Troyes is a French commune, located in the department of Aube (of
which it is the prefecture) in the Grand Est region. The town is
divided into five cantons of which it is the capital. With a legal
population of 61,652 inhabitants in 2017, the city of Troyes is the
seventh most populous municipality in the region behind Colmar and
ahead of Charleville-Mézières and Châlons-en-Champagne. It is the
center of the Troyes Champagne Métropole agglomeration community,
170,145 inhabitants in 2016, which since January 1, 2017 replaces
Grand Troyes. It stretches for about fifteen kilometers along the
valley of the Seine.
Its historical past, from the tribe of
Tricasses to the liberation of the city on August 25, 1944 during
the Second World War, through the battle of the Catalaunic fields,
the Council of Troyes, the marriage of Henri V and Catherine de
France and the Champagne fairs as well as its rich architectural and
urban heritage with its many buildings protected as historical
monuments, have enabled Troyes to be designated City of Art and
History by the National Committee of Cities and Towns. Country of
art and history. The troy ounce, unit of measurement of precious
metals since the Champagne fairs, takes its name from the city.
Textiles, developed from the 18th century, were one of the
historical assets of the Trojan economy until the 1960s; Troyes is
today the European capital of factory outlets and merchants thanks
to its three brand centers.
The Pays Barséquanais with its
expanses of champagne vineyards has many gastronomic assets. From a
geographical and tourist point of view, the Seine remains the main
advantage with the proximity of the regional natural park of the
Orient forest and the lake-reservoir of the Orient lake, a wildlife
and relaxation reserve. Troyes, a capital city steeped in history,
geographically located in the center of the department, is seeing
the development of green tourism around it: in addition to the
Orient Forest park, the Pays d'Othe and the Pays d'Armance offer
their hilly, wooded and plains expanses.
The city of Troyes, historic capital of the Counts of Champagne,
and with a great historical past and a rich architectural and urban
heritage, was designated City of Art and History on June 5, 2009.
The convention was signed in February 2010.
Antiquity: birth
of Troyes
The first inhabitants to have left tangible traces of
their presence are the Tricasses, a tribe of Gaul in Lyon mentioned
from the 1st century BC in the writings of Greek geographers, even
if some megaliths testify to an older settlement. The city is
mentioned under the name of Augustobona especially during the Gallic
War from the year 58 BC-57 BC, but the name derived from the name of
Tricasses gradually imposed itself under the Lower Empire. The
Lingons, neighbors of this tribe, also lived in the south-eastern
half of the city. At the time of its foundation, during the High
Empire - end of the 1st century BC and early 1st century AD - the
city, then surrounded by vast marshy expanses on its southern
fringes and its northern margins, is the subject of important
operations of drainage in order to accommodate new urban areas. From
the second half of the 1st century, the site of Augustobona has
several public infrastructures of a municipal nature. These
buildings, in particular an aqueduct and possibly a thermal spa
complex, but whose archaeological surveys have only found a few
vestiges, alternate with residential areas. At that time, the
hydraulic engineering structure, by means of a pipe designed using
small-sized mœllons, then made it possible to distribute drinking
water to the various public and private places of the city of
Champagne. During this period, the urban ensemble of the city of
Troyes, in ancient form, therefore covers an area of approximately
80 ha, a space between the Porte de Chaillouet, to the north, and
the Place du Professeur-Langevin to the north. south; as well as
between the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, to the west, and the rue
Jeanne-d'Arc to the east. After this urban development, during the
years 120 AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian stays in the city with his
troops. At the beginning of Late Antiquity, around 380 AD, the
Trojan city, which is at that time renamed under the name of Civitas
Tricassium, is then enclosed by a vast fortified wall.
It is
to the west of the city, towards Méry-sur-Seine, or, more likely, in
Dierrey-Saint-Julien (at a place called Moirey) that the battle of
the Catalaunic fields took place in 451.
On June 20, when
Attila was driven back to Orleans by the Romans, Loup de Troyes,
bishop of the city, went to his camp and begged him to "spare a
defenseless city, because it had no walls. nor soldiers ”. Attila
would have answered him: “Very well! But you will come with me and
you will see the Rhine; I promise to send you back then ”. The Huns
are still stopped in the plains close to Troyes, called Catalaunic
fields, by the Romans and by the Franks commanded by Mérovée as well
as their allies. Attila is defeated. The king of the Visigoths,
Theodoric, is killed there. The battle of Mauriac, or Campus
Mauriacus, another historical term used to refer to the conflict of
the Catalaunic fields, definitively drives out the Huns of Gaul.
