Orleans is a French commune in north-central France, located
about 120 kilometers south of Paris. Seat of the Orléans
metropolitan council, the city is also the capital of the Loiret
department and the Center-Val de Loire region, making it the closest
metropolis to Paris.
Located on the banks of the Loire, where
the river curves west towards its estuary, the city is nestled in
the heart of the Loire Valley, a World Heritage Site. Orléans is
located at the gateway to the Sologne natural region, the plains of
Beauce and the forest of Orleans.
Former capital of the
kingdom of France in the fifth century after its conquest by Clovis
(who became king of the Salian francs) over Syagrius, a Gallo-Roman
chief defeated at the battle of Soissons in 486. The figure of Joan
of Arc is inseparable from history of the city, since it played a
decisive role on May 8, 1429 by liberating the city from the English
during the Hundred Years War. His omnipresent figure stands proudly
on the Place du Martroi, in the Sainte-Croix cathedral, in front of
the old Town Hall ... Every year, Orléans pays homage to him during
the Johannine Feasts, registered since 2018 in the inventory of
intangible cultural heritage in France.
The city owes its
development since antiquity to trade from the river. Important river
port, its position more or less halfway between the source of the
Loire and its mouth and at the point of the river closest to the
Seine, made it the effective seat of the "Community of merchants
frequenting the Loire river ”. Capital during the Merovingian era,
theater of the Hundred Years War and land of many royal coronations,
the city has a great historical and patrimonial richness which
allows it to integrate since 2009 the circle of the Cities of Art
and History .
The University of Orleans, created in 1306 by
Pope Clement V and refounded in 1966, has 19,002 students in 2019.
The city had 116,685 inhabitants in 2017; the metropolis of
Orleans, made up of 22 municipalities, includes 286,257 inhabitants.
The urban area of Orleans, grouping together 90 municipalities,
had 433,337 inhabitants in 2015. Its inhabitants are called the
Orléanais.
The Gallo-Roman enclosure, is visible in several places of the city
as at the foot of the north transept of the cathedral (fourth century)
(base of tower and portion of wall on 2.5 m high from the bottom of the
ditch); rue de la Tour-Neuve, where a portion of perimeter wall of
approximately H = 6 m L = 50 m serves as support for the former Dessaux
vinaigrerie (the company closed in the 1980s), next to the current
municipal hall Eiffel ; place Louis-XI, used as a stair ramp leading to
a Gothic vaulted cellar under the public road (the wall served as the
foundation for the old church which occupied the site until the
Revolution).
The Bannier Gate, discovered in 1986, is located
directly above the statue of Joan of Arc. It dates from the fourteenth
century. It is accessed, under certain circumstances, by a hatch located
on the Place du Martroi. It is also possible to admire it from a window
set up in the underground parking lot under the square.
The White
Tower is the only tower still in elevation remaining from the
Gallo-Roman enclosure. In reality, only its base is really of this
period due to successive renovation campaigns over the centuries until
the extension of the enclosure to the east under Louis XI (3rd
enclosure) deprives it of its defensive utility. It still played its
defensive role during the siege of Orleans. It currently houses the
archaeological service of the City of Orleans.
The castle, of which
only a tower and part of the entrance portal remain, is a fortress whose
origins predate the tenth century, seat of royal and seigneurial power
in the city for centuries (house, court, etc.).
The castle of the
Source (seventeenth – nineteenth century) dominates the floral park and
the source of the Loiret.
The Groslot hotel was built by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau between
1550 and 1555 for Jacques Groslot, bailiff of Orleans. Francis II died
there in 1560. Charles IX, Henry III and Henry IV stayed there. The
hotel was restored in 1850. The building, with a facade decorated with a
brick device, has housed the town hall of Orleans since 1790 (current
wedding hall).
The Hotel de la Vieille Intendance (early sixteenth
century), or Hotel Brachet, formerly "Maison du Roy", is a real
Gothic-Renaissance castle built of bricks. Today it is the seat of the
administrative court of Orleans. Its facade is flanked by two turrets
from the courtyard of honor which opens onto the Rue de la Bretonnerie.
The most beautiful view of this residence - which welcomed the highest
dignitaries of the kingdom passing through Orleans, and perhaps the
kings themselves (Henri IV, Louis XIII, Louis XIV) - can be obtained
from its gardens, accessible to the public from the Rue
d'Alsace-Lorraine.
