Location: Champagne- Ardenne Map
Reims is a French town which is located in the
department of the Marne in the region East Grand . With 183,113
inhabitants (called Rémois and Rémoises ) in 2016, Reims is the
twelfth largest city in France by its population. It is, however,
that the 29th French urban area with 320 276 inhabitants in 2014
(spread over 230 common). As for its urban unit, it brings together
210,995 inhabitants in 2013 out of seven communes: Bétheny ,
Saint-Léonard , Taissy , Cormontreuil , Tinqueux ,
Saint-Brice-Courcelles and Reims.
Reims, City of Art and
History opens to you with its unmissable sites classified as World
Heritage by UNESCO: the Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Palais du Tau,
museum of the work of the cathedral, the basilica and the Saint-Remi
Abbey Museum, dedicated to the bishop who baptized Clovis. Stroll
along the streets, day and night, many sites, monuments and museums
bear witness to the history of Reims, from the Gallo-Roman era to
the contemporary era, through the Art Deco style. Savor the world of
Champagne and its gastronomy. 250 kilometers of Gallo-Roman cellars
and piers are open to you. Visit the prestigious houses, properties,
cellars through the Champagne Tourist Route. Come vibrate to the
rhythm of its animations, shows and festivals.
Reims, the
home of champagne (the most celebrated and celebratory wine in the
world), is the main city of the Champagne area. It is a charming
city, and one that the French hold dear to their hearts. There
stands one of the most beautiful buildings of the Middle Ages in
Europe, one that is filled with history: almost all French kings
were crowned there for about 1,000 years. Most of the old houses
were destroyed during World War I, and the city was extensively
rebuilt in the 1920s in an Art Deco style.
Reims, Épernay and
Ay are the main places of champagne production. Many of the largest
champagne producing houses, referred to as les grandes marques, have
their head office in Reims. Most are open for champagne tasting and
tours by appointment only. Champagne is aged in the many chalk caves
and tunnels, some originating in the Roman period, located deep
inside the ground.
The city centre is fairly small and easily
walkable, with many streets for pedestrians only, mainly in the
shopping area.
Reims Touristic Office, 6 Rue Rockefeller, ☎
+33 3 26 77 45 00.
Landmarks
The most important squares in Reims are the Place Royale ("Royal Square") with a statue of Louis XV, and the Place du Parvis ("Church Forecourt") with a statue of Joan of Arc. The main thoroughfare, Rue de Vesle, crosses the city from south-west to north-east, crossing the Place Royale. The oldest monument in the city is the Gate of Mars (la Porte de Mars), a 33 meter long and 13 meter high triumphal arch (arc de triomphe) with three arches.
Churches
Cathedrale Notre- Dame de Reims
Notre-Dame de Reims ranks among the finest High Gothic churches in
France and one of the most historically charged sacred buildings in
Europe. Construction of the present cathedral began in 1211, a year
after fire destroyed the earlier church on the same site. The main
structure rose through the 13th century under successive master builders
(Jean d’Orbais, Jean le Loup, Gaucher de Reims, Bernard de Soissons and
others) and was essentially complete by the mid-14th century. The
building measures about 149 metres in overall length, with a nave vault
rising to roughly 38 metres. The twin western towers reach about 81-82
metres but were never given the planned spires.
The site is older
than the Gothic church. Bishop Nicasius founded a church here in the
early 5th century. Around 496 or 498, Bishop Remigius (Saint Remi)
baptized Clovis, king of the Franks, an event that linked Reims to the
Christian monarchy of France. From the 11th century onward the cathedral
became the traditional place of royal coronation. Most French kings were
anointed here, from Henry I through Charles X in 1825 (about 25
documented coronations in the Gothic building). Joan of Arc stood in the
cathedral when Charles VII was crowned in 1429 after the city was
liberated from English control.
The west facade is famous for its
dense sculptural program: the Gallery of Kings, the Coronation of the
Virgin, the Visitation, and the celebrated “smiling angels.” Interior
light pours through rose windows and later additions that include
20th-century glass by Marc Chagall. German bombardment in World War I
gutted the roof and damaged much of the fabric; restoration, led in
large part by architect Henri Deneux, took decades. Since 1991 the
cathedral, together with the Palais du Tau and the former Abbey of
Saint-Remi, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It remains an active
cathedral and draws around a million visitors a year.
Basilica of Saint Remi (Basilique Saint-Remi)
The Basilica of Saint-Remi is
nearly as large as the cathedral and is the greatest Romanesque church
in northern France, later enlarged in Gothic style. It stands over the
chapel of Saint Christopher that once held the tomb of Saint Remi (c.
437-533), the bishop who baptized Clovis and is credited with
instituting the royal anointing of French kings. The present church was
consecrated by Pope Leo IX in 1049. The nave and transepts belong mainly
to the 11th century (Romanesque). The choir and radiating chapels date
from the later 12th and 13th centuries (early Gothic). The south
transept facade was rebuilt in the 15th century in Flamboyant Gothic.
The basilica belonged to a powerful Benedictine abbey that received
papal visits and royal burials (including Carloman, brother of
Charlemagne, and later Carolingian kings). It was sacked during the
French Revolution; the Holy Ampulla used in coronations was smashed in
1793. Twelfth-century stained glass survives in parts of the building.
World War I bombardment wrecked vaults and windows; reconstruction again
lasted about forty years. The church is about 122-126 metres long, with
a four-storey elevation in the choir. The former abbey buildings now
house the Musée Saint-Remi (Gallo-Roman, medieval and military
collections). The basilica forms part of the same 1991 UNESCO listing as
the cathedral and Palais du Tau.
