Orleans

Orleans, a city of France, the capital now of the department of Loiret, and formerly of the old province of Orléannais, which comprised the best part of the present departments of Loiret, Eure-et-Loir, and Loir-et-Cher, with portions of four others. It stands in a fertile plain on the right bank of the Loire, here crossed by a nine-arched bridge (1760), 364 yards long, and by rail is 75 miles SSW. of Paris. Close to it is the Forest of Orleans, covering nearly 150 sq. m., and planted with oaks and other valuable trees. The walls and gates have given place since 1830 to handsome boulevards, but the town as a whole wears a lifeless appearance, and its domestic architecture has much more interest than any of the public edifices. These include the cathedral, destroyed by the Huguenots in 1567, and rebuilt from 1601 onwards by Henry IV. and his three successors; the Mairie (1530); and the 15th-century Musée (till 1853 the hôtel-de-ville). Noteworthy are the house of Agnes Sorel, Diane de Poitiers, and Joan of Arc, of whom there are three statues—the bronze equestrian one inaugurated in 1855. The commerce is far more important than the industries (of which the chief is market-gardening), Orleans possessing unusual transit facilities by road and railway, river and canal. Pop. (1872) 48,976; (1891) 61,073. The Celtic Genabum, where in 52 B.C. the great Gallic rising broke out against Julius Cæsar, Orleans afterwards (about 272 A.D.) was renamed Civitas Aureliani, of which the present name is only a corruption. It was besieged by Attila (q.v.) in 451; passed into the hands of the Franks; and was twice plundered by the Northmen (855 and 865). In 1428–29 it was besieged by the English under the Duke of Bedford, but was delivered by Joan of Arc (q.v.), called therefore the Maid of Orleans. Dunois (q.v.) was known as the Bastard of Orleans. The town suffered much in the wars of the Huguenots (q.v.); and in the Franco-German war it again figured prominently, being occupied by the invaders, October 11 to November 9, 1870, and then the headquarters of the great Army of the Loire until its crushing defeat by Prince Frederick-Charles (December 3–5). Orleans was the death-place of the Earl of Salisbury (1429), of Francis II., Mary Stewart's husband (1560), and of the Duke of Guise (1563). See its history by Binbenet (3 vols. Orleans, 1884–87).