Can discover or rediscover it in all seasons

Forced to separate from Ms. de Rênal, Julien Sorel, the hero of "red and black" left the small town of Jura where he spent his first twenty years for the "capital" Besançon, Franche-Comté, become French province since everything just for one hundred and fifty years. It far facing the walls of the proud Citadel which dominates one of the most beautiful cities of France"in the same words of Stendhal,"rife with people of heart and mind ". But Julien will hardly have the leisure to discover the gentle harmony and the beauty of this city that embrace a wide loop the green waters of the Doubs.

In another barely over time, to the Napoleonic epic, the young peasant that it could serve as an officer in one of the regiments of the stronghold. But it is towards a Besançon of restoration that runs Julien, where have been restored the old social order and the power of the convents. Rather than wear the Red uniform of the lieutenants, it is the black habit of the Abbots that it will take. Enclosed between the austere walls of the grand séminaire of Mégevand Street, in the neighbourhood where stick along the narrow sidewalks elegant mansions, it will see the city little things: the Cathedral, in the old town with steep streets, time to see a few moments the woman loved and, later, the courthouse where he will be tried for the incomprehensible act committed against it, and sentenced.

All these buildings where Stendhal is the action of his novel are still there, amazing links between literary myth and reality. The Citadel, which ensures high on residents, almost discrete despite its size and she married the topography of the Hill it Crown. All predisposed Besançon to be a strong place: on the road from the Rhône to the Rhine, its surprising site, at the foot of a mountain closing a meander of the River as Caesar describes as "a circle" that path compass The winner of the war of the Gauls to the entrenched camp of Vesontio soon conquered the capital of the Séquanie. The Roman presence, it remains the door black, a triumphal arch at the entrance of what will later be Archbishop headquarters. A few columns still in the middle of the square Castan, two not the Cathedral on the flank of the Hill, close to the House where was born Victor Hugo random wanderings of his military father, future General and count of empire, and the place where the Lumière brothers were.

Walls in gold

It was not until Charles-Quint, where Besançon was property of the Habsburgs, to strengthen the first walls. But it is Vauban build the proud Citadel, when Louis XIV is will be finally seized the town to the margins of his Kingdom and will have annexed the Franche-Comté. Its construction lasted thirty years and cost so much that the Sun King asked if its walls were gold. The huge structure evokes the image of the force defending the peace: deterrent, she had to support low-intensity, and Besançon, is rare in the East of the France, has not been the destruction of the last centuries. A remarkable Museum of the resistance it recalls nevertheless that it served as a prison during the second world war and only 99 shadow fighters were shot. It also houses two museums and a Zoological Park, and is today, between towers, bridges and posterns, a huge playground. The ramparts, it dominates the heart of the city surrounded by water, its gardens and parks Besançon is one of the "greenest of France" cities , its high houses and brown lines of sloping roofs that exceed barn glazed tiles.

Downstairs, the city has nothing of a garrison town. Besançon is an architectural jewel. Between the banks of Doubs focused churches, fountains, mansions with styles, the 16th to the 18th century, are intermingled with harmony. The impression of unity of the city owes much to the stone from the nearby forest of Chailluz all buildings are constructed, a blue grey stone that illuminates ochre as soon as the Sun appears. On the modern Plaza of rightsman where meditates a Victor Hugo stone, that is, on the one hand, the hospital Saint-Jacques dating from the end of the 17th and its beautiful wrought iron gate, the chapel of the sanctuary, including the baroque interior is inspired Sainte-Agnès in Rome and, on the other, the Court Renaissance or even former convents "converted" over times.

A small Spanish air

While strolling through the narrow streets, simply lift the eyes. Balconies with pilasters, facades decorated with statues in their niche, garlands in Friesland, pediments carved, Doric columns framing the high Windows, all occur as incidentally the marks of a discreet sophistication. Behind some portals open vestibules leading to secret gardens. One surprise courtyards succeeding, often of a street, where intersect of magnificent short stairs wooden or wrought iron. An air of Spain, unexpected in the heart of the Jura. As these screens curved Windows of the ground floor recalling a faraway Andalusia. The "old Spanish Citadel," said Hugo...

