Besançon

Besançon is a French city in the département of Doubs, of which it is the préfecture.

Coat of arms.

Administration

Besançon is the capital of the Franche-Comté région of France, a région including the four départements of Doubs, Haute-Saône, Jura and Territoire de Belfort. As such, it is the seat of the Franche-Comté regional council, and the regional préfecture (government offices).

Geography

*Besançon is located precisely at the foot of the mountainous area of the Jura massif (area of High Doubs and the Jura Suisse) and at the beginning of the vast cultivable plains of Franche-Comté, in the middle of the department of Doubs, and at 100 km of Dijon in Burgundy, Lausanne in Switzerland and Belfort and neighbouring Alsace and Germany.
*Besançon also fits in a particularly remarkable natural geographical site: an immense almost perfect natural loop with the diameter of almost 1 km, formed by a river (Doubs), buckles perfectly closed and overhung by the mount Saint Etienne, a high plateau open on the Jura and abrupt on the side of the city, whose peak is completely covered with an immense citadel of Vauban, the whole surrounded by 7 hills and as many forts, like the city of Rome.

History

For the ecclesiastcal history, see Archbishopric of BesançonIts Latin name was Vesontio, recorded in the journals of Julius Caesar in his conquests of Gaul. At the time of Caesar, it was recorded that a wooden picket surrounded the city center. The name permutated over time to become Besantio, Besontion and gradually arrived at the modern French Besançon. The locals retain their ancient heritage referring to themselves as Bisontins (feminine: Bisontine).

Besançon, as part of the Holy Roman Empire became a bishopric somewhere in the second century. It was granted the status of free imperial city with autonomy in 1184. In 1157 an Imperial Diet 'Reichstag' was held in Besançon, where cardinal Orlando Bandinelli (future pope Alexander II, then adviser of pope drian IV), who openly asserted before Frederick Barbarossa at the that the imperial dignity was a papal beneficium (in the more general sense of favour, not the strict feudal sense of fief), incurred the wrath of the German princes and would have fallen on the spot under the battle-axe of his life-long foe, Otto of Wittelsbach, had Frederick not intervened; the Imperial chancellor Rainald of Dassel then inaugurated a German policy which insisted upon the rights and the power of the German kings, the strengthening of the Church in the German Empire, the lordship of Italy and the humiliation of the papacy. The archbishops were elevated to prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1288.
In the 15th century, Besançon came under the influence of the dukes of Burgundy. After the marriage of Mary of Burgundy to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, the city was in effect a Habsburg fief, which took it from Austrian to Spanish influence. In 1526 the city obtained the right to mint coins. It continued to strike coins until 1673. Nevertheless, all coins are in the name of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. The Spaniards originally built the main defense complex, "la Citadelle" from 1668, following a design by the French military architect Vauban. In 1674 French troops took the city and Vauban himself got to upgrade its fortifications, which took some 30 years. At the Treaty of Nijmegen the city was awarded to France.

Surrounding the central city are walls built in that era, and between the train station and the central city is a complex moat system through which traffic has been directed. All of these fortifications are built with Vauban's classic star points. Surrounding the city a large number of fortifications were built at the time of Vauban, including the Fort de Trois Châtels, Fort Chaudanne, Fort du Petit Chaudanne, Fort Griffon, Fort des Justices, Fort Beauregard and Fort de Brégille, but the crown jewel of these is la Citadelle.

Built upon a mountaintop, bounded by sheer cliffs on one side, the Doubs river on the others, and the Boucle or Shield, the city centre surrounded by the Doubs, giving it a fantastic defensive stance. Upon this hilltop, Vauban built the largest of his structures in the region. The Citadelle has a dual dry moat, with an outer and inner court. In the evenings, the Citadelle is illuminated and stands above the city as a landmark and a crowning achievement to Vauban's ingenuity. The Citadelle was used by the Nazis during World War II. Nevertheless, action was limited to a bombing of the railway complex in 1943 and four days of ultimately futile German resistance to US attacks in 1944.

Across the Doubs sits the Forts Brégille and Beauregard. The Brégille Heights were reached by a funicular built in 1913. It passed from private ownership during its usage to the SNCF until 1987 when it was finally shut down. To this day the tracks, stations and even roadsigns of the funicular remain in place.

Sights

Vauban's fortifications in Besançon.

Interior of St. Jean Cathedral in Besançon.

The city is reputedly has one of the most beautiful historic centres of any major town in France. The old town, "la Boucle", is enclosed in a broad horse-shoe of the river Doubs, which is blocked off at the neck by Vauban's imposing Citadelle. The historic centre has little in the way of unseemly modern architecture, and presents a remarkable ensemble of classic stone buildings, some dating back to the Middle Ages. Among the most visited historic monuments are:
* the 16th century Palais Granvelle, built by Cardinal Granvelle, chancellor to the Habsburg emperor Charles V [Palais:[1],[2]]
* Vauban's citadel and remarkable riverside frontage
* the St. Jean cathedral, dating largely from the 12th century Cathedral:[http://www.coulouris.net/george-jean/tandemfrance2003/besancon/Images/9.jpg
* several Roman remains, notably the Porte Noire, a triumphal arch.

