Avallon is a French commune located in the Yonne department, of
which it is one of two sub-prefectures, in the
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region (south-east of Paris). It is included
in the Morvan regional natural park.
The inhabitants, called
the Avallonnais, numbered 6,572 in 2017. The urban area of Avallon
had 15,922 inhabitants in 2014 and is made up of 37 municipalities.
The collegiate Church of Saint-Lazare
The collegiate church was
founded in the twelfth century, in order to welcome the many pilgrims
attracted to Avallon by the relics of Saint Lazarus. Of the building
built in the fourth century, only a crypt remains under the current
choir. The two portals of the facade are dated from the twelfth century.
The historian Victor Petit described them in 1870 as "masterpieces of
decorative sculpture".
The bell tower, burned down and ruined
several times, collapsed in 1633 and was replaced in 1670 by the current
tower.
The new church of Saint-Martin, place Vauban
It was
first a chapel built around 1650 for the convent of the Visitandines
(current east transept). It was restored and enlarged in 1848 to become
a parish church (nave and west transept). Its facade is of the Doric
order and the small portal, of the Ionic order. It houses a large organ,
a high altar and eighteenth and nineteenth furniture elements.
The church of Saint-Martin-du-Bourg, impasse Saint-Martin
At the end
of the sixth century, a chapel dedicated to Saint Martin was created at
the request of Queen Brunehaut. A church and a priory were built in the
twelfth century. Having become the third parish of Avallon, Saint-Martin
du Bourg fell into the public domain at the end of the eighteenth
century. The church, amputated by three bays, serves various secular
uses. For about twenty years, all the buildings have formed a
condominium. The (private) church is being restored.
The Church
of Saint-Julien
It was a small church that stood where the Market
Square is located. In the eleventh century, at the time of its
foundation, it was located outside the walls. It is believed that it was
the second church built in Avallon. In 1520, it was rebuilt largely in
the Gothic style. The bad weather damaged its high bell tower many
times. In 1793, it was razed despite the strong resistance of its
parishioners.
The Capuchins
In 1653, thanks to the subsidies
of Pierre Odebert, the convent was built on the land of the promenade
going from the rue de Lyon to the rue des Jardins. The elaboration of
this building gave rise for three years to rather lively quarrels
between the opponents and the supporters of the new convent. The
buildings have been razed (location of the war memorial), with the
exception of the chapel, which has become a cinema.
The Minims
In 1615, a convent was built at the corner of rue du faubourg de
Saint-Martin and rue des Jardins. Previously, the Odebert family owned a
fortified house in this place. "The buildings are very simple: a chapel,
a cloister, an inner courtyard, orchards and gardens. The chapel also
had no architectural ornamentation. "It has been transformed into a
dwelling, but the three-sided choir can still be guessed at the corner
of rue de Lyon and rue Carnot (it is a bakery). At the back, the convent
buildings are occupied by a private school.
The Ursulines
This
large convent, built in 1629 next to the Clock Tower, depended on the
Ursulines of Dijon. The inner courtyard, square and bordered by a
vaulted gallery recalls the medieval cloister. The buildings, vast, were
divided into lots and put up for sale as national property on 12
fructidor of the year IV. After having become a convent again, they
currently house a school.
The Visitandines
The ladies of the
Visitation established their convent in 1646. The land belonged to the
Abbey of Saint-Martin and was located between the Roman road and the
valley of the Etang-des-Minimes. The distribution of the buildings
respects the monastic traditions of the Middle Ages, but the building
that closed the cloister on the street was pulled down.
In 1848,
the chapel of the convent was restored, enlarged and became the parish
church of Saint-Martin.
The Leprosarium, already existing in
1232, where it is the subject of a transaction between the masters and
brothers of it and the abbot of the abbey of Saint-Martin d'Autun.
The Saint-Pierre chapel, attached to the Saint-Lazare collegiate church,
6 rue Bocquillot. It was one of the three parish churches.
Castle of Avallon
Nothing remains of what was the residence of the
Dukes of Burgundy. On the other hand, the archives are quite evasive as
to the subject. The location "encompassed the land currently occupied by
the college and the Ursuline convent to the north, the court and the
detention house to the west, and by the churches of Saint-Lazare and
Saint-Pierre to the east. The south side, that is to say the one that
touches the Little Door could, in all probability, be occupied by the
dungeon"
This fortress is mentioned as early as the seventh
century. It is taken by King Robert the Pious in the eleventh century
during the attack on the city, then razed to the ground.
