10 largest cities in France
Paris
Marseilles
Lyon
Toulouse
Nice
Nantes
Strasbourg
Orleans
Reims
Avignon
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.
Cenabum was founded during Antiquity. It was a Gallic stronghold,
one of the main towns of the Carnutes tribe, whose annual meeting of
the druids has remained famous. The metropolis of the Carnutes was
then Chartres. A major trading port for the corporation of nautes of
the Loire, Orléans was the site of a famous massacre of
international merchants by an indigenous party. This event gave a
pretext to Caesar, then in campaign for the conquest of Gaul: he
exterminated the inhabitants and set fire to the city in 52 av.
J.-C.
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 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 for the Loire because it is located on the
northernmost point of the river, therefore 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, agreed to join the Roman armed forces. Aetius installs
it on the Loire and in Orléans. But these turbulent Alans are very
badly perceived by the locals. One day, believing that they were not
being paid quickly enough or sufficiently, they did not hesitate to
kill senators from Orleans.
Still in Orleans, under King
Sangiban, the Alans joined the forces of Aetius who opposed Attila
who had invaded Gaul around 450. Attila besieged Orleans in 451, and
was defeated there by the coalition of Aetius, of Mérovée and
Théodoric. They take part in the battle of the Catalaunic fields.
About a hundred towns in Orléanais remember the settling 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. Frédéric, the brother of the Visigothic
king Euric, was killed there according to the chronicle of Hydace de
Chaves.
Middle Ages
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.