Commnauté
d'agglomération Rennes Métropole
www.tourisme-rennes.com
The name Rennes comes from
Riedones, the name of the Gaulish tribe living in that
particular part of Armorica in the 2nd century B.C. The
tribe chose "Condate" (meaning confluent) as its centre and
the town thrived during the Roman occupation. At the time,
it covered an area of almost 90 hectares. At the end of the
3rd century, the threat of invasion by the Barbarians led
to the building of a fortified town surrounded by a
1200-metre long wall ranging over 9 hectares. The wall
marked the boundaries of the mediaeval town and was the
town's only defence system until the 15th century. In the
14th and 15th centuries, the initial fortifications were
restored and two new enclosures were built as the town
grew. These were the "Ville neuve" to the north east of the
River Vilaine as far as Saint-Georges Abbey, and the
"Nouvelle ville" to the south. King Charles VIII's
engagement to Duchess Anne of Brittany (married by proxy to
Maximilian of Austria a year earlier in the duke's chamber
in Rue Saint-Yves) was celebrated in the Chapel of
Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle, in 1491. This event heralded
Brittany's annexation to France, which became official with
the Union Treaty in 1532. From this moment on, the
fortified town - the seat of a bishopric in the 5th
century, hub of a road network and dukes' residence -
became a provincial town, characterised by timber-framed
houses and a certain architectural tradition, whose
crowning glory, thirty years later, was the establishment
of the Parlement, marking the town as a provincial capital
and aristocratic town. Rennes subsequently became the seat
of the provincial high court and the chamber for publishing
royal edicts. Additionally, it was entitled to make
remonstrances to the King. The Parlement building took a
century to complete (1618-1709) and its stonework and
decoration reflected the learned royal architectural
tradition of the time. In parallel, numerous stately
townhouses were built for the legal profession and convents
sprang up as a result of the Counter-Reformation.
The parliamentary revolt, or Fronde, which began with the
Papier Timbré Revolt in 1675 and Parlement's exile to
Vannes until 1690, continued, in 1765, with the La
Chalotais Affair, the conflict between the public
prosecutor and the King.
The fire which broke out on 22 December 1720 destroyed 33
streets and 900 timber-framed houses in the town centre.
Jacques Gabriel, the architect commissioned to rebuild the
centre after the fortifications engineer, Robelin, was
ousted, built a brand new town with a more spacious layout,
set around two royal squares and predominantly made of
stone. One of these squares celebrated Louis XIV with the
Parlement building in the background, and the other square
paid homage to Louis XV, whose statue presides over the
Hôtel de Ville, or City Hall.
The "holy, learned and resonant" town witnessed the events
running up to the French Revolution and was held to be the
"birthplace of freedom", as confirmed by Chateaubriand in
his "Reader, I must detain you: witness the first drops of
blood flow which the Revolution was obliged to spill […],
cross the river of blood which separates forever the old
world, which you are leaving, from the new world on whose
threshold you will die".
The 19th century was characterised by the cleaning and
canalisation of the River Vilaine, which opened up the
lower town or basse ville, and the building of the railway
station (1857). The town's architectural diversity, with
the theatre (1830-36) and a university palace (1847-52),
were a clear indication of Rennes' administrative and
cultural vocation whilst its residential architecture bore
witness to its urban expansion.
The second half of the 19th century witnessed the building
of the Lycée, or secondary school, the Science Faculty
(1888) - which hosted the second Dreyfus trial in 1899, the
Baltard-style Lices covered market (1867), the Thabor
gardens and the Palais du commerce, according to J-B
Martenot's plans. And under the mayorship of Jean Janvier
(1908-1923), E. Le Ray designed swimming baths, the main
covered market and Art-Deco and mosaic nurseries.
After the Second World War, Brittany's capital was rising
in status as a university town and had one of France's
fastest growth rates (land development of 5,000 hectares
and 200,000 inhabitants in 1980) with a nature reserve
covering a vast area of 35 hectares