The
Clock Tower
This 49-meter-high tower built in 1456 had the objective
of allowing watchmen to watch day and night over the surroundings of the
city. Four years later, a 230 kg bell is hoisted to its top so that the
lookout can give the alert more quickly in case of arrival of invaders.
At the time, this tower turned out to be necessary because at the
end of the Hundred Years' War, the city was left without a defense
system following the destruction of the ramparts and other fortified
towers. Three centuries later, the tower lost its defensive interest and
a restoration campaign was launched in the eighteenth century to repair
the roof. The spire would only be rebuilt after a second wave of
restoration in 1835.
The monument to Vauban
This bronze statue
representing the Marshal of France Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban is the
work of Auguste Bartholdi. Indeed, Marshal Vauban is a "local child"
because he comes from Saint-Léger-Vauban (called
Saint-Léger-de-Foucheret at the time). He distinguished himself during
the reign of Louis XIV by fortifying the French borders in particular.
The project was launched in 1864 and the city council unanimously
chose Auguste Bartholdi to realize this monument. The sculptor submits
his first model in 1866. It will take Bartholdi three more models for
his project to finally be accepted. The statue was handed over in 1872
to the city of Avallon, but for lack of money, it was erected only the
following year at the end of the Place des Terreaux.
After almost
ten years of waiting, the monument was inaugurated on October 26, 1873
in front of nearly 10,000 people who came to attend the inauguration of
the statue and the railway line connecting Avallon to Paris
Two remarkable fifteenth-century houses: one near the Clock Tower, at
No. 7 rue Bocquillot; the other on the side of the Saint-Lazare square,
with a staircase turret.
The House of the Lords of Domecy
The
"House of the Lords of Domecy" - was in the fifteenth century the town
house of the lords of Domecy, Jean and Antoine de Salins. In 1633, a
storm toppled the bell tower of Saint Lazarus on the house, which had
become the property of the chapter of the collegiate church of
Saint-Lazare. In the eighteenth century, the family of General Davout
would have resided there.
It will then be owned until the
nineteenth century by the Minard family. The facade is classified in the
additional inventory of historical monuments in 1925.
Owner of
the building since 1996, the city of Avallon launched a restoration
project in 2003. A public subscription opened in 2006 is intended to
raise the necessary funds. The renovation works last until 2011 with the
objective of opening a cultural space, housing a collection of old
books, dedicated to the art of binding and allowing to exhibit pieces
from the Avallonnais museum. After the completion of the work, about
5,000 people visited the monument in 2011.
The hospital
In
1659, the future establishment received 30,000 books from President
Pierre Odebert. The building was built at the expense of the city
between 1715 and 1728: it is located towards the end of the Grand-Cours
promenade. In 1820, the parish priest of Island, makes a donation of six
thousand francs, to found at the hospital, a bed for a poor patient of
Island.
In 1843, the building was enlarged by a main house for
the men on the west side. In 1867 new construction for women, in
parallel with the previous building. In the 1960s, the hospital had to
choose between its transfer or its adaptation. The central building then
underwent a drastic transformation: the large sick room was divided by
one floor, the large Louis XIV-style wooden balusters that supported the
beams disappeared, and the arcades were transformed into ordinary
windows.
City Hall
It is on the main street, facing the Place
Saint-Julien. The building was built in 1770 and looks like a private
house. Two forged iron gun breeches, equipped with their rings, are
placed as bollards at the sides of the entrance. These two guards seem
to date from the fifteenth century; they are mentioned as being out of
service from the middle of the sixteenth century.
The Place
Saint-Julien
This square "has been enlarged from the entire site
occupied by the church of Saint-Julien. A few years ago, we noticed the
facade of a very old building designated as the residence of the former
Dukes of Burgundy. The outbuildings of this house bear the name of
Cour-Catin which is that of Nicolas Catin, knight and captain of a
hundred men-at-arms who occupied it under the orders of the Dukes of
Burgundy. All that remains of the old building is a staircase turret and
some sections of walls, dating from the fifteenth century, enclosed in
recent constructions".
