Prehistory

The first human settlements in Donezan date back to the end of prehistory and are known through a group of sites which have not been entirely excavated yet. Our present knowledge is too slight and we have no overview of these ancient times. Man probably took refuge in the mountains because they provided him with some safety against his fellow creatures ; he therefore gave birth to the first peasant communities in the neolithic period.

Antiquity

There is nowadays no evidence of a settlement dating back to the Roman age. A few fleeting signs allow us to think that there have been contacts. Like other numerous Pyrenean countries, we went without any transition from prehistory to the Middle Age....

Middle Age and Modern time

Donezan appears in the texts in 844, that is, the mention of the church of Saint Felix , near Quérigut. The events of this period merge into the history of the keeps of Quérigut and Usson. Old documentation is rare in Ariège because of the destruction of its archives at the beginning of the 19 th Century ; nevertheless, it is possible to trace the great lines of this medieval history again. The land or ground of Donezan firstly belonged to the Catalan counts who appointed the So and Alion family for his maintenance. Some of its members are also known for having been Cathar heretics closely involved in the events which revolve round the history of the Montségur site. In 1208, the maintenance of the domain and of its strongholds was the charge of Count of Foix, who then became vassal of the King of Aragon, heir of the Catalan counts. The counts of Foix, in the course of the 14 th Century, owned Donezan as a whole property. ; they conserved it till 1789... Donezan was administrated along all this time just as a private domain was : a manor lord dwelt in Usson, a squire in Quérigut ; both managed the interests of the sovereign lord. In 1711, Jean-Louis d'Usson, marquis of Bonnac and lord of Bonrepos bought the rights over Donezan and its two strongholds that the king charged him to renovate. As this opportunity occurred, the keep of Usson was completely restored and turned into a dwelling place. Carried along by the revolutionary storm, Donezan saw how the Ancient regime vanished and experienced its own integration in the Department of Ariège although its geography unites it with the Department of Aude... a modern survival of a medieval history.

Contemporary Epoch

We have a better knowledge of the recent periods which bring a long persistence of the traditional way of life to light ; « we still were in the heart of Middle Ages in the 19 th Century » could say such a traveller who strove to get to Donezan. The land faced the same problems as the rural world of the mountains did : remoteness, exodus as a result of growing destitution due to a high increase in population. After having escaped death as a consequence of a vanishing population, Donezan experienced an economic upturn by developing such activities as, amongst others, tourism ; new approaches allow to contemplate the future more serenely.