Montauban Arcades De La Place Nationale

Montauban (, ; oc, Montalban ) is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department, region of Occitania, Southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies north of Toulouse. Montauban is the most populated town in Tarn-et-Garonne, and the sixth most populated of Occitanie behind Toulouse, Montpellier, Nîmes, Perpignan and Béziers. In 2019, there were 61,372 inhabitants, called ''Montalbanais''. The town has been classified ''Ville d’art et d’histoire'' (City of art and history) since 2015.

The town, built mainly of a reddish brick, stands on the right bank of the Tarn at its confluence with the Tescou.

History

Montauban is the second oldest (after Mont-de-Marsan) of the ''bastides'' of southern France. Its foundation dates from 1144 when Count Alphonse Jourdain of Toulouse, granted it a liberal charter. The inhabitants were drawn chiefly from Montauriol, a village which had grown up around the neighbouring monastery of St Théodard.

In the 13th century the town suffered much from the ravages of the Albigensian war and from the Inquisition, but by 1317 it had recovered sufficiently to be chosen by John XXII as the head of a diocese of which the basilica of St Théodard became the cathedral.

In 1360, under the Treaty of Brétigny, it was ceded to the English; they were expelled by the inhabitants in 1414. In 1560 the bishops and magistrates embraced Protestantism, expelled the monks, and demolished the cathedral. Ten years later it became one of the four Huguenot strongholds under the Peace of Saint-Germain, and formed a small independent republic. It was the headquarters of the Huguenot rebellion of 1621, and successfully withstood an 86-day siege by Louis XIII.

Because Montauban was a Protestant town, it resisted and held its position against the royal power, refusing to give allegiance to the Catholic King. To scare off the King's opponents and speed up the end of the siege, 400 cannonballs were fired, but Montauban resisted and the royal army was vanquished. Saint Jacques church is still marked by the cannonballs, and every year in September, the city celebrates "les 400 coups" (the 400 shots), which has become a common phrase in French.

Montauban did not submit to royal authority until after the fall of La Rochelle in 1629, when its fortifications were destroyed by Cardinal Richelieu. The Protestants again suffered persecution later in the century, as Louis XIV began to persecute Protestants by sending troops to their homes (dragonnades) and then in 1685 revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had granted the community tolerance.

During World War II, Leonardo da Vinci's ''Mona Lisa'' was briefly hidden in a secret vault behind a wine cellar at Montauban.

Climate

Montauban's climate is temperate and subtropical (borderline ''Csa''/''Csb'' in the Köppen climate classification). Temperatures are rather mild in winter and hot in summer. The town experienced severe droughts in 2003, 2006, 2012 and 2015. On 31 August 2015, the Tarn-et-Garonne area was particularly struck by a wave of violent storms. These storms, accompanied by very strong winds, created a tornado, which caused considerable damage in a large part of the department. Montauban was particularly affected, with winds measured between 130 and 150 kilometers per hour (a record) in the city center.

Sights

Its fortifications have been replaced by boulevards beyond which extend numerous suburbs, while on the left bank of the Tarn is the suburb of Villebourbon, which is connected to the town by a remarkable bridge of the early 14th century. This bridge is known as ''Pont Vieux'' (i.e. "Old Bridge"). King Philip the Fair of France officially launched the building of the bridge in 1303 while on a tour to Toulouse. The project took 30 years to complete, and the bridge was inaugurated in 1335. The main architects were Étienne de Ferrières and Mathieu de Verdun. It is a pink brick structure over in length, but while its fortified towers have disappeared, it is otherwise in a good state of preservation. The bridge was designed to resist the violent floods of the Tarn, and indeed it successfully withstood the two terrible millennial floods of 1441 and 1930. The bridge is a straight level bridge, which is quite unusual for Medieval Europe, where lack of technological skills meant that most bridges were of the humpback type.

The '' Musée Ingres'', on the site of a castle of the Counts of Toulouse and once the residence of the bishops of Montauban, stands at the east end of the bridge. It belongs chiefly to the 17th century, but some portions are much older, notably an underground chamber known as the Hall of the Black Prince (''Salle du Prince Noir''). It comprises most of the work (including his "Jesus among the Teachers of the Law") of Jean Ingres, the celebrated painter, whose birth in Montauban is commemorated by an elaborate monument. It is the largest museum of Ingres paintings in the world. The museum also contains some sculptures by famous sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, another native of Montauban, as well as collections of antiquities (Greek vases) and 18th and 19th ceramics.

The ''Place Nationale'' is a square of the 17th century, entered at each corner by gateways giving access to a large open space surrounded by pink brick houses supported by double rows of arcades.

The ''préfecture'' is located in the palace built by the ''intendant'' of Montauban (the equivalent of a ''préfet'' before the French Revolution), and is a large elegant 18th century mansion, built of pink bricks and white stone, with a steep roof of blue gray slates, in a style combining northern and southern French styles of architecture.

The chief churches of Montauban are the cathedral, remarkable only for the possession of the "Vow of Louis XIII", one of the masterpieces of Ingres, and the church of St Jacques (14th and 15th centuries), dedicated to Saint James of Compostela, the façade of which is surmounted by a handsome octagonal tower, the base of which is in Romanesque style, while the upper levels, built later, are in Gothic style. Montauba

Economy

The commercial importance of Montauban is due rather to its trade in agricultural produce, horses, game and poultry, than to its industries, which include nursery-gardening, cloth-weaving, cloth-dressing, flour-milling, wood-sawing, and the manufacture of furniture, silk-gauze and straw hats.

However, due to the proximity of Toulouse and the cheaper cost of industrial grounds, more and more mechanical products are being manufactured there.

Demographics

Montauban is the centre of an Urban unit, urban area with 79,300 inhabitants as of 2017.Comparateur de territoire Unité urbaine 2020 de Montauban (82501)
INSEE

Transport

The town is a railway junction, and the station Gare de Montauban-Ville-Bourbon offers connections with Toulouse, Bordeaux, Paris, Brive-la-Gaillarde, Marseille and several regional destinations. Montauban communicates with the Garonne via the Canal de Montech