The Laboureau fountain was built on this
square in 1870 opposite the current town hall.
In 1775 a stone bridge was built for the passage of the road to
Lormes. It is necessary to notice the two central piers which are
oblique: this made it possible to be in the water's edge.
An old
wooden bridge, renovated in stone in 1457, had only one arch left in
1870. It was not far from the first cited bridge.
The Claireau
bridge, at the end of the suburb of Cousin-la-Roche, must be mentioned
for the beauty of the point of view: natural barrier of rocks and Cousin
waterfall.
A large arch with an opening of 27 meters allows, by
spanning the Cousin, to supply water to the fountains of Avallon from
the three waterways of the Etang-du-Chapitre, Montmain, and Aillon: it
was built in 1847.
In 1889, the board of directors of the Avallon Savings Bank, an
establishment founded in 1836 under municipal supervision, decided to
build a headquarters in Avallon. The old grain hall, which had been
built in 1772 not far from the Porte Auxerroise, was demolished and the
new Savings Bank inaugurated in 1893.
In 1986, the city of
Avallon buys the building which was no longer occupied. In 1989, the
municipal library moved there. It takes the name of Gaston-Chaissac
Library.
The sub-prefecture
The sub-prefecture is installed in
a beautiful residence built in 1845.
The court
It is assumed
that the building was built on the site of the ancient praetorium.
The foundations of the current building date from the thirteenth
century; the building was then a prison. The only remains of this period
are a fireplace and a square turret pierced by a cross-barred window.
The building was renovated for the first time in the seventeenth century
and another time in the nineteenth century, it then became a court.
After the reform of Rachida Dati's judicial card in 2009, the city court
was transferred to Auxerre. The building was then unused until it was
bought back in 2011 where it was transformed into an art gallery.
The gardens-terraces
The first terrace gardens on the slopes seem
to have appeared in the seventh century. They were used to grow
medicinal herbs and vegetables. They were the possession of the Abbey of
Autun and are similar to those that can be found in
Plombières-les-Bains. Since 1950, these gardens have belonged to many
different owners and are only rarely cultivated. It is possible to
admire these ensembles from the heights of the Parc des Chaumes.
The covered market was built in 1939 by Mm. Berthelot and G. Robert,
architects. The imposing volume of the roof is supported by a series of
concrete poles. The materials used are stone, brick and concrete. The
building includes high dormers.
Castle of Champien
Castle of the Alleux
Castle of the Hospice
Castle of the Pannats
Little is known about the first enclosures of the castrum which most
likely existed from antiquity - Gallic, Gallo-Roman and the high Middle
Ages, and which have not left any remains. At the end of the ninth
century, the first period of construction of the fortifications of the
city begins. It was at this time that the first medieval rampart was
built.
The later constructions are better known: twelfth century,
early and mid-fifteenth century, and late sixteenth century.
In
the twelfth century, after the capture of the city and the castle by
Robert the Pious at the beginning of the previous century, the ramparts
were improved and extended.
In the thirteenth century, the
ramparts are once again consolidated and enlarged.
In the
fifteenth century, especially at the time of the Hundred Years' War,
important improvements were made by two Dukes of Burgundy: John Fearless
and Philip the Good. The first had the Beurdelaine tower built in 1404,
and had bombardments installed in the towers in 1419 and the Auxerroise
gate reinforced. The second realizes in 1455 a new enclosure composed of
eighteen towers adapted to the use of firearms, including the tower of
the Escharguet. In the sixteenth century, four bastions were built at
the corners of the city, as well as two "boulevards" on the northern
front, the most exposed, to install artillery; the one on the north-west
remains (current Vauban breeding ground - but the marshal played no role
there)..
During the seventeenth century, the kingdom of France is
at peace and the city ceases to maintain the fortifications and towers,
which it rents to individuals. In the eighteenth century, Avallon is
cramped in its enclosure and the three main gates are destroyed in order
to allow the extension of the city. Part of the towers and ramparts will
then suffer the same fate.