Parish churches of Reims
Saint-Jacques, Saint-Maurice, Saint-André and Saint-Thomas are more
modest than the two great monuments. Saint-Jacques (late 12th-13th
century, with later Renaissance work) is one of the few medieval parish
churches that survived in the city centre; it was badly damaged in
1914-18 and now contains notable modern stained glass. Saint-Maurice is
among the oldest parishes in Reims (mentioned in Saint Remi’s will); the
present building is largely 17th-century classical, rebuilt after later
fires including one in 1942. Saint-André (19th-century neo-Romanesque)
preserves some 16th-century glass. Saint-Thomas is a mid-19th-century
church. Of the once-important Abbey of Saint-Nicaise only fragments
remain; a separate 1920s church of Saint-Nicaise in the Chemin Vert
garden city is a fine example of interwar sacred art (including work by
Maurice Denis and René Lalique).
Basilica of Saint Clotilde
(Basilique Sainte-Clotilde)
Built between 1896 and 1901 (finished
1905) by Reims architect Alphonse Gosset, this neo-Byzantine church
commemorates the 1,400th anniversary of Clovis’s baptism. It is
dedicated to Saint Clotilde, the Burgundian princess whose faith helped
bring her husband to Christianity. The plan is a Greek cross with a
prominent central dome and four equal arms, inspired by studies of
Eastern and Western cupolas (including Hagia Sophia and Saint-Augustin
in Paris). Pope Leo XIII raised it to the rank of minor basilica in
1902.
Cardinal Langénieux intended it as a national shrine of French
saints. The crypt holds more than 2,000 relics in over 120 reliquaries,
gifts from dioceses across France. The church stands in the Sainte-Anne
quarter. It was damaged in World War I and again by a roof fire in 2012;
restoration allowed it to reopen. Visiting hours are limited, typically
Sunday afternoons in July and August and on Heritage Days, usually with
volunteer guides from the association that cares for the reliquary.
Palaces, theaters and libraries
The Palace of Tau
(Palais du Tau)
The Archbishop's Palace was built between
1498 and 1509. It hosted the French kings at their coronation
celebrations. The mighty fireplace in the main salon (Salle du Tau) from
the 15th century is particularly impressive. The chapel and main salon
are decorated with 17th-century tapestries. The name of the palace is
borrowed from the similarity of the palace plan with the Greek letter
tau.
Cours Langlet
The facades along the boulevard leading to
the cathedral form a résumé of the architectural options of the
reconstruction of the city destroyed in the First World War.
Grand Theater
An Art Deco building of national importance, the
theater was opened in 1931. The fountain bowls and a bas-relief,
wrought-iron banisters with golden masks and a mighty breastplate
chandelier under the hall dome are striking.
Bibliotheque Andrew
Carnegie
The Carnegie Library opened in 1928 and was named after
American billionaire philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who financed the
city's reconstruction after World War I. Looking like a small Greek
temple from the outside, the vestibule presents itself as a
sophisticated art deco jewel. “Particularly noteworthy are the
semi-cylindrical shape, which is unusual for France, and the beautiful
mosaics and glass basins in the entrance area. About 400,000 documents
are kept here.”
Other sights
Founded in 1794 during the Revolution, the Museum of Fine Arts (Musée
des beaux-arts de Reims), which has been housed in the old Saint-Denis
Abbey since 1908, houses an interesting collection of mainly Flemish,
Dutch and French paintings. In addition, remains of the Roman
amphitheater have been preserved. To defend the urban area, the Fort de
la Pompelle was built around 1880 in the municipality of Puisieulx,
south-east of Reims.
The museum of the declaration of surrender
(Musée de la Reddition) in the Lycée Franklin Roosevelt shows, among
other things, the room with General Eisenhower's general staff cards, in
which Colonel-General Jodl, on behalf of Karl Dönitz, signed the
surrender declaration of the German Wehrmacht on May 7, 1945 became.
To the north of Reims is the Notre-Dame de la Paix chapel by the
Japanese-French artist Tsuguharu-Leonard Foujita (consecrated in 1966).
The chapel's windows were made by master glassmaker Charles Marq, who
also made the Marc Chagall windows in Notre-Dame Cathedral. The life of
Jesus is depicted in frescoes in the chapel. Foujita's style is
expressly based on Leonardo da Vinci, after whom he also chose his
middle - Christian - name. In doing so, he thematically builds a bridge
to modernity by referring to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in the macabre dances. Foujita is buried in the chapel.
Museum of Saint Remi (Musee St- Remi).
Housed in the former royal Abbey of Saint-Remi, a UNESCO World Heritage
site next to the great basilica that holds the tomb of Saint Remi, the
bishop who baptized Clovis in 496, this museum tells the story of Reims
from prehistory through the Middle Ages and into later military history.
Visitors walk cloisters and 17th-18th century abbey rooms to see
Gallo-Roman finds from Durocortorum, Merovingian and Carolingian
objects, Romanesque sculpture including the famous head of King Lothair,
tapestries given by Archbishop Robert de Lenoncourt, and rooms on the
Sainte Ampoule that anointed French kings. Plan 1 to 1.5 hours; typical
hours are 10:00-18:00, closed Mondays, with a modest city-museum ticket.