The Hotel de la Motte-Sanguiné (eighteenth
century) is a mansion built on the orders of the Duke of Orleans,
Louis-Philippe of Orleans (1747-1793) known as "Equality" because of his
support for the revolutionaries. Nicknamed "the richest man in the
world", he voted for the death of his cousin King Louis XVI. Of
classical style, it is a residence, with its gardens, which could be
described as princely, even royal because the son of Philippe-Égalité
acceded to the throne of France under the name of Louis-Philippe I.
The house of Louis XI (late fifteenth century), Place Saint-Aignan, was
built by the sovereign who particularly revered Saint Aignan.
The
house of Joan of Arc, where she stayed from April 24 to May 9, 1429 is
in fact an approximate reconstruction, the original having first been
knocked out of alignment around the beginning of the twentieth century,
then destroyed by a fire, during the bombings of June 1940.
The Cabu
hotel, also called the house of Diane de Poitiers, was built by Philippe
Cabu, lawyer in 1547, on plans by the architect Androuet du Cerceau.
The Hatte Hotel (fifteenth century) currently houses the Charles-Péguy
Center.
The Toutin hotel, the Ducerceau hotel and the Jean Dalibert
house date from the sixteenth century.
The Pommeret hotel (sixteenth
century) now hosts the Regional Accounts Chamber.
The Hôtel des
Creneaux, a former Gothic-renaissance town hall (fourteenth-fifteenth
century) is very ostentatious and richly decorated. It is surmounted by
a Gothic belfry (watchtower / bell tower). Its tower for a time housed a
telegraph station. It currently houses part of the Orleans Conservatory.
The Jacques Boucher cabinet (sixteenth century), formerly attached to
the hotel of the same name, Place Charles-De-Gaulle, is now visible from
the public garden which also owes its name to it.
The house of the
Shell (sixteenth century) is decorated with a "scallop shell". It was
indeed close to the Saint-Jacques chapel, rue des
Hostelleries-Sainte-Catherine and close to the Porte du Pont, a crossing
point for pilgrims on their way to Spain from northern Europe.
The
house of the Knights of the Watch (sixteenth century) is a brick and
stone mansion that would have housed the men-at-arms in charge of order
in the city (controversial).
The buildings and old mansions of the
rue d'escure are from the seventeenth – eighteenth century.
The thesis room is the old library of the University of Orleans
founded in 1306 (although its origin is older). This Gothic building is
a fifteenth-century construction that was neighboring the "Grandes
Écoles", a Gothic monument unfortunately destroyed in the nineteenth
which housed the classes. Internationally renowned (presence of a strong
Germanic contingent in particular), many celebrities - for example Jean
Calvin, Molière, La Boétie or Pope Clement V - studied and / or taught
there.
The artillery school, former military school of the nineteenth
century, is built on the banks of the Loire, near the René-Thinat
bridge. This classic-style stone building is often confused with the
Château de la Motte-Sanguiné which is located next door, on the motte
itself.
The science library of the Orléans la Source campus (2005),
was designed by the architects Florence Lipsky and Pascal Rollet, and
awarded the Silver Square prize in 2005.
The Argonne town
hall-library was designed by the architect Alain Poivet and awarded the
AMGVF AMO architecture prize in 1996.
The media library was
inaugurated in 1994 by François Mitterrand.
The Cercil - Memorial
museum of the children of the Vel d'Hiv', located in a completely
renovated old nineteenth-century school (rue du Bourdon-Blanc) is a
place of memory, as well as a documentation center, with the objective
of deepening and explaining the role of the internment camps of the
Loiret in the Jewish deportation during the Second World War.
The
Turbulences (2013), museum of the FRAC Center, was designed by the
architectural firm Jacob & Mac Farlane. Building with futuristic lines,
covered with an LED coating and inserted in an old military barracks of
the nineteenth century.
The hall of the Institute, Place Sainte Croix
is a small concert hall within the conservatory, which can also be
transformed into a ballroom thanks to a modular floor. Its acoustics are
remarkable.
The Place du Martroi, symbolic heart of the city, has in its center a
monumental equestrian statue of Joan of Arc (where the latter is taller
than her horse), sculpted by Denis Foyatier. This statue was broken
during the Second World War and then repaired by the sculptor Paul
Belmondo, father of the famous actor; the bas-reliefs of the pedestal
are due to the sculptor Vital Dubray.
