Saint-Riquier

Saint-Riquier is a common French, located in the department of the Somme and the area Picardy.

Its inhabitants are called the " Centulois" (old name of the city: Centule )

Geography

Saint-Riquier is to 10 km of Abbeville, 35 km in the west of Amiens and 160 km in the north of Paris.

The access by the railroad is ensured by the line Paris - Calais (stop with Abbeville).

Communes bordering

The territory of Saint-Riquier is limited by 7 communes:
In North: Gapennes; in the North-East and the East: Oneux; in South-east: Yaucourt-Bussus; in the South Buigny-l' Abbot and Bellancourt; in South-east: Neufmoulin; in the North-West: Millencourt-in-Ponthieu.

Administration

List of the successive Mayors of the Revolution at our days

1789 Nicolas Buteux
1791 Charles Alexandre Defontaine
1791 Pierre Jacques Nicolas Froissart
1800 Charles Alexandre Defontaine
1805 Pierre Jacques Nicolas Froissart
1808 Dominique Levoir
1812 Louis Nicolas Lefebvre
1815 Cyr Jean Baptist Cantrel
1821 Jean Baptist Nicolas
1826 Louis François Ternisien
1830 Jacques Victor Constant Camille Froissart
1840 François Dominique Camille Canu
1870 Anatole Chamont
1878 Ernest Dumont
1891 Anatole Chamont
1892 Ernest Gignon
1896 Albert Houette
1901 No5el Poulin
1908 Leon Dobremel
1913 Henri Leconte
1929 Georges Young wild boar
1937 Augustave Delamotte
1937 Marius Macqueron
1945 Marcel Louchart
1968 Andre Bas
1983 Daniel Dengreville
since 1995 Yves Monin

Demography

History

Saint-Riquier , formerly called “Centule” (the city with the hundred turns) is an old monastic city which developed around the founded Monastère at the 7th century, in 625, by Riquier, landowner convert with the Catholicism which évangélisa the North of France. The abbey knew its apogee at the time of Charlemagne and counted, in the year 800, more than 300 monks and a famous school.

The town of Centule , which profited from this prosperity and had been protected by fortifications, would have sheltered to 15.000 inhabitants; it was capital Ponthieu with the X {{E}} and XI {{E}} centuries, before being supplanted by Abbeville ( Abbatis Villa or field of the Abbots) where a port had been created.

With the the Middle Ages, Centule takes the name of Saint-Riquier because of the enthusiasm of the pilgrimages to the relics of the saint, but the inhabitants preserve the name of Centulois. A long time strengthened city of the Kingdom of France, from which it has the weapons, Saint-Riquier underwent many invasions and destruction.

Blasonnement

the official armorial bearings of the town of Saint-Riquier are appeared as a sowing of flowers of lily of gold on field of azure, the crowned wall whole.

Saint-Riquier has thus the rare privilege to be able to raise the colors and attributes of the French royalty. The city owes this distinction with its length and rich person passed, its fidelity with the princes of the Kingdom of France, the prices of its sacrifices to ensure protection and the power of it.

The Province of Picardy was attached to the Kingdom of France all at the end of the Moyen-Âge, first once in 1477 under the reign of Louis XI and its confirmed annexation one second time, and definitively, in 1482, after the victory of this last over the Duke of Burgundy Charles Bold the. Consequently, Saint-Riquier will play the part of fortified town, considered quasi-impregnable at the northern border of the kingdom, vis-a-vis the Province of Artois, possession of the Maison of Austria until in 1659. François 1 {{er}} will come in person to consolidate it in this strategic role.

If the commune counts only 1.200 inhabitants today approximately, it preserves nevertheless a rich person historical heritage and tourist.

Places and monuments

Religious heritage

Église abbatiale

Built with the site of the Carolingian church destroyed by the invasion S Normans and the fires, this building of the 13th century is the work of restoration of 4 abbots between 1257 and 1536 and knew the various stages of the Gothic . Long, broad and high, it 96 meters 27 50 meters meters has a Gothic frontage of style blazing of the 15th century.

Inside, the style is rather traditional, in the woodworks, the grids and marble decoration of the 17th century under the influence of the abbot Charles d' Aligre.