Musee de la Reddition. In the former
Collège Moderne, now Lycée Roosevelt, this is the room where Nazi
Germany signed its unconditional surrender in Europe at 2:41 a.m. on 7
May 1945. General Eisenhower’s SHAEF war room is preserved almost as it
was: wall maps, the long table, and named chairs used when General Jodl
signed for Germany, Bedell Smith for the Western Allies, and Susloparov
for the Soviets. Surrounding galleries cover the last months of the war,
uniforms, and archives. Eisenhower waited upstairs and did not enter the
signing room; Stalin later demanded a second ceremony in Berlin. Confirm
opening hours before you go, as the site has undergone rehabilitation
after VE Day commemorations.
Cryptoportique.
Under Place du Forum lie the surviving vaults of a rare Gallo-Roman
cryptoporticus, part of the northern edge of the forum of Durocortorum,
capital of Gallia Belgica. Built in the 1st-3rd centuries as a
semi-buried U-shaped gallery (only the eastern arm is open), it once
supported a monumental portico and may have served storage, circulation,
or market functions. Reims is one of only a handful of cities in the
Roman world with such a structure still visitable. Access is usually
free in summer afternoons; the rest of the year hours are limited, so
check Reims Tourisme before descending from the lively square above.
Porte Mars. This is the largest
surviving Roman triumphal arch in the Roman world: about 32 m long and
13 m high, with three passageways, built in the early 3rd century as the
northern ceremonial entrance to Durocortorum and named for a nearby
temple of Mars. Original reliefs still show Romulus and Remus, Leda and
the swan, and a local agricultural calendar. Later walled into medieval
fortifications and the archbishops’ castle, it was freed in the 19th
century and restored again in recent years. It stands free on Place de
la République, a short walk from the station, and can be viewed at any
hour from the outside.
Ancient College des Jesuites and Planetarium.
The 17th-century Jesuit college, founded in 1608 and closed when the
order was expelled in 1762, is a baroque ensemble whose library and
refectory rank among Reims’s finest interiors; the city now uses the
complex for heritage, contemporary art, and the Sciences Po Reims
campus. From 1980 to 2013 France’s second planetarium occupied a small
dome here. The modern Planétarium de Reims opened in 2013 at 49 avenue
du Général de Gaulle with a Zeiss projector and full-dome shows on
stars, planets, and space news. Visit the historic college for
architecture and the new planetarium separately for sessions (reserve,
children under 3 often not admitted to some programs).
Musee des Beaux Arts. Reims’s
fine-arts museum grew from the 1748 drawing school and the Cranach
portraits bequeathed by Antoine Ferrand de Monthelon, then from
champagne and wool fortunes, above all Henry Vasnier’s 1907 gift.
Strengths include 13 Cranach portraits, one of the richest Corot groups
after the Louvre, Impressionist works by Monet, Sisley, Pissarro and
Renoir, 17th-century French painting (Le Nain, Philippe de Champaigne),
and Art Nouveau rooms by Émile Gallé. The historic building has been
closed for a long reconstruction and expansion; collections rotate in
other city venues, so verify current display locations on
musees-reims.fr before planning a visit.
Fort de la Pompelle. Built 1880-1883 as
Fort Herbillon in the Séré de Rivières belt after 1870, this small fort
southeast of Reims was disarmed in 1913, taken by the Germans on 4
September 1914, and retaken by the French 138th Infantry on 24
September. It then became the keystone of the Reims front: 180
regiments, including two Russian brigades sent by Nicholas II, held it
through four years of bombardment, gas, mines, and 1918 tank attacks. It
never fell again. The renovated museum inside the galleries covers the
garrison, 75 mm guns, trench artillery, the Russian expeditionary force,
and ace René Dorme, killed over the fort in 1917. Combine it with a
Champagne countryside drive; city-museum hours typically 10:00-18:00.
Festivals
The Clin d'oeil, the largest sign language cultural festival in Europe, has been held in Reims every two years since 2003.
Get in
By plane
Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport can be
reached by TGV in 30 minutes. Reims-Champagne Airport closed in
2006.
By train
There are eight daily connections to Paris
from the main train station. The high-speed train reduces the
journey time to 45 minutes.
Most of the long-distance traffic
stops at Champagne-Ardenne TGV station, which was created in 2007
and is located 4½ km south of the city center in the neighboring
municipality of Bezannes. Regular shuttle trains run from here to
the main train station.
On the street
Coming from the west
(Stuttgart) via Strasbourg or Saarbrücken and then Metz on the
A4/E50.
From Luxembourg either via the A-A31/E25 to Metz and then
continue via the A4/E50 or on the A4/E25-E411 to Neufchateau and
then continue on the N89/E46 towards Sedan. From there via the
A203/E44-E46 to Charleville-Mezières and south on the A34-N51/E46 to
Reims.
From Paris via the A4/E50
By bicycle
The
Véloroute de la Somme à la Marne runs through the city along the
canal.
By boat
Canal de l'Aisne a la Marne
Get around the city
While the centre is fairly compact and easy to get
around by foot, if you want to go further afield then try the buses.