The Rue de Bourgogne, former
Roman decumanus (major east-west axis), is still bordered by the
religious, political and commercial centers of the city. It remains the
symbolic heart of the city. It is particularly long (more than 1 km) and
is lined with mansions as well as residences of all ages and all styles.
It welcomes a great diversity of populations of all conditions and all
origins (students, bourgeois, workers, immigrants ...). It is through
its eastern end (Burgundy gate), today at the intersection of the Rue de
la Fauconnerie, that Joan of Arc entered the city for the first time in
1429. Before the bombings of 1940 and 1944, the rue de Bourgogne
extended without real interruption by the rue du Tabour and the rue des
Carmelites to the western end of the city (porte Madeleine and porte
Saint-Jean), almost double its current length.
The Royal Street
(eighteenth century) and its shopping arcades have been largely rebuilt
identically after the bombings of the Second World War and constitute a
masterpiece of urban planning. The monumental perspectives it offers (on
the statue of Joan of Arc in Place du Martroi in particular) recall
those of major European metropolises (Turin, Rome, Vienna ...),
including that of the rue Royale in Paris between the Place de la
Concorde and the Madeleine church or those of the rue de la Paix or the
rue de Rivoli.
The rue Jeanne d'Arc (eighteenth - nineteenth
centuries) is a large artery facing the Sainte-Croix Cathedral and
opening a formidable perspective on it. It is bordered by opulent
buildings, mostly made of ashlar, remarkably homogeneous although all
different due to strict urban planning rules, adopted from the beginning
of the project, which resulted in the destruction of the entire central
part of the old town which was located instead.
The old hospital and its chapel, called Madeleine Hospital, which is
mainly from the Louis XIV period (seventeenth century).
The
chancellery of the Duke of Orleans (eighteenth century) is located on
Place du Martroi. Only the facade survived the bombs of the Second World
War. A later twin monument houses the Loiret Chamber of Commerce and
Industry on the other side of rue Royale (east side).
The quays of
the Loire (seventeenth - nineteenth centuries) of the port of Orleans,
paved upstream and downstream of the George V bridge, are the remains of
the flourishing commerce of the Loire which made the wealth of the city
from prehistory to the invention of the steam engine.
The dhuis (or
the dhuis), is a formerly paved dyke (visible remains) in the middle of
the Loire extending for kilometers, upstream and downstream of the city,
intended to channel the waters of the river as well as to authorize
navigation during periods of lower flow of it.
The prefecture, former
Benedictine monastery, built in 1670 and housing the prefecture since
1800. It contains a monumental wrought iron main staircase, dating from
1680 (listed in the inventory of historical monuments in 2005, can only
be visited during certain circumstances).
The Royal Bridge or George
V Bridge is the oldest, guarded to the south by two old tax collection
stations. The Tourelles bridge, built in 1140 and destroyed in 1760
(first by a flood), was the first stone bridge in Orleans (a little
upstream from the Royal Bridge, the base of the original piers still
outcrops during low water periods).
The Europe Bridge, designed by
Santiago Calatrava, is a particularly original inclined bow-string arch
bridge.
The statue of The Bather by Paul Belmondo, rue Royale, was
inaugurated on July 23, 1955 and that of Jean Calvin, by Daniel
Leclercq, in front of the temple, on November 14, 2009.
The episcopal
palace or former bishopric (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), has
had its entrance portal classified as a historical monument since March
20, 1912 and the main building as well as the pleasure gardens since
July 11, 1942. Since January 2014, it has housed the International
University Research Center (University of Orleans and Studium).
The
oldest districts of the city located in the space delimited by the malls
(Burgundy district in particular) present hundreds of facades of
medieval or Renaissance architecture in stone or half-timbered
(half-timbered). All have been (or are intended to be) renovated,
according to a constant municipal policy since 2001.
We can also
mention the courthouse and the Orleans Canal as remarkable.
