Castres
[key], city, Tarn dept., SW France, on the Agout River. It has been a
textile center since the 13th cent., and its machine tools are known
worldwide. Wood products, especially furniture, and pharmaceuticals are also
manufactured. Once the site of a Roman encampment, Castres grew around a
Benedictine monastery founded in a.d. 647. Protestantism took hold
in the 16th cent. but was suppressed by Louis XIII. The revocation (1685) of
the Edict of Nantes
jeopardized the city's economy by expelling Protestants, but Castres
prospered anew under Louis XIV. There are several 17th- and 18th-century
churches.
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