They're very reliable, run regularly, and despite local complaints,
good value at €1.55 to go anywhere. If you intend to use them a lot,
buy a carnet of 10 tickets from bars, tabaco shops or newspaper
shops. single tickets can be bought on the bus but make sure you
have the right amount. You can also buy day tickets which are
interesting if you take the bus at least 4 times during the day
Reims Public transportation website
Taxis are reasonable (about €2 a mile) but you can't hail them and
they have to be booked in advance, which can be difficult if your
French isn't above conversational level.
With TGV a day trip to (or from) Paris is possible (it takes 45
minutes). Be aware you have to book in advance, but at least you can
do this in English online at
oui.sncf.com.
Learn
Reims has been a university city since the mid-16th century. In 1548
Pope Paul III issued a bull creating a university there at the request
of Cardinal Charles de Lorraine, archbishop of Reims, and King Henry II
confirmed the foundation the same year. Teaching began in the Collège
des Bons-Enfants (on what later became rue de l’Université) with
faculties of arts, theology, law and medicine. The old university was
abolished in 1793 during the French Revolution and then disappeared for
more than a century and a half.
Higher education returned only in the
1960s: a Faculty of Science in 1961, a literary college in 1964, law and
economics in 1966, an IUT in 1966, medicine and pharmacy in 1967, and a
national dental school in 1970. These pieces were brought together as
the University of Reims in 1971. In 1982 it took its present name,
Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne (URCA).
Today URCA is a public
multidisciplinary university with about 28,000 students, including
several thousand from abroad. Its main campuses are in Reims (Moulin de
la Housse, Croix-Rouge and health sites). It also has branches in
Troyes, Charleville-Mézières, Châlons-en-Champagne and Chaumont.
Teaching covers law, economics and management, letters and humanities,
exact sciences, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, sport, teacher training,
engineering and Champagne viticulture (Institut Georges Chappaz).
Research strengths include bioeconomy, environment and the regional wine
and agri-food economy.
Alongside the public university stands the
city’s business school tradition. In 1928 Reims and its chamber of
commerce founded the École supérieure de commerce de Reims to train
managers for champagne trade and distribution. It later became Reims
Management School (RMS), a grande école with several tracks (including
Sup de Co and CESEM). In 2013 RMS merged with Rouen Business School to
form NEOMA Business School, which still keeps a large campus in Reims as
well as sites in Rouen and Paris.
History
Gallic origins and the Remi
Settlement in the Vesle valley dates
to the Neolithic, with denser occupation in the Iron Age. The Remi
tribe’s first major center was a large oppidum at
Variscourt–Condé-sur-Suippe (roughly 500 hectares) from the 5th–2nd
centuries BC. Around 80 BC they shifted to the present site and built a
new fortified town, Durocortorum - a Gaulish name often interpreted as
“fortified market” or “stronghold of the gates.” The Gallic town covered
about 90 hectares, centered near today’s Place Royale, with a wide
defensive ditch.
When Julius Caesar entered Belgic Gaul in 57 BC, the
Remi broke with the other Belgae, sent envoys, and became Rome’s most
reliable allies in the north. They stayed loyal through later revolts.
In return they received federated status: they kept their laws,
religion, and local government and were placed over the neighboring
Suessiones. Caesar even summoned a Gallic council at Durocortorum in 53
BC.
Roman Durocortorum: capital of Gallia Belgica
Under
Augustus the city became capital of the new province of Gallia Belgica
and one of the largest urban centers in the western empire. Estimates of
its area run 500–600 hectares - second only to Rome itself in some
ancient descriptions - with a population perhaps 30,000–50,000 or
higher. It sat on Agrippa’s great road network linking Lyon to the
Channel and the Rhine.
The street grid still shapes modern Reims. The
cardo and decumanus cross at Place Royale. Four monumental gates marked
the limits; the Porte de Mars (3rd century), a triple-arched triumphal
gate dedicated to Mars, survives. Other remains include the
cryptoporticus of the forum (late 1st century), an amphitheater (built
under Tiberius), baths, temples, mosaics, and an aqueduct from the
Suippe. Craft quarters and cemeteries lay outside the walls. The city
exported pottery and imported wine, oil, and luxury goods.
In the 3rd
and 4th centuries pressure from Germanic raids led to contraction. The
inhabited area shrank to an oval of about 55–60 hectares inside a new
wall whose line is still visible in today’s street plan (rues de
Talleyrand, Chanzy, etc.). Christianity arrived by the mid-3rd century;
the diocese was founded around 260 by Saint Sixtus. In 406 Vandals
sacked the city and killed Bishop Nicasius on the threshold of his
church. Attila’s Huns burned it again in 451. Julian the Apostate fought
the Alamanni nearby in 356.
Clovis, Saint Remi, and the birth of
a sacred city
Saint Remigius (Remi), bishop from 459, converted
Clovis I, king of the Salian Franks. Tradition places the baptism on
Christmas Day 496 in the cathedral; many historians now prefer 498 or
499. Gregory of Tours says 3,000 Frankish warriors were baptized the
same day. Legend adds that a dove brought the Holy Ampulla of chrism
from heaven. That vial, later kept at the Abbey of Saint-Remi, became
the essential oil for anointing French kings.
The event turned Reims
into the spiritual cradle of the Frankish, then French, monarchy. In 511
Reims briefly served as capital of Austrasia under Theuderic I.