One can admire also there the paintings of painters of the 17th century (Jouvenet, Bon Boullongne, Hallé…), a Christ of Girardon, as well as the room of the Treasury, where (at the time of guided visits) one of the most extraordinary legends of the Moyen-âge is told: the Known as of three dead and the three sharp ones.

Abbaye

This immense building of traditional style, coupled abbey, succeeds the Carolingian abbey which was ruined successively at the 15th century by the Burgundian ones, then by the Armagnacs in 1421, then burnt in 1554.

It was restored almost entirely in second half of the 17th century by the abbot of Aligre. Sold and partly demolished with the Revolution, gradually rebuilt, it served sometimes as small Séminaire, sometimes of military hospital before accommodating, in 1953, the congregation of the auxiliary Brothers of the clergy.

Repurchased by the General advice, it becomes in 1972 “museum departmental and arts center of the abbey of Saint-Riquier” and presents a permanent exposure on the rural, agricultural and artisanal life and 4 temporary exhibitions per annum. In the garden, one can admire very beautiful Picardy barns. The arts center also accommodates congresses, conferences or seminars.

Hôtel-Dieu

The oldest evocation of this institution goes up with 1199. It in the beginning was directed by Brothers and Sisters, then by the Augustines Sisters who remained with Saint-Riquier until in 1963. With the Revolution the Hospital becomes a civil hospice.

The current buildings were built of 1688 with 1704. One notices especially the Cloître out of bricks and stone and the vault dedicated to Saint Nicolas's Day, raised 1717 with 1719, and devoted in 1720 by the bishop of Amiens. This vault grows rich during the 18th century by invaluable ornamentations, the majority of style baroque-rubble (tables of Parrocel, grids of Wrought iron allotted to Vivarais). This decoration was supplemented in 1753 by a decorated monumental furnace bridge of statues, the whole out of carved wood carried out by Pfaffenhoffen says Pfaff.

Civil inheritance

Beffroi

It is the symbol of municipal independence because Saint-Riquier obtained in 1126 one of the first communal charters of France. The first belfry being too close to the abbey, the powerful abbots required in 1283 that a new belfry either built at the current place. Built at the 13th century, it was almost completely destroyed in 1475, on order of Louis XI revanchist for the support of the city for Burgundian, then rebuilt and finished in 1528. Imposing white stone square tower 18 meters high, broad and posed on a sandstone base, the belfry 9,4 meters is flanked of 4 turrets of angle to pinnacle for the guet. It owes its current installation with great work of rehabilitation in 1788 and 1789 where his large northern entry is bored. It becomes Town hall then and shelters until in 2005 the meetings and the marriages. It has two opposite entries one for the tower of guet, the other for the prison (where is currently the Tourist office).

Since July 2005, it is classified with the World heritage UNESCO with 22 other belfries of the Northern - Pas-de-Calais and of the Picardy.

Maison Napoléon

This house, close to the place (with 3, rue du Général de Gaulle), is announced by an architectural curiosity. Its pinion, marrying the form of the Bicornuate of the Emperor Napoleon 1st, is surmounted by its statue. It is necessary to see there the homage paid to its memory, probably in 1840 at the time of the return of its ashes, by one of its grognards, Louis Joseph Petit. This statue, recent (work of the sculptor amiénois Leon Lamotte), is in fact a counterpart. On the frontage side garden a commemorative plaque with the inscription is:

"Small Louis-Joseph 1792 - 1863 soldier of the Large army wounded with Ligny on June 16th 1815. Médaillé of Grey waxbill became Excise officer to Saint-Riquier where it Maria in 1836 with Rose Aline Lefebvre 1809 -1 890. Towards 1840 it built this house whose pinion imitating the legendary imperial hat was surmounted statue of Napoleon 1st Emperor of the French, King d' Italie. Ruined by time, it was replaced by an inaugurated similar statue on May 1st 1962 in the presence of S.A. Prince Paul Murat representing SAI Prince Napoleon. Town of Saint-Riquier Napoleonean Memory Section of Picardie".