Spanish, Besançon was on several occasions, with alliances

and Royal inheritance. But it was mostly on the road that ranged from the Netherlands to the South of Europe, between Germanic world and its infancy France Kingdom, a crossroads of influences, where were men and ideas. Encompassed in the 11th century in the Holy Empire, soon she conquers a status of free city, and the 13th century to the French conquest, it is administers itself. It has a Parliament and a University and of the representatives elected by districts sit in the communal hotel, the current Town Hall at bosses.

Its large first century was that of Charles-Quint. The emperor took as Councillor and keeper of the seals a Franc-Comtois, Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle, which was built a Palace evoking both Flanders and Florence in Besançon. In buildings that surround his court square with arcades is installed since little time Museum, a magical place that is the link between the 16th century of Copernicus, the appearance of the watch with the measurement of time, and the recent era where Besançon was the capital of watchmaking.

Granvelle, father and son, were patrons as well as politicians. Their thousands of books were bought back their descendants by a Benedictine who bequeathed them to the Abbey of Saint-Vincent with duty to make them available to the population under control of a magistrate of the city: it was the first public library...

Besançon is not a very good eye the French conquest that was losing its autonomy, but not the intellectual flowering of that had characterized the centuries already. She was known at the end of the 18th a second golden age. This cultured city is readily open to the universal philosophy of the enlightenment and the spirit of progress which characterizes the there is the highest percentage in France of subscribers to the "encyclopedia"! Besançon is then embellished by the construction of new richly decorated mansions and prestigious monuments, to start to any Lord all honour, by a new residence for great stewards of the Kingdom that draws Victor Louis before building the grand théâtre de Bordeaux, with columns, Italian cupola facade and Rotunda in the Park. Today is the Prefecture, considered one of the most beautiful of France.

The wonders of Ledoux

Another architect will illustrate in Besançon: Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. Unknown character, intimate of Diderot and Rousseau, was one of the leading spirits of the century of the Enlightenment, that the Department of the Doubs department in the spotlight this year on the 200th anniversary of his death. Architecture, Ledoux means working for progress. Where plans of the theatre of Besançon, he invents the orchestra pit to improve acoustics, also removes the lodges, awaken audiences of the floor and built the paradise to make culture accessible to all. But the great work of this Builder for which poverty is a "political mistake" and that believes in the virtues of the industry to resolve poverty, it is the admirable Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans, 20 kilometres from Besançon.

The King commissioned him to replace the Saltworks of Salins whose production is weakening, a new plant for the manufacture of salt, this "white gold". His big idea: bringing rich salt water rock of underground rivers of the area near lime forest that will be used for firewood. The factory, built in a semicircle in a solar plan, is designed to work in autarky countryside; 250 people must work and House, in a setting whose balance and beauty must promote the tranquillity and morality. Ancient and Palladian inspiration is superimposed on a symbolism that evokes clearly the Freemasonry lodges have a very strong influence. LeDoux planned to complete the saline by a city drawn in a circle. But, during the revolution, the architect who had attended the aristocracy was imprisoned in the Bastille and in prison he wrote his treatise of "ideal city". The saline served a century, and was long left abandoned. Rehabilitated today, it is listed in the Unesco World Heritage and tends to open up to the public.

The city was prodigal of these "utopians" who sought to advance society. She lives rise to Fourier, disciple of Ledoux, child of a family of industrial and "sons of the loop", Victor recital, and Proudhon. He passed his childhood across the Doubs, in a small house of the flying, the popular neighbourhood of 19th century neighbourhood, the large church of the Magdalen he was child choir. Flying was a wine off the walls village turned into a district of craftsmen in the middle ages. This is where that was entered when the revolution Protestant refugees from the Swiss County of Neufchâtel fleeing the authority of Frederick of Prussia, bringing with them their expertise in watchmaking.

This picturesque part of Besançon was recently rehabilitated. The edge of the river which was built under Napoleon III a small synagogue in Moorish style, is a view on the Vauban dock and the magnificent alignment reflected by the water of its 17th buildings.

In addition to its remarkable five museums and its historical heritage, Besançon is a fresh city to live among its hills. Can discover or rediscover it in all seasons.