TOURS
is a large, cheerful, and busy manufacturing city, spread out between the Loire and the Cher, which take parallel courses close together. It stands on a level site, and has no conspicuous attractiveness beyond the few old buildings for which such a commercial centre could spare space. The manufactures include so many commodities that the list would be wearisome. One can hear, see, and smell the iron foundries, but the passing stranger might not be aware that the specialities of the city’s products are dried plums, potted meats, and white wines. The silk industry, formerly of great importance, has declined.
Tours was originally a Celtic town on the rising ground north of the Loire. The Romans preferred the present site, and called it Cæsarodunum. Christianity came there in the third century, and St. Martin, the third Bishop, became the apostle of the Gauls. The plundering Visigoths reached Tours in 473, but were driven out in 507 by Clovis. In the Middle Ages there were two towns side by side: the Roman city, surrounded by walls (of which there are no remains), and west of it Châteauneuf, of which the tomb of St. Martin had formed the nucleus. When the Normans reached Tours in
Town Plan No. 10.—Tours.
853, and again in 903, they were only able to plunder and destroy the newer town.
Henry II. of England, a descendant of the Counts of Tours, made Touraine a part of the English possessions in France, which it remained until 1242. Nearly all the Kings of France from Louis IX. to François I. resided at Tours.
The religious wars were disastrous to the city, which was half destroyed by Catholics and Huguenots, until 1589, when Henri IV. established peace. In 1870 the Germans bombarded Tours.
The Cathedral, dedicated to St. Gatien, first Bishop of Tours, was in 1166 burnt by fire through a quarrel between Louis VII. of France and Henry II. of England. The lower parts of two towers of the Norman building remain. The reconstruction commenced in 1225, and the latest work was done in 1547.