The Sainte-Croix Cathedral of Orleans, Place Sainte-Croix, is the
cathedral of the diocese of Orleans; Gothic style with baroque
ornamentation (partly rebuilt in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries), it is dedicated to the Holy Cross and is classified as a
historical monument since 1862 ;
The collegiate church of
Saint-Aignan, Cloister of Saint-Aignan, of the fifteenth century and the
eponymous crypt of the eleventh century; classified Historical monument
since September 26, 1910 ;
The collegiate church of Saint-Avit, from
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, of which only the crypt remains,
classified as a Historical Monument since 1862 ;
The church of
Notre-Dame-de-Recouvrance, rue Notre-Dame de la Recouvrance, built
between 1513 and 1519 and renovated in the seventeenth and nineteenth
centuries; it contains a choir dating from the Second Empire in
Renaissance style; the church has been classified as a historical
Monument since July 30, 1918, and its presbytery since March 6, 1928 ;
The Saint-Euverte church, street and Terrace, of the fifteenth,
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, classified as a Historical Monument
since March 4, 1933 ;
The bell tower (built between 1620 and 1627) of
the Saint-Paul-Notre-Dame-des-Miracles church, rue Cloches Saint-Paul,
most of this church was bombed in June 1940; the tower has been
classified since July 17, 1908 and the Notre-Dame des Miracles chapel
(spared by the fire of 1940) has been classified since January 4, 1960.
See also the south porch, recently renovated ;
The church of
Saint-Paul-Notre-Dame-des-Miracles, rue des Cloches Saint-Paul (see
above: bell tower) ;
The church of Saint-Pierre-du-Martroi, rue
Saint-Pierre Martroi, of the sixteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, classified as a historical monument since June 13, 1942 ;
The old collegiate church of Saint-Pierre-le-Puellier rue Saint-Pierre
Puellier, from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from the Romanesque
period, remodeled in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, is
converted into an exhibition hall and concert hall and listed in the
inventory of Historical monuments since December 11, 1925 ;
The
Notre-Dame church, rue Leclerc (Les Blossières).
The church of
Notre-Dame-de-la-Consolation, rue de Faubourg Bannier.
The church of
Our Lady of the Hearths, rue Porte Dunoise.
The Saint-Donatien
church, rue de la Charpenterie, Romanesque, Gothic and classical style:
the initial church, dating from the eleventh century, housed the remains
of Saint Donatien of Nantes and Saint Rogatien. It was destroyed during
the siege of Orleans by the English in 1429, then by the Protestants
between 1562 and 1568. It was rebuilt in the sixteenth century and in
the seventeenth century, date of construction of the classic porch with
Doric columns.
The church of Saint-Jean de Bosco, rue du Grand
Villiers.
The Saint-Laurent church, rue Venelle du Croc.
St.
Mark's Church, St. Mark's Street.
The Saint-Marceau Church,
Saint-Marceau Street.
The Saint-Paterne Church, rue Bannier, was
built in its current form from 1876 to 1894, replacing an older building
whose tower survived until 1913.
The remains of the
Saint-Pierre-Lentin church: wall and remains of a triumphal arch dating
from the eleventh century. The first building dedicated to Saint Peter
was built in the 800s, according to a T-shaped plan for a surface of 317
m2. We note the addition of a room in the twelfth century, the
installation of burials in the thirteenth –fourteenth centuries and a
front porch in the fifteenth century. After the Revolution, the church
was absorbed into the neighboring buildings. It was leveled in 1967
during the construction of the cathedral parking lot.
The Church of
St. Vincent, St. Vincent Street.
The Saint-Yves church, rue
Saint-Vincent in Orléans-la-Source.
The church of Sainte-Jeanne
D'Arc, boulevard Guy Marie Robié.
The remains of the Saint-Jacques chapel, rue Escures. Dismantled
towards the end of the nineteenth century, its facade was reconstructed
in the garden of the old Town Hall. Accompanied by some other remains,
it has been classified as a Historical Monument since 1846;
the
remains of the Chapel of St. Catherine ;
the Chapel of the Assumption
School, Saint-Marc Street ;
the chapel of the Institution of the Work
of Joan of Arc, rue Eugène Vignat (preserved part facade and base) ;
the chapel retirement home the Baron's Deanery, Sanitas street ;
the
chapel of the floral park, avenue of the Floral Park in
Orléans-la-Source ;
the Saint-Charles chapel of the hospital, rue de
la Porte de la Madeleine ;
the Saint-Joseph chapel, rue de Courtenay
(current Polish church) ;
the Saint-Loup chapel, rue du Faubourg de
Bourgogne ;
the Saint-Marc chapel, rue du Petit Pont ;
the former
priory and former abbey of Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle, now hosting the
prefecture of the Center region and the Loiret department, work of the
architect Waldemar Clouet ;
the former convent of the Minimes, rue
Illiers, whose cloister and chapel have been classified as a historical
monument since September 10, 1941; it houses the old funds of the
departmental archives of Loiret ;
an old canonical house, from 1530,
listed in the inventory of Historical monuments since August 10, 1989.