Since 1926, the remains of the old
fortifications have been registered as historical monuments68. Today,
Avallon benefits from its location as the "Morvan gate" and the
preserved setting of its old town, with its narrow streets and old
houses. The ramparts, towers and bastions also contribute to the charm
of Avallon and strengthen its tourist attractions.
Beurdelaine
Tower
A tower was built in 1404 at the request of Jean Sans Peur,
Duke of Burgundy. During the Middle Ages, it bears several names:
Beurdelaine tower, Braudelaine tower, but also the Store Tower. Then, it
was used as an artillery depot after its renovation in 1435. The
penultimate renovation dates from the 1860s, causing it to lose its
defensive status. Its last renovation begins in February 2019.
The name of Avallon is attested in the form Aballo in the fourth
century, it appears for the first time on a coin of the people of the
Aeduans. Then Antonin's itinerary mentions Aballone and Peutinger's
table Aballo.
The toponym is generally considered to come from
the name of the "apple" in Gaul followed by the suffix of the neutral
-on.
However, more recent research shows that aballo- means more
precisely "apple tree", the simple abalo- (a single "l") meaning "apple"
(cf. Welsh afall, Breton avallen "apple tree"; Welsh afal, Breton aval
"apple"). The toponymic ending -o /-on, hence Avallon, is a neutral
localizing suffix and Avallon is therefore understood as "the apple
grove" or "the orchard". The common name maple perhaps retains the trace
of the Gallic abalo-, since it would come from a Gallic Latin compound
acer-aballo (medieval Latin acerabulus "maple", seventh century)
literally "maple-apple tree", a mode of composition that we find for
example in the old Irish fic-abull "fig-apple tree" → "fig tree" or the
Welsh cri-afol "mountain ash of birds", etc.
The word has the
same root as the name of the tree-god Abellio(n), patron of good
fruiting and protector of fruit trees in general.
The site is already occupied before Roman
times. The presence of an oppidum of the Gallic people of the Aedui
bears witness to this.
It seems that the city depended on the
province of Autun. The Avallonnais Morvan must have played an
attractive role for the rich Gallo-Roman families who came from
Autun with its numerous springs and immense forests. The city being
easily accessible thanks to the via Agrippa built to connect Lyon to
Boulogne-sur-Mer and, as such, it appears on the table of Peutinger.
At that time the city had a church, a court and a theater.
In the 7th century, the monk Jonas mentions a
castle named Cabalonem Castrum. But this defensive warning device
does not prevent sporadic invasions from sweeping through the city:
the Saracens, who came from Spain in 731 to Occitania and lived
there in small rooms, attempted sometimes fruitful raids in the
heart of Burgundy in the middle of the 7th century;
the Viking
bands multiply their forays after 843.
The inhabitants,
frightened, decide to surround Avallon with a great wall.
Avallon is then the capital of the pagus Avalensis. The fate of the
village is linked to that of Bourgondie: sometimes independent
kingdom, sometimes united with the kingdom of Austrasia (until the
ninth century). In 806 Charlemagne, in a chapter house, donated
Avallon and Auxois to his son Louis le Débonnaire. In 817, he passed
it on to his son Pépin.
In 931, the Duke of Burgundy
Gislebert went to war against the king of the Franks Raoul, his
brother-in-law, who seized Avallon and annexed it to the county of
Auxerre.
At the end of the Carolingian era, the city was
ravaged by the Normans.
In 1005, King
Robert the Pious wanted to take back the Duchy of Burgundy from
Otte-Guillaume: Avallon was besieged and taken by the royal army the
same year. Once the city is taken, the castle is destroyed. The city
fell back to the Duchy of Burgundy in 1032, shortly after the death
of the King of France.
In the 12th century, the city was
given new ramparts.
The inhabitants, serfs or bourgeois, then
belong to three different masters: the Duke of Burgundy, the Abbot
of Saint-Martin, the canons of Saint-Lazare. In 1200, the Duke of
Burgundy Eudes III freed the inhabitants of Avallon and granted them
a town charter. It is then the Abbé de Saint-Martin who imitates the
Duke. On the other hand, the canons, conservatives, did not give in
until much later and under duress. They obtain "the right to appoint
four aldermen to govern, govern, handle, administer the city and
provide for its business and negotiations, the right to present at
the choice of the king a captain or lieutenant for their defense,
and, when the third estate is admitted to the States of Burgundy,
around the fourteenth century, they sent two deputies there. In 1232
a transaction took place between the masters and brothers of the
Avallon leper colony and the abbot of the abbey of Saint-Martin
d'Autun.
During the Middle Ages, cisterns and wells were
installed in the houses, the city having only two sources of water:
Morlande and the Beurdelaine source.
Despite an improvement and an expansion of the ramparts of the
twelfth century, Avallon did not escape the violence engendered by
the Hundred Years War. In 1359, King Edward III of England, after
having jostled the Burgundian troops in Montreal, settled in the old
castle of Guillon, from where he ravaged the Avallonnais. Despite
the Treaty of Guillon and the departure of the English, bands of
mercenaries continued to plunder the region.
At the beginning
of the 15th century, the towers and the ramparts were in ruins. In
1419 and 1421, financial aid granted by the Dukes of Burgundy, Jean
sans Peur and Philippe le Bon, made it possible to meet them. Long
before this financial aid, Jean sans Peur had reinforced the city's
defenses by having the Beurdelaine tower built there from 1404 in a
circular shape. Then in 1419, he had towers installed that could
allow the use of bombards and improve the defense of the Auxerroise
gate.
In 1433, Jacques d'Espailly dit Fort-Épice, mercenary
and captain in the service of the King of France, seized the city by
surprise and kept it for eight months. Philippe le Bon himself
begins a six-week siege to take over Avallon. The Duke of Burgundy
must use a bombard armed with stone cannon balls, knights and
crossbowmen to assault the city. The attack was repelled by Jacques
d'Espailly, but the latter fled with a few men to Montreal, which
allowed Philippe le Bon to seize the city. However, the city, with
its burnt and destroyed suburbs, lost half of its population. It
takes twenty years for the city to recover from this ordeal.
After the capture of the city, Philippe le Bon had the ramparts
rebuilt, including the Beurdelaine Tower in 1435 to make it an
artillery depot, partly destroyed by the sap and the battering ram
of the besiegers. In 1453 he had a square tower erected at the
highest point of Avallon, to establish a watchtower and place a
clock, then in 1455, he modernized the fortifications by having the
ramparts equipped for the use of firearms. At the same time, the
streets are paved.
In 1543, the population almost tripled. But the Wars of Religion
did not spare the city, and the leaguers in 1590 caused great
damage. Lightning also damaged the large bell tower of Saint-Lazare
and the small bell tower, in 1589 and 1595 respectively. We must add
to this gloomy picture, the plague in 1531, and 1587.
In
1606, the city suffered a new plague epidemic. One of the
consequences of the event is the arrival of fourteen monks of the
order of Minimes in 1607. In 1652, with the support of Anne-Austria,
mother of Louis XIV and queen of France, the order opposes upon the
arrival of the Franciscan order. In 1622, the Saint-Julien church
came under the supervision of the order with the help of the
Capuchin order.
The 18th century is the time of
embellishments: the hospital was rebuilt in 1713 by an endowment
from President Odebert) and the town hall built in 1770. In 1791 the
church of Saint-Julien was demolished.
In 1790, during the
French Revolution, the Convent des Minimes was sold to the city.
From March 16 to 17, 1815, Napoleon I, after
having fled from Elba Island and on his way to Paris, spent the
night in Avallon, at the Hôtel de la Poste.
In the 19th
century, the city was hit by several droughts between May and
September. It was in this context that in 1842, Eugène Belgrand
carried out water supply works in order to solve problems of water
supply through a siphon system. The city center does not have a
water table and rainwater trickling down to the bottom of the
valley. During this work, an aqueduct built near the tanneries
passes over the Cousin. The work ended on December 10, 1847,
although the Laboureau fountain in the city center was not built
until 1870.
Avallon is in the south of the Yonne department, 51 km south of its
prefecture Auxerre. The Côte-d'Or department is 16 km south-east
(direction Rouvray); that of Nièvre is 9 km south-west (direction
Domecy-sur-Cure).
The city, the capital of the arrondissement, is
located on a plateau overlooking the Cousin Valley. Its area is
approximately 2,673 hectares, for an altitude between 163 and 369
meters. It has established itself on the hills overlooking the Cousin
Valley.
