Pont-Saint-Esprit

Pont-Saint-Esprit is a common French, located in the department of the Gard and the area Languedoc-Roussillon.

The inhabitants and living Pont-Saint-Esprit are the Spiripontains and Spiripontaines .

Geography

History

Middle Ages

The city was called in the middle of the Middle Ages Saint-Saturnin-of-Port (in Latin Portum Sancti Saturnini ). The current name of the city comes to him from the construction of the bridge on the the Rhone by the brother of holy Louis, the count of Poitiers and Toulouse Alphonse of Poitiers; it started in 1265 to be completed in 1309. According to Purple-the-Duke, she was entrusted to the branch pontiff Hospitaliers (the branch of the manufacturers of bridges, formed by these monk-soldiers to facilitate the pilgrimages) and was directed by Jean de Tensanges or of Thianges. This bridge connecting Provence to Languedoc, downstream from the Rhone, a long time constituted a point of passage privileged on the Rhone.

To the 15° century, Isabelle of Bavaria, Queen of France, applicant to have only, other than Charles Dauphin her son the government and the administration of the kingdom, in the name of the King Charles VI fallen in insanity, binds to achieve her pernicious intention, with the Duke of Burgundy, enemy of the King and the dolphin. Isabelle, to bring the people to her party, makes pass from the emissary in all the provinces, particularly to Languedoc where one had to complain so much about the government of the Duke of Berri; and for better succeeding there, it made publish everywhere, that one would not pay any more subsident. The town of Bridge-saint-Spirit, influenced by GUI of Brush or Broce, monk Benedictine of the priory of Saint Pierre and cousin of Jean 1st of Brush, Marshal of France living at the same time, was the first of the province which opened its doors with the Burgundian party, and accepted in its walls, in 1418, the delegates of the Queen and the Duke of Bourgongne to control, in the name of the King in all Languedoc.

GUI of Brush, called by the King Charles VI in Troyes, out of Champagne where its majesty resided with its court, was allowed near its sovereign who, at the instigation of the Queen, had chosen it to fulfill an important mission in midday, and after it had given him goes down for hearing, Charles VI, gave the responsability it to go to find, of his share, the Count de Foix, his lieutenant in Languedoc, and to declare to him, from the King, like with clergy, with noble and the communes of his province, his resolution to defend which one returned no kind of obedience to that which says the regent kingdom. Five days after, (November 18th, 1419), the King gave the written instructions to GUI of Brush which took leave of its Majesty, and went diligently to Béziers where the count de Foix, governor of Languedoc held the general meeting of the three orders of the province. It is said on this subject that the governor secretly intended to make declare all the country in favor of the dolphin in his capacity as regent of the Kingdom; but GUI of Brush presenting to the count de Foix, the strict order of the King made it change resolution and brought it to the party of the Queen and the Duke of Burgundy. GUI had the same success near the Large ones and of the people, so that the archbishop of Toulouse, the clergy in general and the greatest number of the communes, finally all Languedoc, except for the town of Beaucaire and its seneshal, of the towns of Roquemaure, Fourques, Saint Andre Avignon; all the country, with this exception, embraced the party of the Isabelle Queen, controlling in the name of the King, patient and in insanity. However, the following year, the dolphin reconquered Languedoc and GUI of Brush was imprisoned in Avignon then given to its hierarchically superior, the cardinal of Cambray thanks to whom it found himself healthy and except in its cloister.

Rebirth

In 1562, the city is taken and plundered by the baron of the Adrets whereas Antoine of Pin alias of Brush, (Doctor in Right, 1st Consul and Deputy for the city of the Saint Spirit and pertaining to the family of GUI of Brush previously quoted) raised a company of men-at-arms which it ordered in the city of the Saint Spirit. This reproduced one second time in 1567, but the following year (1568), Antoine of Pin strongly contributed to make it return under the obedience of the King. In 1576; Antoine of Pin assisted, with same success, the company of the captain of Luynes, which on the revelation with him made the carried out secret ones of the Marshal of Damville-Montmorency, Gouverneur ordering of the province of Languedoc, tending to give the Protestants in possession of the Pont-Saint-Esprit, made stop the brother of the Marshal furtively introduced into the place during the night to foment the revolt there. In reward, Henri III named Luynes, Gouverneur of the Pont-Saint-Esprit and addressed a letter autograph to Antoine of Pin, gone back to Blois, on March 10th, 1577.

