Tours

In the 6th century Gregory of Tours, author of the Ten Books of History, restored a cathedral destroyed by a fire in 561. Saint Martin's monastery benefited from its inception, at the very start of the 6th century from patronage and support from the Frankish king, Clovis I, which increased considerably the influence of the saint, the abbey and the city in Gaul. In the 9th century, Tours was at the heart of the Carolingian Rebirth, in particular because of Alcuin, an abbot of Marmoutier Abbey.

In 732, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi and an army of Muslim horsemen from Al-Andalus advanced 500 kilometres (300 miles) deep into France, and were stopped at Moussais-la-Bataille[3] (between Châtellerault and Poitiers) by Charles Martel and his infantry. This ignited the Battle of Tours. The Muslim army was defeated, preventing an Islamic conquest of France.

In 845, Tours repelled the first attack of the Viking chief Haesten. In 850, the Vikings settled at the mouths of the Seine and the Loire. Still led by Haesten, they went up the Loire again in 852 and sacked Angers, Tours and Marmoutier Abbey.

During the Middle Ages, Tours consisted of two juxtaposed and competing centres. The "City" in the east, successor of the late Roman 'castrum', was composed of the cathedral and palace of the archbishops as well as the castle of Tours. The castle of Tours acted as a seat of the authority of the Counts of Tours (later Counts of Anjou) and the King of France. In the west, the "new city" structured around the Abbey of Saint Martin was freed from the control of the city during the 10th century (an enclosure was built towards 918) and became "Châteauneuf". This space, organized between Saint Martin and the Loire, became the economic centre of Tours. Between these two centres were Varennes, vineyards and fields, little occupied except for the Abbaye Saint-Julien established on the banks of the Loire. The two centres were linked during the 14th century.

Place Plumereau, Medieval buildings

Tours became the capital of the county of Tours or Touraine, a territory bitterly disputed between the counts of Blois and Anjou – the latter were victorious in the 11th century. It was the capital of France at the time of Louis XI, who had settled in the castle of Montils (today the castle of Plessis in La Riche). Tours and Touraine remained a permanent residence of the kings and court until the 16th century. The rebirth gave Tours and Touraine many private mansions and castles, joined to some extent under the generic name of the Châteaux of the Loire. It is also at the time of Louis XI that the silk industry was introduced – despite difficulties, the industry still survives to this day.

Charles IX passed through the city at the time of his royal tour of France between 1564 and 1566, accompanied by the Court and various noblemen: his brother the Duke of Anjou, Henri de Navarre, the cardinals of Bourbon and Lorraine. At this time, the Catholics returned to power in Angers: the attendant assumed the right to nominate the aldermen. The Massacre of Saint-Barthelemy was not repeated at Tours. The Protestants were imprisoned by the aldermen – a measure which prevented their extermination. The permanent return of the Court to Paris and then Versailles marked the beginning of a slow but permanent decline. Guillaume the Metayer (1763–1798), known as Rochambeau, the well known counter-revolutionary chief of Mayenne, was shot there on Thermidor 8, year VI.

The arrival of the railway in the 19th century saved the city by making it an important nodal point. The main railway station is known as Tours-Saint-Pierre-des-Corps. At that time, Tours was expanding towards the south into a district known as the Prébendes. The importance of the city as a centre of communications contributed to its revival and, as the 20th century progressed, Tours became a dynamic conurbation, economically oriented towards the service sector.

Tours Cathedral: 15th-century Flamboyant Gothic west front with Renaissance pinnacles, completed 1547.

The city was greatly affected by the First World War. A force of 25,000 American soldiers arrived in 1917, setting up textile factories for the manufacture of uniforms, repair shops for military equipment, munitions dumps, an army post office and an American military hospital at Augustins. Because of this, Tours became a garrison town with a resident general staff. The American presence is remembered today by the Woodrow Wilson bridge over the Loire, which was officially opened in July 1918 and bears the name of the President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Three American air force squadrons, including the 492nd, were based at the Parçay-Meslay airfield, their personnel playing an active part in the life of the city. Americans paraded at funerals and award ceremonies for the Croix de Guerre; they also took part in festivals and their YMCA organised shows for the troops. Some men married women from Tours.

In 1920, the city hosted the Congress of Tours, which saw the creation of the French Communist Party.

Tours was also marked by the Second World War as the city suffered massive destruction in 1940. For four years it was a city of military camps and fortifications. From 10 to 13 June 1940, Tours was the temporary seat of the French government before its move to Bordeaux.

German incendiary bombs caused a huge fire which blazed out of control from 20 to 22 June and destroyed part of the city centre. Some architectural masterpieces of the 16th and 17th centuries were lost, as was the monumental entry to the city. The Wilson Bridge that carried a water main which supplied the city was dynamited to slow the progress of the German advance. With the water main severed, nobody was able to extinguish the inferno, therefore inhabitants had no option but to flee to safety. More heavy air raids by Allied forces devastated the area around the railway station in 1944, causing several hundred deaths.

A plan for the rebuilding of the downtown area drawn up by the local architect Camille Lefèvre was adopted even before the end of the war. The plan was for 20 small quadrangular blocks of housing to be arranged around the main road (la rue Nationale), which was widened. This regular layout attempted to echo, yet simplify, the 18th-century architecture. Pierre Patout succeeded Lefèvre as the architect in charge of rebuilding in 1945. At one time there was talk of demolishing the southern side of the rue Nationale in order to make it in keeping with the new development.