The municipality borders on the north of the municipalities of Étaule and Annéot to the east of the municipality of Magny; to the south it is bordered by Saint-Germain-des-Champs; to the west by Pontaubert and Vault-de-Lugny.
With an area of 26.75 km2, Avallon is divided into four districts.
The historian Victor Petit describes the city as follows :
"Avallon, a town of extremely ancient origin, is built in a remarkably
picturesque situation. Therefore, we consider it useful to put before
the eyes of our readers a topographic map of the surroundings of
Avallon, a plan of the old town and finally a panoramic view of the
current town. The overview, taken from the top of the Alleux Park can
give a general idea of the pleasant and charming appearance of the high
rocky hill on the top of which the entire city develops(...).
Towards the center of the drawing we notice the two main monuments of
Avallon: the church of Saint-Lazare, and, a little on the left, the
Clock Tower. In front of the bell tower of Saint-Lazare are the remains
of the Saint-Pierre church. A little to the left is the court
overlooking Bocquillot Street and leading to the Petite-Porte in front
of which we see the charming walk called Terreau de la Petite-Porte. The
Gaujard Tower is on the left ; the fortified spur, which dominates the
road to Lormes, is on the right and dominates the beautiful granite rock
escarpments that plunge to the bottom of the valley. The bedside of the
Saint-Lazare Church hides the vast Ursuline building. The tower opposite
is named after the Escharguet.
Further to the right is another
tower rising above a huge defensive wall very well preserved as well as
its small stone gatehouse. A little further to the right, we see the new
church of Saint-Martin. Further to the right, and preceded by some green
trees, we notice the sub-prefecture. Finally, at the end of the drawing,
we can see the old Saint-Martin church. In front stretches a huge rocky
and undulating terrain called The Stubble. The rapid slope of this hill
forms, on the left, the deep valley which isolates and borders, to the
east, a whole side of the city. The bottom of this valley is occupied by
a small stream coming from the pond of Minimes. A road runs along this
stream, which crosses a group of houses forming the suburb of
Cousin-La-Roche.
On the right, we see the road to
Quarré-les-Tombes, leading to the Claireau Bridge. The course of the
Cousin, divided by several islands, occupies the foreground (...) Let's
go back to the Clock Tower. Behind the Gaujard tower, but 700 meters
beyond, is the Hospital (...) To the left of the school house, we can
see the breeding ground of the Porte-Neuve. Below we recognize the edge
of the road to Lormes, bypassing, in a sling, the cultivated side of the
mountain, and descending straight to the great Cousin bridge, by the
bottom of the valley of the west, watered by the small stream of the
Pautot or Touillon. We can see this bridge at the base of beautiful rock
escarpments of the so-called Morlande hill, on top of which rises a
bourgeois house, which, under construction in 1830, took the name of
Maison-d'Alger.
In front of the bridge of the faubourg
Cousin-le-Pont, the beautiful arch built for the passage of the pipes of
the fountains rising to the level of the city after having descended
from a slightly higher plateau rises from one bank to the other. It is
at the end of this plateau that the beautiful house of the Alleux rises,
placed on top of magnificent escarpments of rocks (...) The camp of the
Alleux is completely outside our panorama and thus the narrow and
tortuous valley of the Cousin is forgotten. The valley is only beautiful
when viewed from the city, and the city is really only beautiful when
viewed from the valley"
Avallon is crossed by a natural stream in the open air: the Cousin.
The municipality receives about 807 mm of rain per year.
The
Cousin coming from the South has an average flow rate of 0.6 to 8.3 m3
/s. Floods can then occur, but they are rare and localized. The Cousin's
flow rate was observed over a period of 26 years (1994-2020), at the
Avallon hydrological station.
The modulus of the river at Avallon
is 3.9 m3/s. The studied surface of the watershed at this location is
347 km2, or 95% of the total watershed of 366 km2.
The Cousin has
seasonal fluctuations in average flow typical of the rivers of the
south-east of the Paris basin (Yonne, Arroux, Cure, Armançon and also
Dheune and Ouche). The high waters take place in winter, and bring the
average monthly flow to a level of 3.9 to 8.3 m3 / s, from December to
March inclusive (with a maximum in February), and summer low waters,
from July to September, with a decrease in the average monthly flow to
the level of 0.6 m3 / s in August. But these monthly averages hide much
larger variations.