Middle Ages
From Clovis to the county of Troyes
In 484,
Clovis seizes Troyes and its surroundings which will be called
Champagne (campania) because of the immense chalky plains. Champagne
is attributed to the kingdom of Austrasia, after the division of the
possessions of Clovis in 511, except Troyes and its region which are
attributed to Clodomir. It was not until 524, following the death of
the King of Orleans, that she joined Austrasia until 558, when
Clotaire I was proclaimed King of the Franks. In 567, the city of
Troyes was placed in the kingdom of Burgundy. Between 592 and 613,
it rejoins Austrasia. On the death of Clotaire II in 629, the city
again depends on Burgundy.
The city is controlled and
plundered by the Saracens of Spain in 720. La Vita Sancti Fidoti,
abbatis Trecensis, life of Fidolin, captive freed by Eventinus, a
priest of Troyes, seems to indicate that at that time, one practiced
the trade there slaves.
In 820, Aleran became the first count of Troyes at the time of
Emperor Louis the Pious. His reign ended with his death in 852. The
territory of Troyes was also, around 860, the price of a struggle
between Bishop Ansegise and Count Rodolphe de Ponthieu who emerged
victorious. During the first Council of Troyes in 878, Louis the
Begu received the imperial crown from the hands of Pope John VIII.
At the same time, Bernard of Gothia, in conflict with Frotaire and
in revolt against King Louis the Stammerer, is excommunicated.
In 888, the city suffered from the Norman incursions then,
according to the Chronicle of Réginon de Prüm, the Normans, in 889,
seize the city, reduce it to ashes and plunder all the surrounding
country. In response to these incursions, at the beginning of the
890s (in 891 or 892), a new fortified wall, of which the base and
the facing were largely formed thanks to the re-use of structures
the Gallo-Roman enclosure, is then erected and deployed around the
city. Subsequently, in 898, according to medieval writings, the
Saint-Loup abbey and the Saint-Pierre church would have been
destroyed. However, archaeological surveys carried out in the
nineteenth century do not allow such chronological accuracy. Troyes
belongs to the Duchy of Burgundy from the end of the ninth century.
In the first half of the tenth century, the Normans repeated
several incursions, in 908, 911 and 925. During this third
incursion, the latter were removed by Ansegise, bishop of Troyes,
who united the counts of Sens, Garnier, and de Dijon, Manassès II,
and the bishop duke of Langres Gosselin II de Bassigny to push them
back to the Bassigny region. The battle against the viking Ragenold
of Nantes (Rögnvald), dated December 6, 925, takes place on a site
mentioned under the toponym of Calaus mons. The place of this
military confrontation may turn out to be located in the current
commune of Chaumont (Haute-Marne), between Milly-la-Forêt and
Barbizon or more probably Chalaux, near the eponymous stream, within
the department. of the Nièvre. During this confrontation, Garnier de
Sens is killed; Ansegise, meanwhile, is injured. Nevertheless,
during this battle, the Norman troops were pushed back and then
defeated.
In 1040, Rabbi Solomon Ben Isaac, better known
under the name of Rashi, was born in Troyes. The rabbi and
philosopher, a great commentator on the Bible and the Talmud,
created an important school of Jewish thought in the city.
The era of the Counts of Champagne
In the 12th century, the
county of Troyes merged with that of Meaux to give birth to the
county of Champagne. Hugues I of Champagne is the first to be
proclaimed in this capacity around the year 1102. In 1129, the
second council of Troyes, which takes place on the site of the
current Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul cathedral, was takes place in the
presence of many religious figures, Hugues de Payns and Count
Thibaut IV of Blois. This council will lead to the creation of a
rule specific to the order of the Temple. In 1188, a large fire
destroyed a large part of the city and devastated the Abbey of
Notre-Dame-aux-Nonnains, the collegiate church of Saint-Étienne, the
palace of the Counts of Champagne and the old cathedral of Troyes,
partially ruined. This fire brought about a reconstruction of this
last building in Gothic architecture. The first windmills appear in
the 12th century. Originally belonging to the Counts of Champagne,
they were bequeathed to the cathedral chapter in order to provide
for the reconstruction of the cathedral. After the cathedral
chapter, the other religious congregations of Troyes in turn built a
windmill to cover the investments. Fifteen mills are attested at the
end of the twelfth century, such as that of Moline or Pielle; the
molendini ad telas and follones. The city is also covered with
monasteries, churches and industries serving the religious.