Contemporary time

During the summer 1951, a series of food poisonings strikes France, of which most serious starting from August 17th in Pont-Saint-Esprit, where it makes 7 dead, 50 " internés" in psychiatric hospitals and 250 people afflicted with more or less serious or durable symptoms. The medical community thinks whereas the " bread maudit" could have contained Ergot of rye, but without having the proof of it. The bread bought in Briand bakery causes vomiting, headaches, pains gastric, muscular, and access of madness (" convulsions démoniaques" , hallucinations and suicide attempts), disorders being able to evoke the Ergotisme. The city is taken of panic; a newspaper, quoted by the historian Steven L. Kaplan, observes:

Then, fault of the name of the evil, one wants to know that of the responsible man. The versions more abracadabrantes circulate. One shows the baker candidate [[Gathering of French people|RPF], protected from an general adviser of De Gaulle], her baker's boy, then the water of the fountains, then modern felling machines, foreign powers, the bacteriological war, devil, the SNCF, the pope, Stalin, the Church, nationalizations.

The spiripontains applaud the arrest of a miller poitevin, supplier of the flour employed in Pont-Saint-Esprit, imprisoned with Nimes, before protesting against its release.

More than fifty years after the events of Pont-Saint-Esprit, one cannot still with what allot them. Clinically, the symptoms were those of a mixed form of Ergotisme, but this diagnosis could not be proven. One also thought of an intoxication by the dicyandiamide of métyl-mercury , a product contained in a Fongicide used for the conservation of the grains having been used to make the flour, but this track ended up being abandoned. In 1982, professor Moreau, specialist in the Moulds, put forth the assumption that the intoxication of Pont-Saint-Esprit could have come from Mycotoxines, substances produced by moulds being able to develop in the silos with grain, of which the toxic effects are now well-known in veterinary medicine, but which were almost unknown in 1951.

Administration

| colspan=" 4" align=" center" | the former data are not yet known.

| align=right| 1360 - || Bertrand of Pin ||align=" center" | ||1st consul |- | align=right| 1409 - || Jean de Broche ||align=" center" | ||Royal Viguier |- | align=right| 1414 - || Jean de Broche of Méjanes ||align=" center" | ||Royal Viguier |- | align=right| 1569 - || Antoine of Pin ||align=" center" | ||1st consul and Deputy in 1589 |- | align=right| 1586 - || Charles of Pin ||align=" center" | ||1st consul |- | align=right| 1944 - 1947 || Raoul Trintignant ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1947 - 1959 || Albert Hébrard ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1959 - 1963 || François Léandri ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1963 - 1965 || Andre Briol ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1965 - 1971 || Pierre Amphoux ||align=" center" | || |- | align=right| 1971 - || Gilbert Baumet ||align=" center" | UMP || General adviser

|-| align=right| 1944 - 1947 || Raoul Trintignant ||align=" center" | || |- |}

Demography

Economy

Shopping mall managed by the Chamber of commerce and of industry of Nimes-Bagnols-Uzès it Vigan.

Places and monuments

medieval Bridge with 25 arches on the the Rhone: the bridge is 919 meters long built of 1265 to 1309 (the oldest bridge on the Rhone); La Poste commemorated the seventh centenary of the beginning of its construction by the emission of a special stamp, in 1966; Historic building
the priory Saint-Pierre (XIIe-XVIIIe centuries)
the church Saint-Saturnin (XVe century)
the Citadel and Collegial (the XIVe-XVIIIe centuries)
the House of the Knights (XIIe century)
the museum of the Sacred art of the Gard and the museum Paul Raymond
the slope in Wrought iron of the staircase places Plan

Personalities related to the commune

Birthplaces

Charles of Albert, duke of Luynes, born in Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1578. Favorite of Louis XIII, it influenced the king to get rid of Concini in 1617. Named constable in 1621, it became the true one directing kingdom. Died in 1621 in Longueville;
Raymond Restoring (1627 - 1682), French doctor;
Fernand Crémieux (1857 - 1928), Appointed and Senator;
Andre Philip (1902 - 1970), Politician;
Joseph Di Mambro (1924 - 1994), founder about the solar temple;
Jean-Michel Strapping man (1946 - 2005), senior official, in particular managing director of Antenna 2 (now France 2), of 1989 with 1991.

See too

Common of Gard
Path of great excursion GR. 4

External bonds

Tourist office of Pont-Saint-Esprit
Pont-Saint-Esprit on the site of the national geographical Institute
Pont-Saint-Esprit on the site of INSEE
Pont-Saint-Esprit on the site of Quid
Localization of Pont-Saint-Esprit on a chart of France and communes bordering
Plane on Pont-Saint-Esprit on Mapquest
rebirth of the old bridge

References

Random links: