Beauvais’ history and its surroundings

Beauvais is a town in northern France located near Paris, 67 kilometers drive from the French capital. It hosts the Beauvais-Tillé airport, with daily flights to destinations such as London, Dublin or Marrakech. This part of the Oise was one of the most important cities of the Gallic kingdom. The name Beauvais is, for its part, ready for discussion. Historians designate several Latin names at the origin of this city, among which we have: Civitas Bellovacorum, Caesaromagus, Belvacum, Bellovacum. The city has seen the birth of Vincent de Beauvais, Villiers de l'Ile-Adam, Lenglet-Dufresnoy, and other personalities who have marked the history of this city and of the whole of France. Beauvais has always been one of the most important places of the Gaule. Previously the city of Beauval found it possible to bring to light the remains of the Palaeolithic and the Bronze Age. The main place of arms of the Bellovaques, it had succumbed towards the year 57 before the Christian era. Before the Roman conquest, this city was the capital of the Bellovaques tribe, one of the most considerable tribes of Gaul, hence its importance for the Gallic kingdom. The Bellovaques marked the history of the country by offering a resistance of more than 10 years against the Romans. This tribe laid down arms at the foot of the Roman emperor in 46 BC. This city was one of the forty-nine cities which in the 4th and 5th centuries formed the great confederation of the Bagaudes to resist the abuses of authority of imperial Rome. At the present location of the city, the very site of Beauvais counted a city with temples, a theater and arenas. At one point in the Roman occupation (probably at the beginning), Beauvais received the name Caesaromagus, meaning the castle of Caesar, or Caesar’s palace in English. The true name of Beauvais comes Bellovaques, modified in the form Belvacus, or Belvagus, hence the final name of Beauvais. On the impulse of the Emperor Constantine, who encouraged the population to convert to the Catholic religion during the medieval period, Beauvais saw the birth of a most important religious tradition. A mendicant convent has risen in the east of the city, in the middle of a working-class neighborhood. Initially deprived of goods, they gradually enrich themselves and play a non-negligible role in the city of Beauvais. Beauvais is one of the French cities that have adopted the textile industry. Beauvais became a world-renowned exporter of cloth and was to develop the trade in woolen fabrics and the manufacture of exported sheets. This industry is beginning to see its decline in the advent of the Industrial Revolution. It is one of the localities which received the railway only very late. During the Second World War, Beauvais found the role of hospital city that it had known between 1914 and 1918. But, at the beginning of June 1940, the city was attacked by the Luftwaffe, whose bombs light a gigantic fire. Two-thirds of the city is in flames, half of the houses destroyed. The martyr city, which has lost almost all the vestiges of its past. It was during this black period between the two wars. The reconstruction consisted in highlighting a local architecture whose houses were destroyed to 80%. It was necessary to avoid imagining a new urban development of 1940. During years of reconstruction, it was necessary to rebuild public buildings, hospitals and educational establishments. The redevelopment plans will improve urban traffic in the region. But it was not until the 1960s that the reconstruction was really completed, so that new cities were built on the plateaus, and new industries restored dynamism to the city.