"In the 18th century, the Bazacle mills were an example of technical modernity famous throughout Europe and appeared in the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert," according to Corinne Clément and Sonia Ruiz, in "Toulouse secret and unusual.

A written act granted in 1177 by the owner of the site, the Priory of la Daurade, signaled the exploitation of these mills near Toulouse, which was by then a city of 50,000 inhabitants and the capital of a cereal producing region.

Set on wooden pavements, resting on hard marl benches, crossing obliquely the course of the river, some sixty high oak and iron mills, which supplied energy to the local millers, were divided between three fords of the Garonne: the Daurade, the Château Narbonnais, and the Bazacle.

[4] Very narrow and with a length of nearly half a kilometer, these "carriageways" made it easier to anchor the mills on several large reinforced piles, in order to better benefit from the hydraulic energy provided by a fall in the Garonne of a height of 4 meters.

In 1183, shortly before the Albigensian Crusade, the Count of Toulouse officially authorized the construction of this causeway, which linked the two banks of the river at a width of a hundred meters.

[citation needed] Because they were downstream from the Moulins de la Daurade, those of the Bazacle could considerably hinder them by the height of their causeway.

After attempting unsuccessfully, between 1278 and 1329, to raise theirs to the detriment of the Moulins of the Château, the owners of the Daurade wanted to guard against the companies of those of the Bazacle.

They won their case in 1358 but could not enforce the judgement because of a call that dragged on until 1366, when the Parliament of Paris ordered that the pariers of the Bazacle lower their pavement and pay 1,000 livres tournois to the owners of the Daurade.

[8] In order to raise the capital needed for the construction of these dams, the millers formed a company to which they entrusted their savings, in return for which they received notarized papers attesting to their investments.

These shares were exchanged at a price which varied according to the economic situation, i.e., the good or poor operating results of the mills.

It no longer served only to share equally the work of maintenance of the causeways but also to distribute the benefits of the operation of the mills.

[citation needed] In the memory of Toulouse, the Bazacle is a symbol of the economic miracle which benefited the city until the end of the 19th century.

A place of toil and wealth production for almost ten centuries, the monument has re-emerged in recent years from the ashes of its glorious industrial past, transformed into a space devoted to discovery and culture.