Route de Charlemagne

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Obelisk in memory of the construction of the “Route de Charlemagne” in Nieder-Ingelheim

The Route de Charlemagne was a street in northern Rheinhessen that was named in honor of Charlemagne . It led from Finthen via Wackernheim am Mainzer Berg along to Nieder-Ingelheim and on via today's Ingelheim-West to Gaulsheim and Kempten and reached the Rhine at Bingen . Its course essentially corresponds to today's state road 419 .

history

With the Peace of Campo Formio in 1797, the villages came to France as a result of the First Coalition War . The now French municipalities were in the cantons of Nieder-Olm , Oberingelheim and Bingen , which together with 35 other cantons formed the Département du Mont-Tonnerre . To improve the infrastructure, the French prefect of the department Jeanbon St. André had a road built along the left side of the Rhine between 1803 and 1805 from Koblenz to Mainz.

The name was justified by the fact that the remains of an old street of Charlemagne were found during the construction. It is more likely that the remains of the old Roman Rhine Valley Road were found, because nothing is known about the road construction of Charlemagne. The naming after Charlemagne fit into Napoleon's propagandistic concept. H. the emphasis on the affiliation of the left bank of the Rhine to France, to the "Frankish Empire" through the memory of the empire of Charlemagne.

Street memorial

On an obelisk erected in 1807 near Nieder-Ingelheim ( location coordinates: 49 ° 58 ′ 40.8 ″  N , 8 ° 5 ′ 27.2 ″  E ) the relevant people for road construction are immortalized. In addition to Jeanbon St. André, these are Eustache de Saint-Far , French architect and master builder, trained at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées , Six, Inspecteur des Ponts et Chaussées, Arnold, engineer of the Arrondissement de Mayence , Odobel, Conducteur Principal (general contractor ) and Jung, Mayor of Nieder-Ingelheim. The building contractor Jaques Kraetzer from Mainz had the monument erected and is named on the west side of the obelisk.

North side of the obelisk with French inscription

The time of completion of the road is given bilingually in French in the north and in German in the south :

STRASE
CHARLES
THE GREAT

COMPLETED IN THE I YEAR
OF THE GOVERNMENT OF
NAPOLEON
EMPEROR OF
THE FRANC UNDER THE CARE OF
MR JEANBON S T ANDRE PREFECTEN
DES DEP T VOM DONNERSBERG

Rudolph Eickemeyer points out in his text “About the Moral and Artistic Value of Public Monuments” , published in the Baumgärtnerische Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1820, on page 99 that the inscription referring to Napoleon was chiseled out. Accordingly, it was added again later.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the history of Finthen on the website of the Institute for Historical Regional Studies at the University of Mainz, accessed on August 14, 2018
  2. ↑ a b Hartmut Geißler: The "Route Charlemagne" and the "Napoleonstein" in Ingelheim , accessed on August 14, 2018
  3. ↑ Jacoub Dorothée: Mainz in Napoleonic times, culture and art historical aspects. In: Bulletin Monumental, tome 141, n ° 4, année 19
  4. ^ Eva Bambach: Napoleon, Charlemagne and the construction industry In; Spektrum.de , accessed on August 14, 2018

literature

  • Hartmut Geißler: The expansion of the "Route Charlemagne", the road axis from Nieder-Ingelheim. In: Gabriele Mendelssohn (Ed.): From the double eagle to the tricolor. Ingelheim in Napoleonic times. Historischer Verein Ingelheim and Museum bei der Kaiserpfalz, Ingelheim 2008, ISBN 3-924124-07-8 , pp. 145–157.