Paris1972-Versailles2003

I could not believe found me a nice older picture in my cd rom vault of a wonderful City that needs to be seen more ,even by me. We have criss cross this beautiful cathare area of France for many years, and Montauban worth the detour indeed I did my road warrior trails by it and around it for many years even crossing its City center . Therefore, here is my rendition of this is Montauban !!! Hope you enjoy the post as I.

The City of Montauban is located in the department no, 82 of Tarn-et-Garonne in the Occitanie region of my belle France. It is 55 km from Toulouse, 215 km from Bordeaux, 626 km from Paris , 620 km from Versailles, and 698 km from my current home. On the historical and cultural level, Montauban is in the Montalbanian country, that is to say the southern part of Quercy, a traditional province from the Gallo-Roman city of the Cadurques, whose main city was Cahors. It is the most populous town in Tarn-et-Garonne and the second after Toulouse in the old Midi-Pyrénées region. The City is on a major axis connecting the north of France to Spain and the Atlantic coasts. The Rocade or beltway is the eastern bypass of the city through the A20 highway (taken), which therefore crosses the city from north to south, allows to reach from the cities of Cahors, Limoges and Paris. The highway also allows you to reach the A62 highway, located about 10 km south of the city, then reach Toulouse, Bordeaux or the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean Sea. The old N20, downgraded in D820 (took early on from my road warrior trails to Spain) ; partially replaced by the A20 in the south, allows you to reach Toulouse without going through the A62 or Caussade from the city center, and my back roads the D 999 to Gaillac, then Albi, There is a train station very well connected and a canal navigation but never taken them,

I again, passed quickly and found me a picture in my cd rom vault so the reason of this post and showcase Montauban in my blog, This City needs more , eventually, The thing to remind me is the cathedral,

The Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l’Assumption was created in 1317, eliminated in 1790 (French revolution), and restored in 1822, It is a recent construction church done from 1692 to 1739, due to the role of Montauban as Bastion of French Calvinism since years 1560 until 1629, which led to the disappearance of the first cathedral, Saint-Théodard. The cathedral has two towers on the western facade, a product of classical architecture, on frontispiece with a peristyle with statues of the four evangelists to replace the original statues. The central door of the cathedral can boast of being the highest Europe, Briefly as not been inside, you have the Chapel of the Baptismal font dates from the 18C. The altarpiece is an oil canvas of the 19C whose signature could not be deciphered representing the baptism of Christ. The chair of the preacher, or pulpit in front of the third chapel, the central part dates from the 18C, the double staircase is from the 19C. The Chapel of Sainte Philomène with a painting of the altarpiece represents the coronation of Sainte Philomène. She is the patron Saint of the boatmen The main altar is located under the dome the pendants which carry it are decorated with medallions appearing in bas-relief the four cardinal virtues: strength, justice, prudence and temperance , The choir organ dates from 1873. The left Absidal Chapel has two monumental stone statues, of 1715. They appear Ambroise de Milan (with its miter) and Saint Augustine, See, the famous oil on canvas of Ingres, The wish of Louis XIII was specially executed for the cathedral. It was very successful at the Paris Salon in 1824 , The Chapel of Saint Thedard , the Chapel of Saint Martin ,and the Chapel of Saint Joseph.

With more time and reason to be back, eventually ; these are other things to see, me think : The Ingres-Bourdelle museum is the old city hall and an episcopal palace built in 1664, the Natural History Museum Victor Brun, opened in 1854 on the initiative of amateur naturalists of the Society of Sciences, Agriculture and Belles-Lettres from Tarn-et-Garonne who wanted to show their fellow citizens their collections of birds and mammals. The Place Nationale and its double row of arcades vaulted on crusaders of warheads were rebuilt in the 17C following fires of 1614 and 1649 , The old bridge was built on the orders of Philippe le Bel, at the beginning of the 14C, the ‘fortified Saint-Jacques Church. It is, with the old bridge, the only medieval vestige in the city. From the second church built in the 13C, only the Toulouse type bell tower and part of the nave remains. The former Jesuit college who arrived in 1629 in the wake of Richelieu, the Jesuits acquired in 1676 a mansion to set up their college and their chapel (current Saint-Joseph Church). The Jardin des Plantes located on both sides of Tescou on an area of ​​approximately 3 hectares. This arboretum, open to the public in 1861, brings together a large number of plant species from around the world, The Montauban Academy: it was founded in 1730 in the form of a literary society. This academy continued its work under different names. Today, it has its headquarters at the old college at no 4 rue du Collège. During the years 1598 to 1685 (where the Edict of Nantes was in force), the Montauban Academy, Protestant University, formed the Pastors, The theater Olympe-de-Gouges ,she was an editor in 1791 of the declaration of the rights of women and citizens.

Some anecdotes I like tell us that the film Tontons Flingueurs, the classic of Georges Lautner, made and released in 1963,: “We should never leave Montauban!” with Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier Jean Lefebvre and Francis Blanche..The Le Vieux Fusil a Robert Enrico’s film released in 1975 with Philippe Noiret, Romy Schneider and Jean Bouise, was partly shot in Montauban. It is the first film to have received the César for the best film in 1976, then received the César des Césars in 1985. The town is the birthplace of several personalities such as the painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, One of the largest in the 19C, the city was also nicknamed “the city of Ingres”; Also, the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle.

