France. Soule was definitively united with the domain of the King of France in 1512. It is the smallest province of the kingdom and the furthest from the center of power. It is surrounded by the Kingdom of Navarre to the south and the Viscounty of Béarn to the east which were then independent.The Soule corresponds to the valley of the tributary
Uhaitza (from "ur gaitza" meaning "wild water"), called Saison in French.
Just like the historical territories of the southern Basque Country in Spain (Alava, Biscay, Guipuzcoa and Navarre), the historical territories of the the northern Basque Country (Lower-Navarre, Labourd and Soule) had “regional forums" which represented the autonomy of these territories. These forums were abolished on the night of August 4, 1789, in the midst of the French revolutionary ferment. These regional assemblies, made up of delegates from each commune, excluded or limited the power of the privileged people of the time, namely the nobility, the nascent bourgeoisie and the clergy. During the division of France into departments, in 1789, proposals to create a Basque department, in particular by Dominique Garat, were not followed up and on March 4, 1790, the three provinces were grouped together with Béarn and with the Gascon lands of Bayonne and of Bidache and Soubestre to form the department of Basses-Pyrénées, now Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
Olivier Touzeau, 4 June 2022
The flag of Soule is a Banner of arms, red with yellow lion.
It has been observed in the capital of Soule, Mauléon-Licharre: photo (2008), photo (2010), photo (probably ~2011), photo (2011), photo (2016), photo (undated)
Olivier Touzeau, 4 June 2022