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![[Flag]](../images/f/fr-24-ey.gif)
Flag of Eymet - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 23 July 2006
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The municipality of Eymet (2,552 inhabitants in 1999; 3,125 ha; municipal website, unofficial website) is located in the southernmost part of Périgord pourpre. The "purple" part of Périgord, watered by river Vézère, owes its "colour" to orchards and vineyards (Bergerac and Monbazillac).
Eymet was established in a curve of river Dropt as a bastide protected
by a fortified castle. Founded in 1270 by Alphonse de Poitiers, the bastide was fiercely disputed by the French and the English until the battle of
Castillon (1453) and the reconquest of Aquitaine by King of France
Charles VII. According to Froissart's Chronicles, on 1 September 1377,
Jean de Beuil, lieutenant of Constable Bertrand Duguesclin (who
besieged the neighbouring city of Bergerac), attacked an Anglo-Gascon
troop near the southern gate of Eymet; several English drowned
themselves in the river Dropt; the place has been now
since as trou des Anglais (English Hole).
In 1535, Eymet became a Protestant stronghold. Henri de Navarre, later
crowned King of France as Henri IV, often stayed in Eymet. On 15 March 1588, he wrote a letter to his mistress Corisande (Diane d'Andouin) saying:
Je vous envoie mille millions de baisers d'Eymet (I am sending you
thousand millions kisses from Eymet).
The town walsl, built in 1320, were suppressed in 1830. Remains of the
wall are still visible near the donjon of the fortress.
Eymet had in the past a river port, from which wood, wine and grains
were shipped to Bordeaux on barges (gabares) sailing on rivers Dropt and Garonne. During the Second Empire, the wines produced in the region of Eymet (Haut Pays) were quite famous in Bordeaux.
Ivan Sache, 23 July 2006
The flag of Eymet (photo taken during the ceremony of twinning between Eymet and the Italian town of Grumello del Monte) is white with the municipal coat of arms surrounded by "VILLE D'EYMET" (top) and "BASTIDE DU PERIGORD" (bottom).
The arms of Eymet are "Gules a three-towered castle argent in chief two mullets of the same in base the year of foundation, '1720'.
The arms were derived from a municipal seal dated 1308, while another design was adopted in 1783 ("Quarterly, 1. and 4. Or three pallets gules, 2. and 3. Or two cows in pale gules gorged horned and belled azure"), that is, quarterly Foix and Béarn.
Ivan Sache, 23 July 2006