Archbishop Hincmar in the 9th century elaborated the Clovis legend to
claim exclusive rights of coronation for Reims. Pope Stephen IV crowned
Louis the Pious emperor here in 816 - the first royal consecration in
the city. From Henry I (1027) onward, Reims became the regular site.
Thirty-three kings were crowned in the cathedral from Louis the Pious to
Charles X in 1825; exceptions include Hugh Capet, Henry IV (Chartres),
and Louis XVIII.
The present Notre-Dame was begun after a 1210 fire.
Construction of the High Gothic church lasted most of the 13th century.
It has 2,303 sculptures, a 38-meter nave, and 81-meter towers. The
adjacent Palace of Tau served as the archbishop’s residence and the
king’s lodging and banquet hall during coronations. The Abbey of
Saint-Remi, founded over the saint’s tomb, became one of northern
France’s great Romanesque churches.
Medieval city and the Hundred
Years’ War
Reims received a communal charter from Louis VII in 1139.
Wool and cloth trades brought prosperity. The archbishops held ducal
rank and precedence among the ecclesiastical peers. A new wall enclosing
about 220 hectares was finished in the mid-14th century.
Edward III
of England besieged the city in 1359–1360 without success. The Treaty of
Troyes (1420) assigned it to the English, but they never fully secured
it. In July 1429 Joan of Arc escorted the dauphin Charles VII into
Reims; he was crowned in the cathedral on 17 July, a turning point that
restored legitimacy to the Valois line. Joan is commemorated by statues
inside and outside the cathedral.
Later medieval troubles included a
1461 salt-tax revolt crushed by Louis XI and a 1481 fire that destroyed
the cathedral roof and spires.
Early modern period to the
Revolution
The city sided with the Catholic League in the Wars of
Religion, then submitted to Henry IV after Ivry. An English College for
Catholic exiles operated here for a time; the Douay-Rheims New Testament
was printed in Reims in 1582. Plagues struck in 1635 and 1668, typhus in
1693–94. The Hôtel de Ville dates from the 17th century. Place Royale
and its Louis XV monument belong to the 18th.
The University of Reims
(founded 1548) trained several future revolutionaries. During the
Revolution the cathedral, symbol of monarchy, was damaged and the Holy
Ampulla smashed. Some of the September Massacres of 1792 occurred here.
Population in 1793 was about 32,000.
Napoleon won one of his last
victories at the Battle of Reims on 13 March 1814 against Russo-Prussian
forces. The last coronation, that of Charles X on 29 May 1825, was a
lavish attempt to revive ancien-régime ritual; it lasted more than five
hours and included the traditional anointing with oil from the Ampulla.
Industry, aviation, and the eve of 1914
Nineteenth-century growth
came from wool combing (Isaac Holden’s mills), champagne houses, and the
Paris–Strasbourg railway (1852). Population rose from 32,000 in 1793 to
over 115,000 by 1911. Forts were built after 1870 as part of the Séré de
Rivières system protecting Paris.
In August 1909 Reims hosted the
Grande Semaine d’Aviation de la Champagne, the first great international
air meet, drawing a million spectators and figures such as Blériot,
Curtiss, and Farman. Henri Farman had already flown from Châlons to
Reims the previous year.
World War I: the martyr city
German
troops entered Reims on 4 September 1914, then withdrew after the First
Battle of the Marne. The front stabilized a few kilometers north. For
1,051 days the city endured almost continuous bombardment from the
heights of Berru and the Fort de la Pompelle sector. About 80–90 percent
of buildings were destroyed. Population fell from 120,000 to a few
thousand.
On 19 September 1914 shells set the cathedral scaffolding
and stored straw alight; the oak-and-lead roof burned and hundreds of
later shells struck the building. Photographs of the burning cathedral
became Allied propaganda icons. Residents who stayed lived in the
Roman-era chalk cellars later used by champagne houses, turning them
into schools, hospitals, shops, and even concert halls. Champagne
production continued underground. The city became a national symbol of
suffering; reconstruction after 1918 was rapid and featured extensive
Art Deco architecture, helped by American donations including
Rockefeller’s gift for the cathedral.
World War II and the German
surrender
Germans occupied Reims from June 1940 until late August
1944. The city saw requisitions, rationing, deportations (226 Jews from
Reims), and some bombing. Eisenhower made it SHAEF headquarters after
liberation.
At 2:41 a.m. on 7 May 1945, in a red-brick technical
school (now Lycée Roosevelt) on Rue Franklin-Roosevelt, General Alfred
Jodl signed the German Instrument of Surrender in the presence of Allied
officers. The war in Europe ended in Reims. The map room has been
preserved as the Musée de la Reddition.
After 1945
Reims
rebuilt again, expanded as a university and administrative center, and
remained the commercial heart of Champagne. It is now a sub-prefecture
of the Marne (Châlons-en-Champagne is the prefecture) and the largest
city in the department, with a 2023 population of about 178,000. The
cathedral, Palace of Tau, and Saint-Remi Abbey were inscribed together
on the UNESCO list in 1991. Art Deco façades from the 1920s
reconstruction, Roman gates, and the champagne cellars together give the
city its layered character: Gallic market town, Roman capital, Frankish
baptismal site, Gothic coronation church, and 20th-century phoenix.