In 1264, Pope Urban IV established the Feast of the Universal
Church, which would become Corpus Christi. This feast, dedicated to
the Blessed Sacrament, is celebrated on the Thursdays following the
Holy Trinity. From 1273, the town began work to bring water from a
source to supply the city. Champagne is attached to the kingdom of
France by the marriage in 1285 of Jeanne Ire of Navarre with the
future Philippe le Bel. In 1288, an autodafé took place after the
Trojan Jews were accused of ritual murder. On April 24, the court of
the inquisition condemns 13 of them to go up to the stake.
The thirteenth century marked the beginning of the fame of the
Champagne fairs, for which merchants came from all over the West.
These fairs allow the development of many industrial trades such as
textiles, tannery, stationery and dyeing. In Troyes, the celebration
is held during Saint-Jean and Saint-Rémi in the historic streets of
Bouchon de champagne such as rue Champeaux, rue de la Pierre, or rue
des Anciennes-Tanneries.
Producer of linen and hemp sheets,
Troyes has several mills for grinding rags, molendini and telas;
manufacturers thus take advantage of the presence of these linen
merchants to recover raw material from this marketing channel.
Subsequently, the mills of La Pielle (in 1348) and Roy were
transformed into paper mills. Troyes thus became, from the
fourteenth century, a "capital" of paper suppliers in Europe. Around
1470, their buyers came from England - the presence of Trojan paper
in Canterbury is attested - from Holland, or even from Germany.
During the Hundred Years War, the city of Troyes is preparing to
welcome the Anglo-Navarrese. In 1359, the Trojans, led by their
bishop Henri de Poitiers, liberated the towns of Aix-en-Othe,
Beaufort and Nogent-sur-Seine.
Troyes in the late Middle Ages
At the end of the 13th century, Troyes was no longer the capital of
the county of Champagne. This has indeed passed to the kings of
France and Châlons-sur-Marne was preferred as the administrative
capital of Champagne. However, from 1417 to 1422, Troyes was in fact
the capital of the Kingdom of France in the midst of the Hundred
Years War. In 1420, the signing of the Treaty of Troyes designates
the English king Henri V as heir to the crown of France after the
latter marries Catherine de Valois, one of the daughters of Charles
VI. Soon after, however, the Dauphin ascended the throne under the
name of Charles VII. It was Joan of Arc who came to his aid; she
took him from Orleans to Reims to be sacred. On July 9, 1429, Joan
of Arc delivers the city from the English.
In May 1471, Louis
XI confirmed the municipal administration with his letters patent.
A few days before Corpus Christi 1487, a fire broke out in an
apothecary's shop. It lasts several days and destroys a large part
of the city. The fact that it starts at night gives it a certain
speed of expansion, at night increasing fears and hampering the
fight against the fire. The city of Troyes nevertheless had, to
fight against fire, giant syringes which made it possible to water
the hearths more effectively than with buckets. The same year, the
fairs of Bourges are moved to Troyes: indeed, a large part of the
city of Bourges, including the covered markets, was destroyed by a
gigantic fire and it cannot accommodate its fair.
Modern
times
On May 24, 1524, a new fire broke out in the heart of the
medieval town. The main district of the city, about twenty streets,
thousands of houses and several historical and religious monuments
are destroyed. The fire was favored by the presence of numerous
cameræ, small rooms fitted out as lean-tos in the yards to
accommodate the poor among the poor, which provided flammable
material, reduced the firewalls formed by the yards and hampered
disaster relief. This disaster caused a general impoverishment of
the population but led the municipality to demand chimneys made of
non-flammable materials (we could find wooden hoods covered with
plaster) and chimney pipes protruding sufficiently from the roof.
On March 3, 1564, Charles IX passed through the city during his
royal tour of France, accompanied by the Court and the Great of the
Kingdom: his brother the Duke of Anjou, Henri de Navarre, the
cardinals of Bourbon and Lorraine. During his trip, the king submits
in a royal edict of March 29 the ports of Saint-Nazaire and Le
Croisic to the royal seat of Guérande and on April 11 signs a peace
treaty with Queen Elizabeth I of England in Saint Cathedral.