A bit of history I like tell us that the first important establishment dates from the Carolingian era, when a Benedictine abbey is established on a height overlooking the Tescou, about one kilometer of the current Place Nationale. Founded around 820-830, under the reign of Louis Le Pieux, it was first named Saint-Martin, then from the end of the 10C ,Saint-Théodard, but it is also commonly called the Benedictine Abbey of Montauriol. The city of Montauban was founded in 1144 by the Count of Toulouse Alphonse Jourdain. Located in the Catharism area, it remained faithful to the Count of Toulouse at the time of the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229), won by the King of France Louis IX on the Count of Toulouse Raymond VII: The Treaty of Meaux -Paris puts an end to the power of the house of Toulouse and prepares the integration of the county into the royal domain, carried out following the marriage in 1241, remained without descendants of the last heiress, Jeanne de Toulouse, with the brother of Louis IX, Alphonse de Poitiers.

But the continuation of the 14C is the beginning of the Hundred Years War (1337-1453), which opposes the kings of France from the house of Valois to the kings of England which are also dukes of Aquitaine and therefore hold several cities in the Southwest, notably Bordeaux and Bayonne. The city is occupied for a few years by the English troops of the “black prince”, Édouard de Woodstock, prince of Wales and lieutenant of Édouard III in the Duchy of Aquitaine, who won in 1356 the Battle of Poitiers, taking prisoner King Jean The Good. The English occupation ended in 1368 , In 1453, the troops of Charles VII took definitively Bordeaux, chasing the last representatives of the King of England in Aquitaine. The Duchy of Aquitaine, commonly called Duchy of Guyenne, was devolved by Louis XI to his brother Charles of France in 1446. On the death of Charles, the Duchy returned to the King, 1472.

In 1562, during the First War of Religion, Montauban resisted three attempts the siege of Blaise de Monluc. After negotiations, this dismantling was accepted and the king entered on March 20, 1565. In the 16C, the Protestant reform strongly affected the population and the city became a bastion of French Calvinism, in 1629, it was the last place of Protestant security to make its submission to royal power, after having resisted the siege of the royal troops in 1621 known in history as the “Four hundred blows”. In 1570, the peace of Saint-Germain, signed between King Charles IX and Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, granted Protestants four strong places: therefore Montauban When the Edict of Nantes is revoked. In 1620, part of the Protestant leaders, including Duke Henri II of Rohan, engaged in a process of rebellion, to which the City adheres, In 1629, at the end of the third Huguenote rebellion, marked by the terrible siege of 1627-1628 by the Cardinal of Richelieu himself, Montauban engaged in talks with Richelieu and surrended on August 20, 1629. Richelieu and Louis XIII enter the city, Catholic worship was restored to the Saint-Jacques Church in 1685, the edict of Nantes was revoked by the edict of Fontainebleau.

Montauban became a town in 1790, endowed with a municipal council and a mayor. The episcopal palace was nationalized as well as the church at the end of 1789 and then sold at auction. The town acquired it to make it its city hall. In 1808 the Protestant theology Faculty of Montauban, attached to the University of Toulouse, opens its doors to train the pastors of the Reformed religion, legalized in 1789 and beneficiary of the Concordat from 1801. In 1809, Montauban was one of the “good cities of the first empire”, which replaced, on their coat of arms the fleur -de -lis by three bees, symbol adopted by Napoleon. The city lost many soldiers from the first days of the conflict of the Great War or WWI: in the Bertrix forest (Belgium), the 33rd infantry division, based in Montauban, lost nearly 2,400 men in the afternoon of August 22, 1914 and in quite more than 2,800 men before the end of the month , From the end of 1936, a few hundred Spanish refugee families landed in Montauban to flee the Spanish civil war, thousands of Republicans pass through Villebourbon station before reaching the Septfonds camp. In this procession, Manuel Azaña, President of the Spanish Republic after having escaped the Gestapo near the Pyla, reaches in an ambulance Montauban. He was put under residence monitored in a room at the Hôtel du Midi at the request of the Vichy government,”Azaña to whom an exile is refused in Mexico, died of exhaustion, on November 3, 1940. That year of 1940, several tens of thousands of refugees from all over northern Europe, and in particular Belgian subjects flock among these refugees, there was also Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa of Léonard de Vinci who escaped looting and found refuge with a whole part Collections of the Louvre and the Versailles museum in the thick walls of the Ingres museum , Following the armistice of June 22, 1940, Montauban is part of the area not occupied by the Nazis army, called” free zone “, where the government of the French State is Vichy) instituted on July 10, 1940 under the direction of Marshal Pétain. Finally, on August 19, 1944 the city was considered to be liberated.

The City of montauban on its heritage : https://montauban.com/ma-ville-mon-agglo/decouvrir-montauban

The Montauban tourist office on the Cathedral : https://www.montauban-tourisme.com/en/discover/heritage-treasures/notre-dame-cathedral/

The Tarn et Garonne dept 82 tourist office on the Cathedral :

https://www.tourisme-tarnetgaronne.fr/en/offers/notre-dame-de-lassomption-montauban-en-2353376/

The Occitanie region tourist office on Montauban : https://www.visit-occitanie.com/en/discovering/major-sites/montauban/

There you go folks, a quant old town that ,again, needs to be seen more, It has a rich history, and wonderful architecture. Glad is included in my blog for the memories of always, Again, hope you enjoy this post on this is Montauban !!! as I.

And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all !!!