The recent history of Tours is marked by the personality of Jean Royer, who was Mayor for 36 years and helped save the old town from demolition by establishing one of the first Conservation Areas. This example of conservation policy would later inspire the Malraux Law for the safeguarding of historic city centres. In the 1970s, Jean Royer also extended the city to the south by diverting the course of the river Cher to create the districts of Rives du Cher and des Fontaines. At the time, this was one of the largest urban developments in Europe. In 1970, the François Rabelais University was founded; this is centred on the bank of the Loire in the downtown area, and not – as it was then the current practice – in a campus in the suburbs. The latter solution was also chosen by the twin university of Orleans. Royer's long term as Mayor was, however, not without controversy, as exemplified by the construction of the practical – but aesthetically unattractive – motorway which runs along the bed of a former canal just 1,500 metres (4,900 feet) from the cathedral. Another bone of contention was the original Vinci Congress Centre by Jean Nouvel. This project incurred debts although it did, at least, make Tours one of France's principal conference centres.

Jean Germain, a member of the Socialist Party, became Mayor in 1995 and made debt reduction his priority. Ten years later, his economic management was regarded as much wiser than that of his predecessor due to the financial stability of the city returning. However, the achievements of Jean Germain were criticized by the municipal opposition for a lack of ambition. There were no large building projects instituted under his double mandate. This position is disputed by those in power, who affirm their policy of concentrating on the quality of life, as evidenced by urban restoration, the development of public transport and cultural activities.

The cathedral of Tours, dedicated to Saint Gatien, its canonized first bishop, was begun about 1170 to replace the cathedral that was burnt out in 1166 during the dispute between Louis VII of France and Henry II of England. The lowermost stages of the western towers belong to the 12th century, but the rest of the west end is in the profusely detailed Flamboyant Gothic of the 15th century, completed just as the Renaissance was affecting the patrons who planned the châteaux of Touraine. These towers were being constructed at the same time as, for example, the Château de Chenonceau.

When the 15th-century illuminator Jean Fouquet was set the task of illuminating Josephus's Jewish Antiquities, his depiction of Solomon's Temple was modeled on the nearly-complete cathedral of Tours. The atmosphere of the Gothic cathedral close permeates Honoré de Balzac's dark short novel of jealousy and provincial intrigues, Le Curé de Tours (The Curate of Tours), and his medieval story Maître Cornélius opens in the cathedral itself.

• Hôtel de Ville
• Jardin botanique de Tours, the municipal botanical garden
• Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours
• Hôtel Goüin
• Château de Tours
• Basilique St-Martin
• Place Plumereau, the old town
• Grand Théâtre, housing the Opéra de Tours
• Tour Charlemagne

• Berengarius of Tours (999–1088), theologian
• Bernard of Tours (fl. 1147, d. before 1178), philosopher and poet
• Walter of Compiègne (12th century), painter
• Jeanne-Marie de Maille (1331–1414), saint
• Jean Fouquet (1420–1481), painter
• Abraham Bosse (1604–1676), artist
• Louise de la Vallière (1644–1710), courtesan
• Philippe Néricault Destouches (1680–1754), dramatist
• Jean Baudrais (1749–1832), 18th-century French playwright
• Nicolas Heurteloup (1750–1812), surgeon
• Philippe Musard (1792–1859), conductor and composer
• Gabriel Lamé (1795–1870), mathematician
• Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), novelist

Honoré de Balzac (1842)

Gabriel Lamé

• Louisa Emily Dobrée (fl. ca. 1877–1917), writer
• Félix Dujardin (1801–1860), biologist
• André-Michel Guerry (1802–1866), lawyer and statistician
• Théophile Archambault (1806–1863), psychiatrist
• Ernest Goüin (1815–1885), French engineer
• Marie of St Peter (1816–1848), mystic carmelite nun
• Philippe de Trobriand (1816–1897), author, American military officer
• Émile Delahaye (1843–1905), automobile pioneer
• Georges Courteline (1858–1929), dramatist and novelist
• Emile B. De Sauzé (1878–1964), language educator
• Daniel Mendaille (1885–1963), stage and film actor

General Régis de Trobriand

• Paul Nizan (1905–1940), novelist and philosopher
• Yves Bonnefoy (1923–2016), poet
• Paul Guers (1927) (Paul Jacques Dutron), actor
• Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (1940–2007), philosopher, literary critic and translator
• Jean-Louis Bruguière (born 1943), top French investigating judge
• Jean Chalopin (born 1950), television and movie producer, director, writer and the founder of DIC (Now Cookie Jar Group & DHX Media)
• Jacques Villeret (1951–2005), actor
• Dominique Bussereau (born 1952), politician
• Yves Ker Ambrun (born 1954), known as YKA, cartoonist
• Laurent Petitguillaume (born 1960), radio and television host
• Luc Delahaye (born 1962), photographer
• Stéphane Audeguy (born 1964), writer, literary critic and teacher
• Pascal Hervé (born 1964), cyclist
• Laurent Mauvignier (born 1967), writer
• Xavier Gravelaine (born 1968), football player
• Nâdiya (born 1973), singer
• Harry Roselmack (born 1973), television presenter
• Delphine Bardin (born 1974), classical pianist
• Ludovic Roy (born 1977), footballer
• Zaz (born 1980), singer
• Luc Ducalcon (born 1984), rugby union player
• Mathieu Inthasane (born 1986), footballer
• Biga Ranx (born 1988), reggae singer, producer and writer