Culture
A sacred city before it was a wine city
Reims began as
Durocortorum, capital of the Remi and later of Roman Gallia Belgica. The
Porte de Mars and the cryptoporticus still mark that civic scale. The
decisive cultural turn came at the end of the fifth century, when Bishop
Remigius baptized Clovis, king of the Franks. Legend later added a dove
bringing heavenly chrism. Whether the miracle is taken literally or not,
the political meaning was real: the Franks entered the Latin Church, and
Reims claimed the right to anoint kings.
From Louis the Pious in 816
to Charles X in 1825, Reims became the coronation city of France.
Sources differ slightly on totals (25 in the present Gothic cathedral,
about 33 kings associated with the city overall), but the pattern is
stable: the Capetians made Reims the normal stage of sacral kingship.
The ceremony lasted hours. It bound the monarch to God through oil kept
at the Abbey of Saint-Remi, then to the realm through oath, crown, and
banquet. Joan of Arc’s arrival in 1429, bringing Charles VII to be
crowned, fixed the story in national memory. The Fêtes Johanniques still
replay that entry every spring with medieval markets and processions.
Notre-Dame de Reims is the stone version of that claim. Begun in 1211,
finished with unusual speed for a Gothic cathedral, it was designed for
crowds. It holds more than 2,300 statues. The Smiling Angel on the west
front became the city’s unofficial face. After 1914 the building was
gutted by fire and shelling; molten lead ran from the gargoyles.
Reconstruction, helped by Rockefeller among others, became a second
founding myth: the city of kings also became the city that refused to
stay dead. Chagall’s later windows sit inside the medieval frame without
pretending the twentieth century never happened.
The Palais du Tau
next door was the archbishop’s palace and the dressing room of
coronation. Saint-Remi basilica and its former abbey hold the saint’s
relics and the longer memory of the chrism. Together with the cathedral
they form a UNESCO ensemble listed in 1991. Culture in Reims still
starts from this triangle: church, palace, abbey.
Champagne as a
complete civilization
Vines were already here in the Gallo-Roman
period. Amphorae near the Porte de Mars show it. Medieval wine from
these slopes served Mass and then royal tables. Effervescence was first
treated as a defect of a cold climate. Bottle shipment in the eighteenth
century trapped the gas. Houses in Reims turned the accident into a
craft.
Ruinart (1729) is the oldest house. Veuve Clicquot,
Taittinger, Pommery, Mumm and others followed. Madame Clicquot’s
riddling table made clear sparkling wine possible at scale. The houses
built palaces on boulevards and bought the old chalk quarries under
Saint-Nicaise Hill. Those crayères - some Roman, some medieval - keep a
steady 10-12°C and high humidity. They are underground cathedrals: tens
of kilometres of galleries, millions of bottles, graffiti from World War
I when cellars served as hospitals and shelters. In 2015 UNESCO listed
the Champagne hillsides, houses and cellars as a living cultural
landscape. Reims is one of the few cities with two UNESCO inscriptions
of this weight.
Local culture around Champagne is quieter than the
export image. Growers and cellar workers often open a bottle with a
sigh, not a pop. In the vines people still drink from small sturdy
glasses called blidas. Three grapes - Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot
Meunier - and a closed vocabulary (assemblage, remuage, dégorgement,
dosage) structure an entire social world of family houses, co-ops, and
independent vignerons. Champagne here is celebration wine and also
Tuesday wine. That double use is the real local code.
Sabrage has a
Napoleonic anecdote attached to it, but it is theatre more than daily
habit. What is daily is pairing: pink Reims biscuits (biscuits roses de
Reims), made since the eighteenth century at houses such as Fossier, are
dunked in the glass. That small gesture is more typical than any saber.
Reconstruction as style: Art Deco as civic character
World War I
destroyed most of the city. About 80 percent of the fabric was gone; the
population collapsed. The 1920s and 1930s rebuilt Reims in Art Deco and
related modern styles: Carnegie Library (gold medal at the 1925 Paris
exhibition that named the movement), Halles du Boulingrin market, the
opera, Cours Langlet, garden cities such as Chemin Vert. Champagne
merchant palaces on Boulevard Lundy already showed Second Empire and
Belle Époque wealth. The postwar layer added geometry, ironwork, and a
decision that the city would look forward while keeping the cathedral as
axis. In 2025 the city marked a century of that Art Deco heritage.
Walking Reims is walking three times at once: Roman and Gothic core,
merchant boulevard, reconstructed modern street.
Table, market,
and kitchen
Gastronomy in Reims is Champagne first, then a northern
French table that has grown ambitious. Pink biscuits, local charcuterie,
cheeses from nearby farms, and produce from the Halles du Boulingrin
(the covered market still sets the weekly rhythm) form the everyday
layer. Chefs treat bubbles as a cooking medium and a pairing system, not
only an aperitif. The city now carries multiple Michelin stars;
L’Assiette Champenoise has become an international reference. Relais du
Goût and grower markets keep the link between cellar and plate visible.
Culture here is edible before it is abstract.
Festivals and a
living calendar
Reims does not freeze its past. It restages it.
Saint-Vincent processions in January belong to the winegrowers’
confraternities.
Fêtes Johanniques / L’Épopée légendaire in late
spring put Joan of Arc and the coronation back in the streets.
Les
Sacres du Folklore (since 1981) bring international dance troupes.
Flâneries musicales in June-July fill parks, courtyards, and unexpected
rooms with classical music and jazz; the picnic concert in Parc de
Champagne draws large crowds.
