Moulins Favorite Tips by Klod5

Le grenier à Blé

Favorite thing: Between Limagne and Valley of Allier, in a country bocager and hilly, Moulins grew on the strands to ally it, one of the last wild rivers of Europe.
The proximity of the river determined the development of the city whose name evokes the numerous mills established on the banks to ally it.
Chosen in the XVth century by the dukes of Bourbon like capital of their duchy, Moulins benefits, until its uniting with kingdom of France in 1531, of a contribution cultural and artistic of first importance so much in the domain of the painting (triptych of the master of Moulins) that in the one of the architecture (pavilion Anne de Beaujeu where expresses itself since the end of the XVth century the aesthetics of the Renaissance).
The bourgeois home facades and aristocratic hotels to the pink and black brick equipment that form regular faces of rafters and lozenges, give to the city a strong personality.

L'hôtel Moret (ou hôtel Demoret)

Favorite thing: The Moret hotel (or Demoret hotel) is located no far from the town hall in top of the street to ally, it is crossed by an alley (a rouetton). The official tablet presents it thus... " The Demoret hotel has been built in 1440 by Guillaume Cadier, president of the accounts of the Duchy of the Bourbonnais. It is the most former lodgings of the city (...)"

La chapelle de la Visitation

Favorite thing: Among the numerous convents of Moulins, the one of the Visitation, constructed to the site of the Banville high school, is without dispute one of the most known. One of the founders, in 1616, is Ste-Jeanne de Chantal (she died in Moulins in 1641), grandmother of Mrs. of Sévigné. Of the first establishment, it doesn't remain anything, when Mrs. Montmorency makes rebuild the chapel and the choir of the nuns, to shelter his husband's tomb, headless in Toulouse in 1632. She orders in Paris a mausoleum, of which the plans of execution will make themselves in the shop of the brothers Anguier. This monument of marble, of pure Florentine style, will arrive in Moulins by fluvial way. She makes to achieve also, by painter Vuibert, the ceiling paints the choir of the nuns, representing scenes of the the Virgin's life.

Oldest streets

Favorite thing: In the XVth century, the civil servants of the duchy, as well as people of justice had invested the Rue du Chastel and the Place de l'Ancien Palais that the houses of the proclamation edged and where the Duke sold his wine in the month of August. One of these houses, rebuilt in the XVIIth century, shelters today the Musée de la Société d'Emulation du Bourbonnais. 3 rue de l'Ancien Palais, you will discover a half-timbered house, composed of stones and flaps of wood, dating the XVth century. The urban landscape of Moulins consists of several houses to flaps of wood of the end of the XVth century. Situated to the angle of two streets, the verticality of this one is accentuated by the gable protected by the structure in wood. Otherwise, a sculpted decor is present in the different levels of elevation of this house. The most considerable element is a frieze of the XVIth century, composed of métopes and triglyphes. The métopes is decorated of motives evoking the ancient animal sacrifice : the bucranes (skulls of bovines) alternate with patens (containers intended to receive the blood of the animals victims). The motives of this frieze were distributed in different treaties of architecture. This house belonged in Lorin of the Bars, ducal officer and argentier of Duke Charles 1st of Bourbon.

Pavillon Anne de Beaujeu

Favorite thing: This pavilion has been built in the XVth century (1497-1503) for duchess Anne of Beaujeu (daugther of king Louis XI). It is the 1st example of a building of style Renaissance Italienne constructed in France. Its facade decorated of a tower-porch, ornament himself of a gallery at arcade where coast themselves kite, thistles, armoiries, belt " Hope ", loving emblems of the Dukes,. This building shelters today the Museum of art and archeology. In 1851, Colonel Laussédat, officer of the Genius, original of Moulins, made the summary of this monument in plan, while using the process of the lucid room. These were the head of the photogrammétrie, technique that permits to reconstitute the shape, the measurements and the position of an object from its perspectives, recorded photographically.

La Mal-Coiffée

Favorite thing: This tower was constructed at the end of the XIVth century, under the reign of the Duke Louis II, to the site presumed of the former dungeon of the Castle. One day, the duke who contemplated it exclaimed: " It is a beautiful tower, but it is badly combed (mal coiffée)! . This nickname had to remain him through the centuries. Initially library of the residence of the Dukes, then jail until 1984, it served to the occupant of detention place during World War II. This building, that measures 45m of top on a foundation of 15m on 20m, include 7 levels (composed each of 2 rooms) above soil and 2 levels below.

The cathedral Notre-Dame

Favorite thing: Collegiate to the origin, the Cathedral of Moulins (nave, roadside and facade) has been built then from 1852 by architects J.B Lassus Millet, under the impulse of Eminence of Dreux-Breze. These works are going to upset the whole sector, and to provoke the disappearance of the limit is from the Castle: suppression of the bodies of buildings closing the big and the small court. The modern part, neo-Gothic style being like the buildings of the first half of the XIIIth century is achieved in white stones of Chauvigny, alternate with the andésite of Volvic. The old part had, as for it, been constructed with unique materials. Above the balustrades that crown the lateral walls, stand up of singular faces representing some peasant bourbonnais in regional costumes and animals. The inside of the cathedral contains the big Merklin organ (1880) and the famous Triptych of the Mr. of Moulins (about 1500).

Le Jaquemart

Favorite thing: Symbol of the liberties and the exemption of the bourgeoises, acquired by the charter of 1232, this pink sandstone belfry, rising to 45 meters, has been built from 1451 to 1455. At the time, an articulate bellringer, called Jacquemart hit the hours. Two fires had to ravage the monument: one in 1655, the other, for the 1st birthday of the victory in 1946, destroyed the whole campanile. The automatons, to the number of 4 since the XVIIè century, hammer the bells every 15 minutes: parents sound the hours, the children the quarters. They have been redone in copper in 1947. Coming with Jacquemart, Jacquette the mother, Jacqueline and Jacquelin the children, measure 1,80m and 1m of height respectively.

Old houses

Favorite thing: "Bien souvent je revois sous mes paupières closes
La nuit, mon vieux Moulins, bâti de briques roses,
Ses cours tout embaumés par l'odeur du tilleul,
Son vieux pont de granit bâti par mon aïeul"

Théodore de Banville - Stalactites - 1849

Fondest memory:
" Well often I review under my enclosed lids
The night, my old Moulins, built of pink bricks,
His/her/its courses quite embalmed by the odor of the lime,
His/her/its old bridge of granite built by my ancestor "

Theodore of Banville - Stalactites - 1849

The town

Favorite thing: Prefecture to the depatment of Allier, Moulins is the political and administrative center of the department. City of art and history, it offers a pleasant life setting, close to the nature and propose numerous sporty and cultural activities.

Fondest memory: Moulins is in the center of an economic cloth in full boom: modern infrastructures in the domains agricultural-food, logistical or cultural as the National Center of the Stage Costume, valorization of the tourism... as many assets in favor of the welcome of the new newcomers.