Montauban

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Montauban
Montauban coat of arms
Montauban (France)
Montauban
Country France
region Occitania
Department (no.) Tarn-et-Garonne ( Prefecture ) (82)
Arrondissement Montauban
Canton Montauban-1 , Montauban-2 , Montauban-3
Community association Grand Montauban
Coordinates 44 ° 1 ′  N , 1 ° 21 ′  E Coordinates: 44 ° 1 ′  N , 1 ° 21 ′  E
height 72– 207  m
area 135.93  km²
resident 60,952 (January 1, 2018)
Population density 448 inhabitants / km²
Postal code 82000
INSEE code 82121
Website www.montauban.com

The Tarn and the old Montauban bridge

Montauban ( Occitan : Montalban ) is a French city with 60,952 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2018) in the Quercy countryside in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Occitania region . Montauban is the administrative center of the Tarn-et-Garonne department.

geography

The city is located about 50 kilometers north of Toulouse at the confluence of the Tescou in the Tarn . The Canal de Montech (German: Montech Canal ) runs between Montauban and Montech and ensures a navigable connection with the Canal latéral à la Garonne (German: Garonne side canal ).

story

Medieval planned city

Along with Mont-de-Marsan , Montauban is one of the oldest bastides (planting city) in southern France. It was founded in 1144 by Alphonse Jourdain , Count of Toulouse . He had the inhabitants fetched mainly from the neighboring village of Montauriol , which was subordinate to the St. Théodard Abbey. On a ledge on the Tarn between the Tescou and the Lagarrigue (now a tunneled river), Montauban was in a strategic position and guarded the camouflage crossing in the far north of the county, against the French and English. A rectangular grid of streets reveals the planned city, while a square remains free in the middle: the market square (Place Nationale). The generous tax privileges quickly attracted people. After the fall of the county of Languedoc-Toulouse in the Albigensian Wars , Languedoc became part of France in the Treaty of Paris in 1229 and the city walls were ordered to be torn down. The city suffered from pillage by the Albigensians and the Inquisition . Around 1317 she was by Pope John XXII. designated as the seat of a diocese. The basilica of St. Théodard became a cathedral . 1304–1335 the construction of a permanent bridge over the Tarn, today's Pont Vieux , made Montauban the most popular river crossing for the entire Haut-Languedoc . The trade in cloth, wine and the grain ground in the river mills in the Tarn made the city rich. In 1361, with the Treaty of Bretigny , Montauban fell to the English - as their last fortress from Bordeaux to the south. It was administered by the Black Prince . Attacked again and again from one side or the other and also depopulated by the plague, it suffered a decline. English rule ended in 1414.

Stronghold of Calvinism

The Calvinist Reformation had spread rapidly in the trading town since 1550. The war of religion began in France . In 1561 Protestant masses broke open the cathedral gates, looted the church and set it on fire. The same happened to all other churches and chapels except St. Jacques, which served as a temple . The monasteries were dissolved and demolished, and bastions were built around the city from the stones. Many Catholic citizens were displaced. The city withstood two attacks by the Catholic army (1562 by Monluc ). In 1565 King Charles IX ordered the grinding, which was only partially carried out. In 1576 Heinrich von Navarra , later Henri IV., Came as the leader of the Protestant troops and had the fortifications expanded. He secured the bridgehead on the other side of the tarn through a suburb with three bastions, called Ville-Bourbon. The fortifications were expanded for years. In the Edict of Nantes in 1598, like La Rochelle , Montauban became a “safe place” (place de sûreté). The city became a small Huguenot republic with 15,000 inhabitants, an academy as a pastor's college and a university. The industrial diligence of the Huguenots also proved its worth here and the textile industry produced a rich trading bourgeoisie.

Submission

In 1620 the fight of Louis XIII began. to be signed against the Protestants. Ludwig and his commander de Luynes besieged Montauban in 1621 with an army of 25,000 men and strong artillery. The city was shelled from August 18 to November 21, but the king besieged the city for 86 days without giving up. He could not force the citizens to surrender and withdrew. The city was still destroyed and impoverished. Richelieu was determined to get rid of Protestantism in France; he conquered La Rochelle and in 1629 also subjugated Montauban. On August 20, Richelieu moved into the city and had the city walls pulled down. In the same year 6,000 people died of the plague .

