1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Lizier-de-Couserans

ST LIZIER-DE-COUSERANS, a village of south-western France in the department of Ariège on the right bank of the Salat, 1 m. N.N.W. of St Girons. Pop. (1906) 615; commune 1295. St Lizier, in ancient times one of the twelve cities of Novempopulania under the name of Lugdunum Consoranorum, was later capital of the Couserans and seat of a bishopric (suppressed at the Revolution) to the holders of which the town belonged. It has a cathedral of the 12th and 14th centuries with a fine Romanesque cloister and preserves remarkable remains of Roman ramparts. The old episcopal palace (17th century) and the adjoining church (14th and 17th centuries), once the cathedral with its fine chapter-hall (12th century), form part of a lunatic asylum. The Salat is crossed by a bridge of the 12th or 13th century. The town owes its name to its bishop Lycerius, who is said to have saved it from the Vandals in the 7th century. The chief event in its history was its devastation in 1130 by Bernard III., count of Comminges, a disaster from which it never completely recovered.