Town Plan No. 8.—Orleans.
Cæsar from the Carnutes in 52 B.C. By the third century the town was known as Aurelianus, from which it is an easy step to the present name. In 451 the devastating Huns under Attila were forced back. By 613 Orleans had become one of the most important cities in France, second only to Paris; it was frequently the residence of French kings, and money was minted there.
In 1344 Philippe de Valois separated Orleans from the crown, and it became a duchy, and in the next century (1429) came that historic siege by the English, raised by the ‘Maid,’ who, clad in white armour, rode fearlessly at the head of the French army, and sent a cold terror into the hearts of the English.
After having been occupied by Leaguers and Huguenots in turn, Henri IV. took the city in 1594. The year of Waterloo saw the Prussians in Orleans, and in 1870 they again occupied the city. They were driven out for a time, but after returning they did not evacuate until March, 1871.
The Cathedral has its eighteenth-century ‘Gothic’ west front facing the wide Rue Jeanne d’Arc. It is a most abominable conception of narrow pointed doorways of a Moorish character, with ogee arches and the oddest pair of towers. The thirteenth-century east end, with its great display of flying buttresses, is the chief portion of the earlier cathedral burnt by the Calvinists in 1567.
Building Dates
362. Founded by St. Euverte and St. Aignan.
999. Burnt.
1206. Second church (Romanesque) destroyed.