-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul. This treaty allows Calais to become French
once again.
Following Saint-Barthélemy (from August 27 to September 4, 1572),
several dozen Protestants were massacred in Troyes.
In the
mid-1580s, when the events of the 8th War of Religion began to
unfold, Troyes, one of the few towns that had not yet been under the
control of Henri de Guise, appeared as a nucleus of royalist
resistance within the Champagne province. Within the city of Troy,
this opposition to the power of the “Sainte-Union” is notably led by
the Dinteville and the Saint-Phalle.
After the day of the
Barricades, (Thursday May 12, 1588), which saw the occupation of the
city of Paris (May 13), the Guise wanted to take the city. Henri
III, in a letter, addressed to the local council and dated June 2,
enjoins the Trojans not to receive Cardinal de Guise. Thanks to two
leaguers, Yves le Tarlier and Jean de Hault, then archdeacon of the
Saint-Étienne collegiate church, the ecclesiastic however made his
entry on June 10 through the Porte de Croncels and went to the
bishopric. The cardinal, taking part of the local authorities by
surprise, who remained favorable to the royalist current, then made
the Trojan city, during his stay (from June to September), "a second
Paris". Mayor Jean Daubeterre receives him. The lieutenant general
of the bailiwick, Eustache de Mesgrigny, was driven out, along with
others, including canons who remained loyal to the king. They find
refuge in Châlons-en-Champagne, remained faithful to the king, the
city where Joachim de Dinteville is. Cardinal de Guise had the
councilors of Troyes resign. On June 11, 1588, the favorite and
treasurer of Cardinal de Guise, Nicolas de Hault was chosen as mayor
by the general assembly (he remained so until 1592). On June 18, new
councilors are elected by a general assembly. On June 23, the city
sent two delegates, Souin and Goujon de Boulzy, to the capital to
swear loyalty to the League. On July 19, at the parliamentary
assembly in Rouen, a peace pact, induced by the day of the
barricades, was signed between the two opposing parties. On August
19, the city undertakes to respect the Union which has just been
sealed between the Guise party and Henri III. During the month of
September, several Trojan deputies were sent to Blois to the States
General, including, among others, Yves TartierNote 2, Philippe le
Vert, lawyer for the bailiwick of Troyes, and Jacques Angenoust.
The Blue Library designates a first form of so-called “popular”
literature, invented and printed in Troyes in 1602 by the Oudot
brothers, in particular Nicolas Oudot whose sign is the Crowned Gold
Cap. The printing was of poor quality and small in size; notebooks
(similar to a brochure today) covered with a cover of blue-gray
paper (like the inexpensive cover that wrapped sugar loaves), hence
the name which, at the time, was first that of "Blue Books".
This literature, initially urban and local, was then popularized by
hawkers and therefore extended to other urban areas (Rouen, Angers)
and imitated. While remaining cautious, Roger Chartier considers
that it was one of the main sources of culture of the popular masses
in France; others, like Carlo Ginzburg, insist on our ignorance of
the modes of reception of these texts; however, historians agree on
the importance - difficult to measure - of oral culture: illiterates
were content to appreciate the engravings, when there were any, but
most of the time, they could have access to the text when collective
reading sessions. However, a mixed clientele appropriated these
books for nearly two centuries.
Outside France, the Volksbuch
(Germany) and the chapbook (England) were developed at the same
time.
The fairs of Troyes were prohibited during the
seventeenth century. In 1694, they were authorized again. The city
has its royal and military arquebus company of which the colonel is
the governor, the lieutenant-colonel is the lieutenant-general of
the provinces of Champagne and Brie and the captain is the royal
mayor. Its bourgeois militia is divided into four battalions with
four companies, Belfroy, Croncels, Comporté and Saint-Jacques.
Dominoterie was a flourishing industry in Troyes which mainly
made playing cards and occupied more than forty mills around the
city. It declined following a Colbert tax.