The most important water heights are 2.7 m on
January 20, 1910, 2.23 m on March 14, 2001 and 1.81 m on May 31, 2016.
The largest recorded flows are 91 m3 on March 14, 2001 and 61 m3 on May
31, 2016.
In 2010, the climate of the municipality is of the degraded oceanic
climate type of the Central and Northern plains, according to a study by
the National Center for Scientific Research based on a series of data
covering the period 1971-2000. In 2020, Météo-France publishes a
typology of the climates of metropolitan France in which the
municipality is exposed to an altered oceanic climate and is in the
climatic region Lorraine, Langres plateau, Morvan, characterized by a
harsh winter (1.5 ° C), moderate winds and frequent fogs in autumn and
winter.
For the period 1971-2000, the average annual temperature
is 10.4 ° C, with an annual thermal amplitude of 15.9 ° C. The average
annual cumulative rainfall is 863 mm, with 12.5 days of precipitation in
January and 8.4 days in July. For the period 1991-2020, the annual
average temperature observed on the nearest Météo-France meteorological
station, "St André", in the town of Saint-André-en-Terre-Plaine 11 km as
the crow flies, is 11.3 ° C and the average annual cumulative rainfall
is 849.9 mm. The maximum temperature recorded on this station is 41.3 °
C, reached on July 24, 2019; the minimum temperature is -16 ° C, reached
on December 20, 2009.
The climate parameters of the municipality
have been estimated for the middle of the century (2041-2070) according
to different greenhouse gas emission scenarios based on the new
DRIAS-2020 reference climate projections. They can be consulted on a
dedicated website published by Météo-France in November 2022.
Avallon is an urban municipality, because it is part of the dense or
intermediate density municipalities, within the meaning of the Insee's
communal density grid.
It belongs to the urban unit of Avallon, a
monocommunal urban unit with 6,572 inhabitants in 2017, constituting an
isolated town.
In addition, the town is part of the Avallon
attraction area, of which it is the town-centre. This area, which
includes 74 municipalities, is categorized into areas with less than
50,000 inhabitants.
The land use of the municipality, as it appears from the European database of biophysical soil occupation Corine Land Cover (CLC), is marked by the importance of forests and semi-natural environments (44.6% in 2018), a proportion identical to that of 1990 (44.5%). The detailed distribution in 2018 is as follows: forests (44.6%), meadows (33.2%), urbanized areas (10.8%), industrial or commercial areas and communication networks (5.7%), arable land (4.8%), heterogeneous agricultural areas (1%). The evolution of the land use of the municipality and its infrastructures can be observed on the various cartographic representations of the territory: the Cassini map (eighteenth century), the staff map (1820-1866) and the maps or aerial photos of the IGN for the current period (1950 to today).
Exit No. 22 of the A6 motorway is 8 km to the east.
The city
is crossed by the D 606 connecting Rouvray (Côte-d'Or) 18 km to the
southeast and Auxerre to the north; and by the D 957 connecting
Rougemont (Côte-d'Or) and the D 905 (near Montbard) to the east, and
Vézelay to the west.
The city has a ring road, 3.6 km long in 2x1
lane built between 2004 and 2014 at a cost of twelve million euros.
Thus, the ring road bypasses half of the city from the East. It connects
the different accesses of the city by the departmental roads leading to
Auxerre, Tonnerre and Lyon.
The Avallon station is on the lines from Cravant - Bazarnes to
Dracy-Saint-Loup and formerly on the Avallon line to
Nuits-sous-Ravières.
Avallon Airfield is 1.5 km north of the
city.
Simon de Vallambert (XVI century.), doctor of Marguerite of France.
Pierre Odebert (1574-1662), a native of Avallon, was president of the
Parliament of Burgundy; with his wife, Odette Maillard, they were
benefactors of the cities of Dijon and Avallon.
Sébastien Le Prestre
(1633-1707), Marquis of Vauban, marshal of France.
Jeanne-Marie
Leprince de Beaumont (1711-1776), writer, author of Beauty and the
Beast, died in Avallon.
