Richelieu (Indre-et-Loire)

Richelieu is a French town with 1894 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2011 ) in the Indre- et- Loire in the Centre region. It lies on the small river Mable.

• 5.1 Grande Rue
• 5.2 places
• 5.3 Structures 5.3.1 Church
• 5.3.2 gates
• 5.3.3 Market Hall

Geography

Richelieu is located on the border between Touraine and Poitou, about 60 km south of Tours and 20 km each of Chinon and Loudun. The town was laid out in an originally marshy wide valley. The temperate climate is already feeling the effects of only about 180 km from the Atlantic. The municipality is part of the Regional Natural Park Loire -Anjou- Touraine.

History

The town of Richelieu was built on the orders of Cardinal Richelieu from 1631 in place of the village of the same name. In the immediate vicinity of the cardinal was designed by the architect Jacques Le Mercier built a castle, which was demolished in 1835. Speculators bought the castle, which was not under monument protection for a trivial amount and sold it, to the astonishment of all, brick by brick as a building material. Today is only the 500 hectare, surrounded by a high wall castle grounds exist, the part of the University of Paris.

Boroughs

Even today, the rectangular, perfectly symmetrical layout of the original town can be seen inside the walls. This plan was also created by Jacques Lemercier; his brothers Pierre and Nicholas supervised the construction work. To give an incentive to colonize his city, and made the cardinal interested parties the land free of charge and delivered them from all taxes. To ensure the desired uniform cityscape, only the selected architect from Cardinal Thiriot or Barbet could be entrusted with the construction. With the death of the Cardinal in 1642, the systematic work has been abandoned; nevertheless, the city began conditioning was completed within the specified rectangular street grid. Today, the entire cityscape is a listed building. The fabulist Jean de La Fontaine called Richelieu " the most beautiful village of the Universe".

In the north, south and west are each a gate available. The door to the east is "blind " because behind it lies the castle grounds; For symmetry reasons, it has nevertheless indicated in the city wall. Later, two other approaches have been applied to the city to meet the increasing car traffic. On the system of gates you, however, has omitted. The city is surrounded by a grave system that is fed by the river Mable.

Room for expansion was available only outside the 682 m long and 487 m wide rectangle of city walls. The station, new residential and small commercial areas are found mainly in the northeast and southwest of the city.

Economy and infrastructure

Population structure

Like many small towns in France also suffer Richelieu and his environment to population decline. This is due in large part to the centralized structure of France with the still strong dominance of the Paris region. Since the connecting TGV Tours in about an hour with Paris, also attract many inhabitants of the smaller towns near the TGV train stations to commute from there daily to Paris.

With the decline of the population, a slow deterioration of the infrastructure goes hand in hand. Closed shops and restaurants are a common sight. Another striking feature is the high proportion of elderly people.

Traffic

Richelieu is located just off the large traffic flows. The north -south axis of Paris - Bordeaux leads to road ( Autoroute A10) and rail ( TGV) about 20 km east of Richelieu over. In Richelieu intersect secondary roads in north-south and east-west direction, which connect the city to the main road network.

Richelieu is at the end of a railway branch line, which in Chinon from the route Tours - branches Thouars. The passenger traffic on this route is set for several decades; the sparse freight is operated by the private company " Régie Ferroviaire Richelaise " ( RFR). The station is Richelieu seat of a museum railway club, performing on summer weekends steam train rides to Chinon.

Trade

The economic structure in the Southern Touraine is predominantly agrarian, which is favored by the mild climate. Mainly cereals, corn, melons and of course wine are grown. In contrast to the surrounding farming areas where the predominant red wine, lots of white wine is grown by Richelieu. In addition to agriculture, the breeding of dairy cows and goats plays a major role. The tasty goat cheese marketed by the farmers mainly own.

Apart from agriculture, tourism is the most important economic factor which is favored by the proximity to the Loire Valley with its famous castles.

The manufacturing sector is hardly worth mentioning and suffers from constant difficulties that are partly due to the unfavorable location in a fairly sparsely populated region.

Culture and sights

Grande Rue

The main road ( Grande Rue ) goes exactly in a north-south direction between the northern (Porte de Chinon ) and the Southern Gate (Porte de Chatellerault ), crossing the two places in the city. It is bordered on both sides by 14 beautiful and large town houses that were built in a uniform style. Despite several renovations the houses have received over the course of years its original character.

Places

In the north and south of the city are located near the city gates each a rectangular space that are intersected in their respective central axes of roads. In a north-south direction, this is the Grande Rue, which thus also the places together.

The northern square (Place Royale, now Place des Religieuses ) is a tree-lined stretch of sand and is mostly used as a parking lot. The larger space in the south ( Place Cardinale, now Place des Halles et de l' Eglise ) marks the actual center of the city. On it are west of the Grande Rue, the church and east of the Market Hall, will be held in the today stuff and food markets. At this place are the Town Hall and the Tourist Office.

Structures

Church

The church of Notre Dame was built in 1635 by Pierre Le Mercier.

City ​​gates

The three gates are slated imposing buildings with high ceilings for the wooden portcullis above the actual target. The passages are quite narrow and only one lane passable. All gates are flanked by side buildings; at the northern gate of the city wall is still in good condition. Immediately behind the gates are located on the city side facing away from bridges over the grave system, which is still traversed in part by Mable.

Covered market

The market hall dates from the founding days of the city of Richelieu. You impressed by a powerful timber framing which supports the roof of the open-sided hall. Behind the hall is a smaller place, which was formerly used as a cattle market.

Twinning

Cities partnerships with the Canadian city of Richelieu, the German community Schaaf home and with Luçon in the department of Vendée.

Sons and daughters of the town

• Armand- Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu (1585-1642), Cardinal and relevant advisors and ministers of Louis XIII.
• Jules Chevalier (1824-1907), French priest and author