The temple of the reformed church, which is located in the cloister
of Saint-Pierre-Empont, was built from 1836 to 1839 by the architect
François-Narcisse Pagot; it has been listed in the inventory of
Historical monuments since March 13, 1975.
The evangelical church,
which bears the name of the Column of Truth, is located on Saint-Marc
Street.
The free evangelical church is in Jules Noël street.
The
Adventist church, March 19th street.
The New Apostolic church, rue du
Faubourg Saint-Vincent.
The synagogue, rue de Courtenay, adjoins the old bishopric.
The Orthodox church on the Campo Santo, dead end of the Salamander.
The Antoinist temple, rue des Juifs.
The city has 6 Muslim places of worship, two mosques and four prayer rooms.
The Campo Santo is a large grassy cloister, surrounded by galleries
with arcades of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. From the twelfth
century to 1786 it is the great cemetery of Orleans, then a wheat hall
from 1824 to 1884. It was then transformed into a festival hall until
1970, when the buildings were destroyed and the cloister renovated to
gradually become a large outdoor event space. The arcades have been
classified as a historical monument since February 8, 1913 and the
monumental door has been listed in the inventory since March 6, 1928 ;
The cemetery contains, among others, the graves of Jean Zay, René
Thinat, Roger Toulouse and Anatole Bailly.
Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans: a masterpiece by Velasquez, saint
Thomas; landscapes by François Boucher; modern collection with Jean
Hélon, Roger Toulouse; a 17 m long canvas by Simon Hantai; a lyrical
abstraction landscape by Olivier Debré and a painting by the Chinese
painter Zao Wou-Ki. Monumental sculpture of Volti ;
Historical and
archaeological Museum of Orléanais (Cabu hotel) ;
Charles-Péguy
Center, gathering documents on the writer ;
Museum of natural
sciences ;
Study and research center on the internment camps of the
Loiret (Cercil), which includes a documentation center of 3,500 books
and a memorial museum of the children of the Vel' d'Hiv of 1,000 m2
inaugurated in 2010 ;
Museum of the FRAC Center (Regional Fund of
Contemporary Art of the Center).
Showrooms
The Zénith d'Orléans, a large multi-purpose performance
hall that can accommodate nearly seven thousand people.
The Orleans
theater, consisting of several rooms for theater, dance and concerts.
The Musical Institute of Orleans has a room with just under four hundred
seats dedicated to classical music.
The Astrolabe is the flagship
concert hall for contemporary music in Orleans. Managed by the Anti-Rust
association on behalf of the city of Orleans, the Astrolabe presents
from September to June an impressive sound panel. To welcome rock,
electro, pop, world music, hip-hop and other artists, but especially for
the audience, 550 seats are available in the Astrolabe and 180 seats in
the Astroclub.
The Gerard-Philipe theater with almost six hundred
seats, opened in 1973 and renovated in 2006.
The Pasteur Park
theater, with nearly a hundred seats, devoted mainly to children's
shows.
The Blue Devils bar-brasserie has a concert hall specializing
in rock music, which in particular welcomes touring bands.
The two multiplexes of the agglomeration display the Pathé sign :
The Pathé place de Loire cinema of twelve rooms, facing the Loire in
Orleans,
The Pathé Saran cinema, with nine rooms, opened its doors in
2008 in Saran, a town bordering the north of Orleans. In 2017, an IMAX
room was opened at Pathé Saran.
The cinema Les Carmes, classified Art
and Essay, has four rooms in the city center of Orleans.
Orléans
has counted other cinemas, such as the Martroi (Arthouse), the Select,
the Artistic, the Royal, and the UGC place d'Arc once operated by Pathé.
Other equipment
Libraries: The city has a network of six media
libraries.
The National Choreographic Center of Orleans, a place of
creation dedicated to contemporary dance directed by the choreographer
Maud Le Pladec.
FRAC Centre: Regional contemporary art fund of the
Centre region.