That this célébratif aspect does not make forget the last rich person of one of the places charged with the local history. One finds traces of the house in the oldest documents centulois, undoubtedly well beyond the 16th century. The residence was called formerly " the Hotel of the Coulon" White; (White Dovecote?). In 1665, it is the property of Jean Garin, royal sergeant, which acquired it heirs to Jean Butey, royal Procureur, itself holding it of Jean Carpentier. To the 18th century, this residence passed in the family Judcy or Judey, 8 generations of surgeons resulting from an army surgeon of a Swiss regiment.

By marriage and heritage, this property falls to the Lefebvre family, middle-class man and mayor of Saint-Riquier, before the father-in-law of Louis Joseph Petit, Angilbert Lefebvre, at the time of widening, in the crossing of the borough, the road Harbor-Lille, does not contribute to the construction of this pinion. The girl of Louis Joseph Petit will marry in 1859 in Maître Eugene Marcassin, notary in Saint-Riquier. One of its sons Rene Young wild boar, chairman of the Company of Saint-Gobain, became owner of the residence in 1890, after the death of his/her grandmother Mrs Petit. It will transmit it to its death in 1944 with his daughter Mrs Lauzier. She will yield it to Mrs Pardessus, secretary of lawyer, on December 2nd 1961, date birthday of the Sacring and Austerlitz. Mrs Pardessus is the first owner not going down from Louis Petit.

After its bombardment in August 1944, one installed in his walls a post office until in 1962. The new owners Marc and Bernadette Stubbe, of Belgian origin, acquired the residence in 2000. The frontage and the pinion were plastered in May 2006.

Monument with the morts

This monument represents a pyramid from which fall from the garlands with, trônant at the top, a bronze cock singing. It was set up thanks to the money of a public subscription. It is the work of Emmanuel Fontaine, sculptor abbevillois (1856 - 1935) and was inaugurated on Sunday, October 10 1920. Thirty seven names of Centulois died in the Great War are registered there.

Prison of Jeanne d' Arc

In an angle of the farm of Drugy, rebuilt on the foundations of the old strengthened castle and residence of summer of the abbots of Saint-Riquier, one still shows an old arched room which would correspond to the site of the dungeon occupied by Jeanne d' Arc, one night of November 1430, whereas it was led for her lawsuit and its torment to Rouen. The passage of Jeanne d' Arc with Drugy-the-Saint-Riquier is reported in the Latin chronicle of Jean of the Vault, gone back to 1492.

Tours and fortifications

Saint-Riquier had two strengthened enclosures. The pregnant intern had 4 doors and a portelette. The external enclosure had at least seven doors or portelettes.

Medieval rampart S of the city, there remain only some wall remains and some turns in bad condition:

- the Tower of Noch (most visible and best preserved),

- the Midsummer's Day Tower (recently restored, pertaining to the enclosing wall of the Abbey),

- the Margot Tower (where met the old ditches interior and external of the strengthened city),

- the Haimont Tower (very degraded, it was sacrificed in September 1845 to the conveniences of transport).

Cimetière du Commonwealth

Served well by the road and the rail, equipped with a vast camp of drive and a military hospital (installed in the buildings of the Abbey), Saint-Riquier ensured a crucial role in the preparation and the care of the troops allied the back of the Face since 1915. The small communal cemetery, too exiguous and inappropriate, this place of burials was impromptu with haste at the beginning of the First World War. Y put back 104 British combatants and of the English colonies of the two last wars.

One also finds there fall to it family from the Small Sergeant (of the " Napoléon" house;).

Characters related to the commune

Simon Pfaff de Pfaffenhoffen, Austrian baron, born with Vienna in 1715, exiled in France after a mortal duel at the Court of Vienna, is established in Saint-Riquier in 1750. required Sculptor to the Court of France, Master of the art of the baroque, it also decorated the church and the sacristy with the Abbaye of Valloires (Somme). He lived a house always visible close to the belfry with Saint-Riquier . He dies in Avallon in 1784.
the abbot Crampon taught the biblical Exégèse with small the Séminaire of the city
François-Auguste Cheussey, departmental architect, directed work to the abbey of Saint-Riquier (1819 - 1822).

Twinning

: Stutensee - Friedrichstal, since 1982.

See too

Common of the Sum
Belfries of Belgium and France
List of bénédictines abbeys of France

Notes, sources and references

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