Mons (French: Mons) is a Walloon city in Belgium and the capital of the province of Hainaut. The city has over 95,000 inhabitants. Saint Waldetrudis is the patron saint of the city. Mons is the principal town in the Bergen district, and the seat of one of the country's five courts of appeal.
The (not fully completed) Collegiate Church of Saint Waltrude
(Collégiale Sainte-Waudru) in Brabantine Gothic was built between 1450
and 1686.
The Belfry of Mons was built in 1662 on the foundations of
the ruined Castle of the Counts, which was the residence of the Counts
of Hainaut from the 9th to the 15th century. The beautiful belfry tower,
for which the French poet Victor Hugo had only contempt [source?], is
the only Belgian belfry in Baroque style. Of the Castle of the Counts
itself, the Conciergerie and the Romanesque St. Callixtus Chapel (1051)
have been well preserved. Le beffroi de Mons has been a UNESCO World
Heritage Site since December 1, 1999 and has had a visitor center inside
since 2015.
The beautiful buildings of the Grand Place (Grand-Place)
form a worthy entourage for the City Hall of Mons (Hôtel de Ville) to
which Matthijs de Layens donated a high Gothic facade in 1458. At the
death of Charles the Bold, the building activities were stopped and only
resumed in the 16th century. In the 17th century, a side wing was added
to the left and right, and in 1718 it got its bell tower. To the left of
the entrance is the popular monkey, the Singe du Grand Garde, a statue
that is said to bring good luck to those who stroke its head. Its
origins have not yet been traced: perhaps in the 15th century the statue
adorned a pillory ... for children.
Maison Losseau, a monumental
building with Art Nouveau interior
The largest swamp cypress in
Belgium is located in a private castle estate in the Harveng district.
Apart from the old specimens in the natural range of this species, this
tree is probably the largest bald cypress in the world.
Museum
François Duesberg for decorative art has a collection of clocks, mantel
clocks, furniture, and porcelain from the period 1775-1825. The display
cases are packed with objects related to Napoleon, Rousseau, Voltaire,
Paul et Virginie, Robinson Crusoe. The music in the background also
comes from this era, in which neoclassicism, empire style and
pre-romanticism prevailed. The museum is housed in an old bank building.
Museum of the Doudou
Mons Memorial Museum
BAM, Museum of Fine Arts
Mundaneum
University Museum MUMONS
The Maison des Patrimoines
Unesco in Spanish house
The city of Bergen originated on a hilly terrain (hence the name) between the rivers Hene and Trouille . Despite the discovery of cemeteries from the 2nd century and the old name "Castri locus" (that is Camp Place ), which first appears in 642 , the presence of a Roman army camp at the site of the current city remains a hypothesis. In any case, the site was located on a diverticulum (that is "branch" ) from the Roman road Bavay - Asse.
It was not until around the middle of the 7th century that
an important city center developed here, around a castle where the
counts lived. This development was partly the result of the
foundation in Frankish times of an abbey , around 650 , by Saint
Waltrude . This monastery would later be reformed in the 11th
century into a chapter of noble secular canons , which continued to
dominate the spiritual life in the city until its dissolution in
1792 .
Around the 10th century , the counts of Bergen built a
fortified castle on the neighboring hill, and under Count Baldwin IV
( 1120 - 1171 ) work began on the construction of a first wall,
parts of which still exist today. This soon allowed the city to
rival Valencijn / Valenciennes , the then capital of the county of
Hainaut.
In 1136 a major city fire took place in Bergen.
Bergen quickly developed into an important administrative, trade
and educational center. Countess Margaret II of Flanders founded a
beguinage in 1248 , and the increase in the population made it
necessary around 1290 to construct a second, larger city wall .
This city wall was about 4.5 km long and had six gates. In 1295 Mons
became the capital of the county of Hainaut. The cloth industry laid
the foundation for an economic boom, which would not end until the
16th century, with the religious troubles .
On May 24, 1572 , Louis of Nassau, at the head of 500 horsemen, entered the city quite unexpectedly, where he was greeted with enthusiasm, because the disaffection with Alva 's policy was very great. This triggered Louis's plan to establish a base of operations for Gaspard de Coligny 's army , which would harass the Spaniards from France. However, these auxiliary troops did not show up because Coligny had been murdered on Bartholomew's Day Night , and Louis, threatened on all sides, was forced to capitulate and surrender the besieged Bergen to Alva ( September 19, 1572 ). Despite the promise of generalamnesty , after the departure of Louis and his troops, Alva took a bloody revenge. Many of the citizens of Mons were arrested, tortured and executed, and their property seized. The prosperity of Bergen, one of the most flourishing industrial cities in Europe, had been totally destroyed.
Immediately a long period began for Bergen in which
the violence of war regularly slowed down the economic recovery. On
April 8, 1691 , Philip Frans van Glymes had to surrender the city to
the French troops (80,000 strong) after a nine-month siege. King
Louis XIV had descended in person on March 15 to attend the military
operations. The French artillery had done a lot of damage all over
the city. Bergen remained French until 1697 , after which it passed
alternately into Austrian and French hands. The French ruled from
1701 to 1709 , and then from 1746 to 1749. Because the military
operations of the 18th century caused so much damage, the city was
mainly rebuilt during that period, making the current townscape
largely 18th century.
In the late 17th century and first half
of the 18th century, Bergen was one of the fortified cities that
formed part of the Dutch fortress barrier in the Southern
Netherlands.
On November 6, 1792 , the Austrians lost the
Battle of Jemappes (now part of Bergen) and had to leave the field
for good.
At the beginning of the First World War , the British Expeditionary Force , led by the British General French, managed to stop the German troops of Von Kluck for 48 hours near Bergen . Bergen was then in German hands for four years and was finally liberated by Canadians early in the morning of November 11, 1918 , after three days of fierce fighting.
The Second World War was also murderous for Bergen and the
surrounding area, and caused a lot of human suffering. As an
industrial town and transport hub, it was often heavily bombed, and
from 2 to 4 September 1944 , heavy fighting continued between
American troops (en route from Avesnes and Nouvion ) and German
troops withdrawing from northern France.
The economic crisis
in the second half of the 20th century hit hard for the Bergen
industry and for the entire Borinage . Many brownfields were created
due to factory closures . The reconversion was not without problems,
but in the end tourism and trade were stimulated on the basis of the
cultural heritage. In 1998, for example, the Mundaneum was built and
in 2015, Bergen was the European Capital of Culture with Pilsen.
The name of the city means mountain in Latin (compare French Mont),
which suggests the geographic situation of the city.
The relief
of Mons is characterized by the valley of the groves. This flows north
of the city center from east to west, about 30 km further west to flow
into the Scheldt in France. South of the city center, the Trouille flows
west to flow into the groves a little later in the Jemappes district of
Mons. North and south of the groves are hills and plateaus, the height
of which gradually increases to 50-115 meters. The valley floor near the
river and the Nimy-Blaton-Péronnes canal branching from it is 20 meters
above sea level.
The city developed over the centuries in an
almost circular fashion on the hill between the Haine in the north and
the Trouille in the south. The Small Ring of Mons (Belgian ring road
R50) separates the city center from the suburbs. Towards the middle of
the circle described by the R50, the hill rises and reaches its highest
point near the historic belfry (bell tower).