Simon Pfaff of Pfaffenhoffen (1715-1784),
German baron, sculptor and cabinetmaker, died in Avallon.
Jules-David
Cromot du Bourg (1725-1786), superintendent of finance and buildings of
Monsieur, born in Avallon.
Frédéric-François-Louis de Bien de
Chevigny (1737-?), born on April 13, 1737 in Avallon. His company, a
member of the Soissonnais regiment, was engaged in the American War of
Independence, in particular in the Battle of Yorktown.
Jean-Edme
Boilleau (1738-1814), deputy of Yonne to the Council of Five Hundred,
born and died in Avallon.
Antoine Vestier (1740-1824), miniaturist
painter and portrait painter was born in Avallon on April 27, 1740.
Lazare-André Bocquillot (1749-1828), canon, author of works on the
history of the Avallonnais.
Charles-Yves Cousin d'avallon
(1769-1840), man of letters, satirical polygraph, author of anas, born
in Avallon.
Louis Nicolas Davout (1770-1823), Marshal of the Empire.
François Louis Boudin de Roville (1772-1838), General of the Empire,
born in Avallon.
Pierre Joseph Habert (1773-1825), General of the
Empire.
Anne-Louise Moreau (1774-1852), portrait painter, mother of
Prosper Mérimée, born in Avallon.
Jean-Marie Caristie (1775-1852),
chief engineer of bridges and roads who participated in the Egyptian
expedition with Napoleon Bonaparte, born and died in Avallon.
Jean-Edme Michel Auguste Raudot (1775-1832), deputy of Yonne from 1815
to 1816 and from 1824 to 1831. Mayor of Avallon, born and died in
Avallon.
Simon Pierre Nicolas Prévost de Vernois (1778-1859), officer
under the First Empire, then major general
Auguste Caristie
(1783-1862), Rome Prize-winning architect, born in Avallon.
Jean-Claude Blandin, parish priest of Island, benefactor of the hospital
in 1820.
Félicie Tiger (1820-1890), painter, born in Avallon.
Étienne Henri Garnier, politician born on April 27, 1822 in Avallon
(Yonne) and died on August 20, 1890 in Paris (1st arrondissement).
Charles Marie Gabriel Cousin (1822-1894), bibliophile, grand master of
the Grand Orient of France in 1883, born in Avallon.
Ernest
Coeurderoy (1825-1862), doctor, writer and anarchist, born in Avallon.
François Moreau, founder of the Société d'études d'avallon around 1862.
Georges Loiseau-Bailly (1858-1913), sculptor, born in Faix (commune
Avallon).
Pierre-Octave Vigoureux (1884-1965), sculptor, author of
the monument to the dead.
Robert Vallery-Radot (1885-1970), poet,
writer and journalist, friend of François Mauriac and Georges Bernanos,
whom he regularly received in his castle of Alleux.
Robert Prévost
(1893-1967), watercolor painter, born and died in Avallon.
Paul
Baudoin (1894-1964), architect, restorer of the Saint-Lazare church,
founder of the Historical Museum.
Jean Despres (1889-1980),
goldsmith.
Bernard Ferrand (1900-1944), chaplain of the Joan of Arc
school, arrested on September 22, 1943 in Avallon, writer-fighter who
died for France.
Henri Petit (1900-1978), writer born in Avallon.
Gaston Chaissac (1910-1964), painter, writer and poet, born in Avallon.
Max-Pol Fouchet (1913-1980), art critic, television man, writer and
poet, died in Avallon.
Jean Chamant (1913-2010), Minister of
transport in 1967-69, then 1971-72.
Anne-Marie Soulac (1918-1983),
woman of letters.
François Dagognet (1924-2015), philosopher.
Étienne Balibar (°1942-), philosopher, born in Avallon.
Alain Lipietz
(° 1947-), economist, European deputy; and Hélène Lipietz, former lawyer
in public law and former senator environmentalist of Seine and Marne,
are descendants of Avallonnais, Hélène Lipietz lives there again.
Elise Mazella, painter who found part of her inspiration in Avallon.
Claire Delorme, weather presenter, spent her childhood in Avallon.
Bryan Mbeumo (°1999-), footballer, born in Avallon.