Although there had previously existed, during the sixteenth
century, a corporation - the "Community of master bonnetiers of the
city, fauxbourg and suburb of Troyes" -, making, at that time, hats
using a fabric of wool, the first cotton and silk hosiery looms
appeared in Troyes in 1745 thanks to the arrival of the stocking
knitting loom (invented by William Lee in 1589) and the creation of
the first factories. Although the locality of Arcis-sur-Aube, from
the beginning of the 18th century, had previously been the Champagne
heart of an important artisanal activity for this type of textile
production, in 1770, Troyes had forty knit-makers and nearly 1 500
mainly concentrated within its agglomeration from the end of the
1780s. The city then became the capital of hosiery which, despite a
decline from the 1930s, remained a major economic activity until the
1960s.
The Parliament of Paris was transferred to the city in
1787. In 1789, when the city was at the heart of the French
Revolution, the mayor Claude Huez was assassinated after being
wrongly accused of wanting to poison the people.
Contemporary
period
Napoleon Bonaparte made several visits to the city in 1804
and 1814 during his campaign in France.
Within the Champagne
commune, like the whole of the Aube region, the development of the
hosiery industry began in the 1820s with the founding of the first
establishments specializing in this economic sector. At that time,
these structures intended for the manufacture of knitted textiles
were, most of the time, managed by “merchant-manufacturers”. The
foundations of this industrial area were finalized in the 1860s with
the birth of the first factories equipped with mechanized equipment.
In 1834, the city alone employed around 10,000 cotton hosiery trades
and 12,000 workers, for an annual product of nearly 7,000,000
francs.
The city is linked to the capital by the railway in
1845, promoting its development. In 1849 takes place in Troyes the
first festival singing orphéons, organized by Charles Delaporte. It
brings together 200 orpheonists.
Developed from the 1840s,
Troyes, around 1855-1860, became an important center for the
construction of circular looms. The success of the knitwear industry
in the nineteenth century is mainly due to the inventions of the
mechanics of Champagne. English competition is very present; the
English having more boldly used steam, the hosiery manufacturer must
therefore create commercial and export services.
The
exhibition of Troyes in 1860
During the Second Empire, the main
news in Troyes was the progress of the textile industry; the
mechanization of trades and the establishment of numerous factories
are transforming the city's economic and urban landscape. We have to
provide for the needs of the workers. The exhibition of Troyes in
1860 is the showcase of this progress.
Napoleon III gave a
speech in Troyes in 1868. He declared that “Nothing threatens the
peace of Europe”.
The epic of Napoleon III ends with the
occupation of Troyes by the Prussians from November 1870 to August
1871.
The twentieth century
From January 21 to 23, 1910,
the city of Troyes was the victim of serious flooding following the
overflow of the Seine, causing significant damage.
The
success of hosiery, a Trojan industrial sector of the “Belle
Époque”, was confirmed during the interwar period, and many large
companies were created in the city, notably Petit Bateau, Lacoste,
and Sun. Others are created later, notably Absorba.
During
the Second World War, on June 15, 1940, the German army, after
taking Sens, Paris and a large part of the Aube department entered
Troyes. Faced with the bombardments of the Nazis, the Trojans,
panicked, decide to flee the city. After the capture, there will
only be about 4,000 Trojans left in the city.
On August 24,
1944, the German army committed a massacre in Buchères in the south
of the agglomeration of Troyes, commonly known as the “martyrdom of
Buchères”: 68 civilians were executed, many houses were set on fire.
The next day, eight hundred men seized the town and its
agglomeration. The start of the fighting for liberation left around
60 dead and 572 prisoners. The following day, the city of Troyes is
definitively liberated by the troops of General Patton.
Although this industrial area was the subject of diversification
at the local level between 1950 and 1970, from the second half of
the 1960s, the city of Troyes fell victim to the textile crisis.
Indeed, companies are in competition with other countries,
particularly in Southeast Asia and the Far East, and we are
witnessing a disaffection of consumers for stockings. Despite
everything, the town and its agglomeration now have nearly 250
companies linked to textile manufacturing and large factory outlet
centers, making it the leading knitting center in France.
On
January 30, 1976, the Patrick Henry affair began following the
murder of young Philippe Bertrand, eight years old, at the end of
his school year. The trial of Patrick Henry, considered one of the
most famous in recent judicial history in France, has become that of
the death penalty in France. Indeed, the murderer had been sentenced
to life imprisonment while the entourage of family, editorial
writers and politicians demand the death penalty for the crime.