Montreuil-Bellay
| Montreuil-Bellay | ||
|---|---|---|
.svg)
|
|
|
| region | Pays de la Loire | |
| Department | Maine-et-Loire | |
| Arrondissement | Saumur | |
| Canton | Doué-la-Fontaine | |
| Community association | Saumur Val de Loire | |
| Coordinates | 47 ° 8 ′ N , 0 ° 9 ′ W | |
| height | 29-73 m | |
| surface | 48.96 km 2 | |
| Residents | 3,822 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 78 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 49260 | |
| INSEE code | 49215 | |
| Website | http://www.ville-montreuil-bellay.fr/ | |
Montreuil-Bellay is a French municipality with 3822 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in the department of Maine-et-Loire in the region of Pays de la Loire . It belongs to the Arrondissement of Saumur and the canton of Doué-la-Fontaine (until 2015: Canton of Montreuil-Bellay ).
geography
The place is in the extreme southeast of the department; its neighboring municipalities are: Saumur (Maine-et-Loire department), Thouars ( Deux-Sèvres department ) and Loudun ( Vienne department ). The municipality is part of the Loire-Anjou-Touraine Regional Nature Park .
history
Middle Ages and early modern times
There is evidence of a small monastery since the 11th century ; it was near a ford over the Thouet , where the lower town lies today. The parish church of Saint-Pierre was built a little later, near the Saint-Nicolas priory founded between 1097 and 1103, called "Les Nobis". Around 1026 Fulko Nerra , the Count of Anjou , had a donjon built, which formed the core of today's upper town, which he gave to Berlay, one of his vassals, after whom the town is now named.
The descendants of Berlay held the domain until 1217, while fighting fiercely against their liege lord. The new owners were the Melun family , which lasted for two centuries, followed by the Harcourt family , from which the castle and city walls come. Montreuil-Bellay was one of 32 fortified cities ( Ville close ) of Anjou .
In the Ancien Régime , Montreuil-Bellay was the capital of 57 parishes. However, the prosperity of the place declined from the middle of the 18th century, despite the Thouet sewer system in 1741. The concentration of administration in Saumur , which took place with the French Revolution , further reduced the importance of the place.
Modern times
It was not until the end of the 19th century that Montreuil-Bellay grew beyond its city walls. It gained new importance when the city was connected to Angers and Saumur (since 1841) and Poitiers (since 1855) by new roads .
A flood damaged the railway bridge over the Thouet in 1911 . When a passenger train crossed the bridge on September 23, 1911 , one of the bridge piers gave way and the two locomotives and the following three wagons fell into the river. 22 dead and another 27 injured were the result of this accident .
Concentration camp for non-residents
The Vichy regime set up on November 8, 1941 in Bellay a concentration camp for vagrants, more specifically for Manouche (people similar to the Sinti , especially from the Alsace ), for Gitans also called Tziganes (gypsies), Jeni and Roma . It existed for these target groups until January 16, 1945, when the remaining non-residents were deported to two other camps. The legal designation for them was "people without a permanent address, nomads and showmen of the type of gypsies", but there were also normal beggars from Nantes among them. A total of 3000 people were imprisoned during this time; the highest occupancy was in August 1942 with 1096 prisoners.
After the war, the camp was used for some time to intern civilian German nationals.
From 2010 to April 2016, regional initiatives and politicians succeeded in preserving the weathered remains of the barracks, measuring the area and placing it under legal protection and affixing a memorial plaque. Contemporary witnesses had their say in the media.
On October 29, 2016, the François Hollande administration held a national commemorative event in Montreuil-Bellay on the occasion of the closure of the last concentration and internment camps for nomads on French soil 70 years ago. The President inaugurated a memorial stone. In his speech, Hollande was the first top politician in the country to acknowledge the responsibility of the French government at the time for the persecution and, in many cases, of the resulting murder of non-residents under Vichy; His remarks reminded the public of Jacques Chirac's similar statements on the Shoah of 1995, which are accorded a similar historical significance, that of a breakthrough.
- See also
Camp de concentration de Montreuil-Bellay in the French Wikipedia, with numerous references that also lead to image examples.
Viticulture
The place belongs to the Anjou wine region .
See also
literature
- Le Patrimoine des Communes de Maine-et-Loire . Flohic Editions, Volume 2, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-84234-117-1 , pp. 840-848.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ In France a common term for non-residents.
Individual evidence
- ^ Peter WB Semmens: Catastrophes on rails. A worldwide documentation. Transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-344-71030-3 , p. 40.
- ^ Elodie Berthaud: Montreuil-Bellay, le camp où Vichy a intrné les Tsiganes classé monument historique of September 26, 2010.
- ↑ NN: La France ADMET sa responsabilité dans l'internal management de Tsiganes de 1940 à 1946 . In: Le Monde of October 29, 2016.