Heritage Days open cellars, Art Deco
interiors, and private houses.
Harvest season in September ties the
city back to the coteaux.
Christmas market is among the larger ones
in France.
Smaller cycles include Reims Polar, Méli’Môme for
children, street-art events, and electronic or Black music nights.
Geography
Location and regional setting
Reims is the largest city in the
Marne department and the most populous urban center of the historic
Champagne region. It belongs to the Grand Est administrative region.
Coordinates of the historic center: 49°15′46″ N, 4°02′05″ E
Straight-line distances: about 130 km northeast of Paris, 25 km north of
Épernay, 41 km northwest of Châlons-en-Champagne, 75 km southwest of
Charleville-Mézières, 157 km from Metz, 168 km from Lille, 282 km from
Strasbourg
The commune covers 46.9 km². Elevation ranges from 80 m in
the Vesle valley to 135 m on the higher terraces (Chemin Vert–Europe,
campus of Moulin de la Housse).
The urban unit (unité urbaine) holds
roughly 214,000 inhabitants; the wider arrondissement of Reims covers
1,432 km² and about 298,000 people.
The city lies just south of
the European megalopolis corridor and on the historic Paris–Germany
axis. To the west begin the more dissected Tertiary plateaus of the
Soissonnais, Laonnois and Tardenois; to the east the almost featureless
chalk plain of Champagne stretches toward the Argonne and the Ardennes.
Reims therefore occupies a classic contact zone: a plains city at the
mouth of a river “breakthrough” (entonnoir de percée) between two
contrasting geomorphic provinces.
Topography and relief
The
commune itself is nearly flat. Slopes rarely exceed 5 percent. The Vesle
valley forms a shallow trough about 15 m below the main urban terrace.
The historic core grew on the right (north) bank of that terrace, which
offered flood protection and easy access to the chalk aquifer.
Around
the city the relief becomes more pronounced:
South: Montagne de
Reims, a forested plateau that rises abruptly from the 80–90 m plain to
a summit of 286–288 m (Mont Sinaï near Verzy). The drop of 150–200 m
over a short distance creates the visual impression of a “mountain” even
though absolute heights are modest.
Northwest: Massif de
Saint-Thierry, another outlier of the Côte d’Île-de-France, reaching
about 240 m.
East: isolated knolls such as Mont de Berru and the
hills of Brimont and Nogent-l’Abbesse that once carried the 19th-century
fortress ring.
The Montagne de Reims is the easternmost salient
of the Côte d’Île-de-France cuesta. Its northern, eastern and southern
flanks are the classic Champagne vineyard slopes. The plateau top is
wooded; the surrounding plain is open cereal country. This “landscape
triptych” - forested plateau, vineyard coteaux, chalk plain - is the
defining geographic signature of the Reims area.
Geology
Reims
sits at the western margin of the deep Paris sedimentary basin. The
bedrock under the city is Campanian chalk (Upper Cretaceous), a white,
pure, frost-sensitive limestone 40 m or more thick, resting on
Coniacian–Santonian nodular chalk. Total chalk thickness in the region
reaches about 250 m.
Key geological contrasts:
East of Reims:
nearly horizontal Cretaceous chalk of Champagne crayeuse. Relief is
gentle; valleys are wide and shallow or dry. The chalk is highly porous
(up to 40 percent voids in belemnite chalk) and forms a major aquifer.
West and south: Paleogene (Tertiary) formations of the Côte
d’Île-de-France - Lutetian and Bartonian limestones, sands, marls and
Sannoisian millstone (meulière). These cap the Montagne de Reims and
Saint-Thierry massif and produce steeper slopes and more varied soils.
Superficial deposits: thin colluvium and periglacial “graveluches” on
the glacis; older and modern alluvium (chalk gravel, sand and silt) in
the Vesle valley; loess and clay-with-flints on some slopes.
The
chalk’s permeability and the contrast with the Tertiary cover explain
both the region’s excellent drainage (vital for vines) and the modest
surface hydrography.
Hydrography
Reims is not a great-river
city. The Vesle, 139 km long, is a secondary tributary of the Aisne
(itself a tributary of the Oise and ultimately the Seine). It rises at
Somme-Vesle at 153 m and flows westward through Reims before cutting
through the Côte d’Île-de-France toward Fismes and the Aisne.
Characteristics of the Vesle at Reims:
Low-energy stream fed largely
by chalk-aquifer drainage rather than surface runoff
Valley floor
only about 10 m below the ancient city
Historic center on the
right-bank terrace, safe from ordinary floods
The river receives
urban and industrial discharges as it crosses the agglomeration
Nearby Suippe (to the northeast) is a more constant chalk-fed stream;
the two basins are separated by a low interfluve dotted with small
knolls
The Canal de l’Aisne à la Marne parallels the Vesle
through the city and historically linked the Aisne and Marne basins. The
Marne itself flows 20–25 km south of Reims, forming the southern
boundary of the Montagne de Reims Regional Nature Park. Groundwater in
the chalk aquifer is abundant and historically supplied the city; the
alluvial plain of the Vesle also holds a connected water table.
Climate
Reims has a temperate oceanic climate with continental
nuances (Köppen Cfb). Maritime air masses keep annual averages moderate,
but the open chalk plain and distance from the sea allow sharper
extremes than in western France.