Besançon also has one of the finest city art galleries in France outside Paris. The Musée des Beaux Arts has a collection built up since 1694, and expanded over time by a remarkable series of bequests. The building itself was totally rebuilt in the 1960s by the architect Miquel, a pupil of Le Corbusier, its interior taking the form of a gently rising concrete walkway that takes visitors up from classical antiquity to the modern age. Among its treasures are a fine collection of classical antiquities and ancient Egyptian artefacts, as well as a very rich collection of paintings including works by Bellini, Bronzino, Tintoretto, Titian, Rubens, Jordaens, Ruysdael, Cranach, Zurbaran, Goya, Philippe de Champaigne, Fragonard, Boucher, David, Ingres, Géricault, Courbet, Constable, Bonnard, Matisse, Picasso and many others.

Perhaps the most remarkable of the city's masterpieces is the massive Virgin and saints altarpiece in the St. Jean cathedral, by the Italian Renaissance painter Fra Bartolomeo.

Economy

The city is famous for its microtechnology and watch industries. It is home to the biannual Micronora trade fair, one of Europe's major events in the field of microtechnologies. The city has a little-known speciality, automatic ticketing machines for car parking, airports, date stamping etc.

The watch industry, for which Besançon remains the French capital, endured a major crisis in the 1970s when the advent of far-eastern quartz watches knocked out the traditional watch industry in the space of just a few years. This industrial crisis was epitomised by the famous "Lip" affair, by the name of one of Besançon's most prestigious brands of watches. Refusing to be beaten, the workers of Lip took over their factory and set it up as a worker's cooperative. The event branded Besançon as a city of the radical left, and though it produced a lot of notoriety and sympathy for the workers, it did little to help revive the watch industry, the cooperative going out of business after a short period. The city took a long time to recover from the collapse of the watch industry and its other major industry of the industrial age, artificial textiles.

Since the 1980s, Besançon's watch industry has clawed its way back on the basis of its historic reputation and quartz watches, establishing itself in a number of niche markets including customized watches, high quality watches, and fashion articles. Since the 1990s, the town has developed a reputation as one of France's leading centres technology in all fields, including telecommunications and biotechnology.

Transportation

Besançon is situated at the crossing of two major lines of communication, the NE-SW route, following the valley of the river Doubs, and linking Germany and North Europe with Lyon and southwest Europe, and the N-S route linking northern France and the Low Countries with Switzerland.

A key staging post on the Strasbourg-Lyon (Germany-Spain) route, it also has direct high-speed train (TGV) links with Paris, Charles de Gaulle International Airport, and Lille. Unusually for a town of its size, it does not have a commercial airport, though two international airports, EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg and Lyon Saint-Exupéry International Airport, can be reached in about 2 hours.

Miscellaneous

As well as being famed as one of France's finest "villes d'art" (art cities), Besançon is the seat of one of France's older universities, of France's national school of micromechanics, and one of the best known French language schools in France, the CLA.

It is also reputed to be France's most environmentally-friendly city, with a public transport network that has often been cited as a model. On account of the topography, the historic city centre lies at the edge of the modern city, and hiking tracks lead straight from the centre and up into the surrounding hills.

The city council has been in the hands of the Socialists and parties of the left since the second world war.

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands is also Dame of Besançon.

Births

Besançon was the birthplace of:
*Claude Goudimel (1510-1572) - Musician, Teacher of Palestrina. Composer of the music for Protestant hymns
*Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517-1586) - Cardinal, statesman and humanist. Counsellor of Charles V, Viceroy of Naples
*Charles Fourier (1772-1837) - Inventor of socialist "phalansteries" (vast communal buildings surrounded by a highly cultivated agricultural area)
*Charles Nodier (1780-1844) - Writer. Leader of the Romantic movement
*Jean Claude Eugène Péclet (1793-1857) - physicist, gave his name to the Péclet number
*Victor Hugo (1802-1885) - Writer and poet
*Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)- Journalist (Le Peuple) and author of world-renowned socialist theories
*Hilaire de Chardonnet (1838-1924) - Inventor of artificial silk
*Louis-Jean Résal (1854-1920) - Engineer who built the Pont Mirabeau and the Pont Alexandre III in Paris
*Auguste and Louis Lumière, (1862-1954) and (1864-1948) - Inventors of cinematography
*Tristan Bernard (1866-1947) - Journalist and Humorist
*Jean de Gribaldy (1922-1987) - Professional racing cyclist and directeur sportif