Recatholization began. In 1630 the Capuchins came first , then the rest of the Catholic orders. The Jesuits built their college, the bishop his palace. Intendant Foucault had large squares and streets built. Catholic farmers and craftsmen from the surrounding area were settled in the city. Half of the city council had to be Catholic (mi-parti, 1631). Many administrative offices were relocated to Montauban in order to bring officials loyal to the king and the church from abroad into the city. In 1635 Montauban became the seat of an extensive Intendanz (generals), which was separated from Bordeaux, and a Bureau des Finances , the royal tax administration. Economically things picked up quickly, the directors as representatives of all royal powers made Montauban one of the most important provincial cities in France. Montauban became the city of courts and lawyers: Sénéchaussée (Lower Court), Présidial (Middle Court, for the Quercy: Cahors and Montauban, above which the Parliament of Toulouse stood as the higher court ). The “Tribunal de la Cour des Aides”, the tax court, was moved from Cahors to Montauban, which brought many rich “Gens des Robes” to the city. In spite of the efforts to recatholize, the free exercise of the Protestant faith was preserved. This changed when Louis XIV came to power . As members of the "RPR" ( Religion Pretendue Reformée , "Alleged Reformed Religion", abbreviation of the royal documents for Huguenots) , the Protestants again suffered numerous oppressive measures. Since then, the Protestants have been excluded from public office (in 1661 by the consulate = city council, later also by the Conseil de Police - for public order - and the Conseil Général - for finances). Both Protestant temples were demolished. The dragons followed: soldiers of the king were billeted in the houses of the Huguenots in order to harass the residents until they converted; they were tortured, sentenced to arbitrary sentences, sent to the galleys or simply hanged, their houses torn down. With the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the practice of the Protestant denomination was banned, and royal soldiers attacked the city's Protestants again. Those who refused to renounce their belief were deported; their children were separated from their parents and taken to Catholic boarding schools. The last of the Protestant families were exiled. In 1692 the foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid, for which Louis XIV sent his best architects. With the annihilation of Protestantism, the town's self-government, which had been handed down since the Middle Ages, was also destroyed, the king deployed his people everywhere, and the absolutist government began.

Trade flourished again through the manufacture of cloth; Montauban's “Cadis”, a solid material, was exported to Canada. With 27,000 inhabitants, Montauban was the third largest city in the southwest after Toulouse and Bordeaux. The revolution was welcomed by the remaining Protestants, but brought the city a devastating downgrade in the political hierarchy: the third largest city in the southwest, capital of a large generals, did not even become capital of a department. In 1808, Napoleon , invited by the mayor on his way back from Spain, promised the establishment of a new department, Tarn-et-Garonne - a merger of Languedoc, Gascogne, Rouergue and Quercy. Nevertheless, the economic decline set in. Only in the 1960s did the population rise again above the level of 1790.

Academy and Faculty

In 1598, the National Synod of the Reformed Church in France decided to establish an academy in Montauban for the study of philosophy , theology , medicine and law . Thanks mainly to the theologian Daniel Chamiers , she became very famous in a short time. After 1621 the academy could only continue to exist as a theological school, it was moved to Puylaurens in 1660 and abolished in 1685.

After the Napoleonic Concordat , a new theological faculty was founded in 1808. It became the stronghold of conservative Calvinism in the 19th century ; here seemed Daniel Encontre , Adolphe Monod , Guillaume Adam de Félice and Émile Doumergue . In 1919 the faculty was moved to Montpellier .

traffic

Montauban is located on the Bordeaux – Sète railway line and is served by TGV , Ouigo , Intercity and TER trains for long-distance and regional services. It is also the terminus of the Les Aubrais-Orléans-Montauban-Ville-Bourbon railway line . The former Montauban – La Crémade railway line has been closed.

Buildings and squares

Place Nationale
Arcades on the Place Nationale

As in the entire region, red brick is the predominant building material.

  • The floor plan of the Place Nationale still shows the market square of the planned city in the Middle Ages. At that time the town hall stood here. In its current, regular form, it was built as Place Royale in the 17th century. The cubit of the city is attached to a corner. Two arches deep arched arcades surround the square.
  • The cathedral of Montauban is a baroque-classical monument of Catholicism, inside is Ingres' painting “The oath of Louis XIII”.
  • The old bishop's palace houses the Musée Ingres with numerous works and the private estate of the city's most important son, J. A. D. Ingres. Many works by the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle can also be seen.
  • The Saint Jacques church is the only preserved medieval church building, a typical southern French Gothic hall church ( eglise à nef unique ).
  • A bridge from the 14th century - the Pont Vieux - crosses the Tarn. The building permit from King Philippe le Bel in 1303 required three towers that should belong to the king. In addition, he donated tax exemptions and wood (for the brick fire). Construction began in 1311 and the work was completed in 1335. It even withstood the great flood of 1930. The pillars are made of tuff, the holes allow water to pass through during floods. On the fourth pillar stood the central tower with the Sainte Catherine chapel and an iron cage for the immersion of blasphemers in the river (cf. Raven Bridge Strasbourg ). The three towers on the bridge no longer exist today.
  • The 1913 Pont Neuf was the second bridge in Montauban.
  • Only a few remains of the fortifications have survived.
  • The district of Villebourbon is on the other side of the river.

  • Town hall

  • Ingres Museum

  • Saint Jacques Church

  • cathedral

Personalities

Olympe de Gouges

Montauban is the birthplace of:

Personalities associated with Montauban

The jazz writer Hugues Panassié also lived here , and jazz festivals are held here on a regular basis in his memory.

Montauban was the last place of residence of the Jewish refugee girl Adele Kurzweil (1925–1942) from Graz and her parents. Her fate was made known by the late discovery of her suitcase (1990). The story of their escape served several times as a template for artistic works in the years after their historical processing.

Town twinning

See also

Web links

Commons : Montauban  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Illustration by Frans Hogenberg from 1621: Abcontrafeytung the huge fortress and instead of Montauban in France ... ( digitized version )