Typical values (1991–2020 normals,
various stations around 90–95 m):
Annual mean temperature: about
11 °C
January mean: 3.5 °C (daily max ~6–6.5 °C, min near 0–0.5 °C)
July mean: 19 °C (daily max ~25 °C)
Record high: 41.1 °C (2019)
Record low: around –22 °C
Annual precipitation: 600–630 mm, fairly
evenly distributed; wettest months often May–August
Sunshine: about
1,700–1,760 hours per year
Frost days: roughly 70 per year
Snow:
possible November–March, usually light
Winters can be raw and
cloudy; summers are generally mild but can produce heatwaves and
thunderstorms. The Montagne de Reims creates local microclimates: south-
and east-facing vineyard slopes are warmer and better drained; the
forested plateau is cooler and wetter. The open Champagne plain to the
east is windier and more prone to radiative frost and rapid warming.
Local legends
Founded by Remus? Rome’s twin on the Vesle
The oldest layer is the
claim that Reims was founded by Remus, twin of Romulus. Tenth-century
local historian Flodoard wrote that soldiers of Remus settled here and
gave their name to the Remi, the Gallic people Caesar met as
Durocortorum Rhemorum - “the fortified town of Remus.” The name of the
people actually means something closer to “the first” or “the foremost,”
not a Roman twin. Still, the story stuck because it made Reims a sister
of Rome.
The Porte de Mars, a third-century triumphal arch, still
carries a relief of the she-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus. Medieval and
early-modern Rémois read that stone as proof of the pedigree. The myth
did real work: it let a Gallic civitas present itself as almost-Roman,
then almost-apostolic, then the only proper stage for a Christian king.
The baptism of Clovis and the dove from heaven
The city’s master
legend is the baptism of Clovis by Saint Remigius (Saint Remi),
traditionally placed on Christmas Day around 496-499 in an earlier
church on the cathedral site. Gregory of Tours recorded the conversion
and the mass baptism of Frankish warriors. He did not mention a miracle
of oil. That came later.
By the ninth century Archbishop Hincmar of
Reims fused older miracle stories into one politically useful vision. A
dove - the Holy Spirit - descended with a glass vial of chrism so Remi
could anoint the pagan king when the ordinary oils were missing. That
vial became the Sainte Ampoule. From the twelfth century it was
“discovered” in Remi’s tomb, kept at the Abbey of Saint-Remi, and
carried in procession to Notre-Dame for every coronation from Louis VII
(1131) to Louis XVI. Thirty kings were anointed with a drop of that
mixture. The oil made the king christus Domini, the Lord’s anointed.
Reims became the only correct place to make a French king.
Revolutionaries smashed the original vial on Place Royale in 1793.
Fragments and a little balsam were saved, placed in a new reliquary, and
used again for Charles X in 1825. The Palais du Tau still holds that
successor vessel. The story survived because it bound baptism, kingship,
and the city into a single sacred circuit.
Saint Remi himself
accumulated wonder-tales: a hermit’s prophecy of his birth, wine
multiplied for a poor woman, protection of his tomb against plunderers
who were said to freeze or lose their way in the abbey. After Philippe
Rühl destroyed the Ampoule, some locals treated Rühl’s later suicide as
Remi’s delayed justice.
The cathedral: a lake underneath, a smile
that would not die
A stubborn local rumor says Notre-Dame stands on a
lake. On quiet nights you can hear waves. In the 1970s the newspaper
L’Union and the fire brigade staged a famous hoax: a Zodiac inflatable
parked at the cathedral steps. The story is not geology. It is
Champagne’s real underworld - crayères, flooded cellars after the
medieval ditches were filled, Veuve Clicquot’s caves once under water -
turned into a gothic image of the city floating on a hidden sea.
The
stone population of the cathedral is its other folklore. Historians have
counted hundreds of carved beasts. Hidden behind the three great gables
of the west front are an eagle (knowledge that can stare at the sun), a
unicorn (the Virgin), and a weasel or ermine (Mary crushing the
serpent). On the chevet, nineteenth-century restorers added monkeys, a
lynx, a pelican, even an elephant. High on the south transept a
centaur-archer once aimed at a bronze stag in the Palace of Tau
courtyard - a clerical joke aimed at the archbishop’s court. The
building is a bestiary as much as a church.
The figure everyone knows
is the Ange au Sourire, the Smiling Angel, carved about 1236-1245 on the
north portal of the west façade. Head tilted, lips curved, he looks like
heavenly joy made stone. In September 1914 a German shell set
scaffolding alight; the angel’s head fell four meters and shattered. The
broken face became French wartime propaganda: civilization smiling even
after German “barbarity.” Restored in 1926, he is now the city’s
unofficial emblem - hope that survived fire, revolution, and two world
wars.
Joan of Arc and the last great miracle of the city of kings
By 1429 the Ampoule and the cathedral were already ancient. What was new
was a teenage peasant who insisted God wanted Charles VII anointed
there, in enemy-held Champagne. After Orléans she forced the march to
Reims. On 17 July 1429 Charles was crowned. Joan stood in armor beside
him, banner in hand, then fell at his knees: the siege was lifted and
the true king had received the holy oil. For contemporaries the
coronation itself was the miracle that proved her voices. Reims still
stages Johannine festivals that reenact the entry and the sacre. The
bronze Joan on the parvis is not decoration. It marks the moment the
city’s oldest legend - heaven chooses the king here - collided with a
living saint.