CO'MET: a complex bringing together a sports hall, a
convention center, an exhibition center and a Zenith.
Orleans was, in ancient times, a stronghold of the tribe of Carnutes known as Cenabum or Genabum. His Roman conqueror Caesar speaks of this in book VII of his Bellum Gallicum. Born from a dismemberment of the Civitas Carnutum, Cenabum was the capital of the Civitas Aurelianorum, a name given to it by the Roman colonists mainly from the Aurelia people who populated it. It is the civitas that will give, as is often the case, its name to the current city and this name will gradually evolve towards the current toponym, Orleans.
Cenabum was founded during antiquity. It was a Gallic stronghold, one
of the main cities of the Carnutes tribe whose annual druid assembly has
remained famous. The metropolis of the Carnutes was then Chartres. A
major commercial port for the corporation of the nautes of the Loire,
Orleans was the site of a famous massacre of international merchants by
an indigenous party. This event gave a pretext to Caesar, then on a
campaign to conquer Gaul: he exterminated the inhabitants and burned the
city in 52 BC.
A new city was built on the ruins of Cenabum by
the Roman emperor Aurelian who refounded it as the capital of a new
civitas detached from the Carnutes. It was named urbs Aurelianorum or
civitas Aurelianorum (in French: city of the Aurelii or Orléanais), then
in the ninth century, Aurelianum, and finally, Orleans by simplification
and phonetic evolution. The city has always been a strategic crossing
point of the Loire because it is located on the northernmost point of
the river, so closer to Paris. However, bridges were rare and the Loire
dangerous.
Accompanied by the Vandals, the Alans crossed the
Loire in 408. One of their groups, led by Goar, agrees to join the Roman
armed forces. Aetius installed it on the Loire and in Orleans. But these
Alans, turbulent, are very badly perceived by the natives. One day,
believing that they are not being paid fast enough or enough, they do
not hesitate to kill senators from Orleans.
Still in Orleans,
under King Sangiban, the Alans join the forces of Aetius who oppose
Attila who had invaded Gaul around 450. Attila besieged Orléans in 451,
and was defeated there by the coalition of Aetius, Merovée and
Theodoric. They take part in the battle of the Catalaunic Fields. About
a hundred localities in Orléans remember the settlement of this people:
Allaines, Allainville, etc.
The Battle of Orleans took place in
463 between the forces of the Roman Empire of the magister militum
Ægidius, supported by Childeric I, and the troops of the Visigothic
kingdom. Frederick, the brother of the Visigothic king Euric, is killed
there according to the chronicle of Hydatius of Chaves.
In the Middle Ages, Orleans was one of
the three richest cities in France with Rouen and Paris, again
thanks to its proximity to the latter and its location on the Loire.
During the Merovingian era, Orléans was the capital of the
kingdom of Orleans following the division into four of the kingdom
of Clovis I. Clovis held there, in 511, an important council both
religiously and politically.
Two centuries later, Orléans
played a major role during the Carolingian Renaissance.
During the Capetian era, Orléans was the capital of a county and
then of a duchy held in prerogative by the house of Valois-Orléans.
It was in the cathedral of Orleans, stronghold of the Capetian
family, that in 987, the double coronation of Hugh Capet and his son
Robert le Pieux (born and baptized in Orleans) took place, the
cornerstone of a power of eight centuries. For this reason, the
county (then from the fourteenth century the duchy) of Orleans was
traditionally given to the king's younger son.
Monasteries
and their schools are multiplying.
In 1108, Louis VI le Gros was
consecrated in the cathedral of Orleans by the archbishop of Sens.
This is one of the rare Capetian coronations that did not take place
in Reims. It prevents the creation of municipal institutions in
1138.
In 1306, the University of Orleans, the fourth in
France after Paris, Toulouse and Montpellier, was founded by Pope
Clément V. Attracting intellectuals from all over Europe, it
specialized in law. It contributes to the prestige of the city.
The title of Duke of Orleans was created in 1306 by the King of
France. The Dukes of Orleans, whose duchy was founded in the
fourteenth century, hardly ever came to their city. Orleans was then
the capital of this royal province. As the king's brothers or
cousins, they were part of his court and had little opportunity to
leave it. Officially their castle was that of Blois. The Duchy of
Orleans was the largest of all. He started in Arpajon, continued in
Chartres, Vendôme, Blois, Vierzon, Montargis. The Duke's son bore
the title of Duke of Chartres. The inheritances of great families
and marriages allowed the dukes to accumulate colossal wealth.
Orleans is also the city of Joan of Arc. During the Hundred Years
War, this young woman played a very important role in Orléans. In
1428, the English besieged the city. On the south bank, a châtelet
called "des Tourelles" protected access to the bridge. The lifting
of the siege of the city in 1429 by Joan of Arc marks the beginning
of the reconquest of the territories occupied by the English. The
city which had been under siege in vain for months by the English
was liberated on May 8, 1429, with the help of the great generals of
the kingdom, Dunois and Florent d'Illiers. The inhabitants therefore
vowed to him an admiration and a loyalty which still last today
(Johannine festivals of Orleans). They named her "the virgin of
Orleans" and offered her a bourgeois house in the city. The
inhabitants also contributed to the ransom to deliver her when she
was taken prisoner, in vain, because Charles VII, the Dauphin who
became king thanks to her, kept the money for himself. The city also
financed a commemorative monument established on the Loire bridge at
the end of the 15th century. The monument, destroyed in 1562 by the
Huguenots, then rebuilt, was again destroyed in 1792.
Once
the Hundred Years War was over, the city regained its prosperity.
The strategic location of its bridge enabled it to collect rights of
way. The city attracted traders from all over.
Modern era
King Louis XI greatly contributed to the prosperity of the city. It
boosted the agriculture of Orléanais. The exceptional lands of
Beauce favor cultivation. He revived the cultivation of saffron in
Pithiviers. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the city was one of the
most beautiful in France. Churches and mansions are multiplying
there.
The family of Valois-Orléans will accede to the throne
of France by Louis XII then François Ier. Later during the
Renaissance, the city benefited from the passages of the rich lords
going to the Loire Valley, which had become very fashionable,
starting with the king himself, Chambord, Amboise, Blois, Chenonceau
being royal domains.
The wars of religion greatly disturb
this prosperity. The city is home to many Protestants, first
Germanic students, then converted Orléanais. Jean Calvin is received
and lodged at the University of Orleans. He met Lutherans and wrote
part of his reformist theses there. In thanks for this protection,
the king of England Henry VIII, inspired by the thoughts of the
reformer for the Anglican religion, offers a scholarship to the
university.
From December 13, 1560 to January 31, 1561, the
States General were held there. It was at this time that King
François II, the eldest son of Catherine de Medici and Henri II,
died on December 5, 1560 in the Hôtel Groslot d'Orléans, with his
wife, Marie Stuart, at his side.
During the first religious
war, Condé made Orleans the capital of the Protestant uprising. From
January to April 1563, the city undergoes a harsh siege from the
Catholic armies of the Duke of Guise, it is taken back and its
ramparts are dismantled.
The cathedral was rebuilt several
times. The last version saw its first stone laid by Henri IV, and
the work spread over a century, thus offering a mixture of late
Renaissance and Louis XIV style. It is one of the last cathedrals
built in France.
With the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
(1685), it lost its last Protestants.
The monarchical order
generates a new prosperity based on the river trade which reached
its peak in the 18th century. It is then that the city takes the
form that we still know. The local fortune was based at this time
above all on the trade in wines and spirits produced locally, also
the manufacture of vinegar, the treatment and trade of colonial
sugars (the city then had 11 sugar refineries), and the work of
fabrics. Other trades, 70 in number, also play an important role;
there are for example 10 laundries for wax (the honey of Gâtinais is
already known at the time). With two market days per week
(Wednesdays and Saturdays), around 1,500 muids of wheat are sold
there each week - 1 muid of Orléans is 600 pounds, and 1 pound
weighing on average 450 g gives more than 400 tons of grain changing
hands every week.
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known by the
pseudonym Molière, also came to study law in Orleans, but he
participated in the carnival, which was prohibited by the
non-secular rules of the university and was therefore expelled from
the establishment.
Revolution
In 1790, the province of
Orléanais was dismantled and the department of Loiret was created,
with Orléans as the capital.
Nineteenth century
In 1852
the company of the railway from Paris to Orléans was created, which
notably had the Orsay station built in Paris. The arrival of the
railway and the loss of the sugar colonies, for a time, upset the
economy of the city.