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Montpellier
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Montpellier is one of the few cities in France that does not have a Roman background. In the early Middle Ages the nearby episcopal town of Maguelone was the major settlement in the area, but raids by pirates probably encouraged settlement a little further inland. The city was founded in the 8th century but came to prominence in the 10th century as a trading centre under the rule of the counts of Toulouse. It became a possession of the kings of Aragon by the marriage of Peter II of Aragon with Mary of Montpellier. James III of Majorca sold the city to the French king Philip VI to raise funds for his ongoing struggle with Peter IV of Aragon.
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Today Montpellier is a bustling metropolis with a population of 380,000, one of southern France's fastest-growing cities, thanks to an influx of new immigrants. Although some suburbs are dreary, the city has a handsome core, with tree-flanked promenades, broad avenues, and historic monuments. Students make up a quarter of the population, giving the city a lively feel. In recent years, many high-tech corporations, including IBM, have opened offices in Montpellier.
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True, Montpellier isn’t as old as nearby Nîmes, but it does have a rich past dating back to medieval times when it started out as a farm. The settlement soon swelled with the arrival of merchants importing and selling spices. Business boomed and the town grew to become second only to Paris by the late 1200s. A university was founded at this time attracting students from all over Europe. However, much of Montpellier’s early successes were wiped out by the Reformation and around 1600 the city had stagnated. Leftist traditions have always been strong in Montpellier – the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, was born in the university here.
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Montpellier has a comprehensive public bus system. Many buses leave from stops in front of the train station. Buses use the same tickets as the tram; you can purchase tickets from the automatic machines located at each tram stop, or you may purchase tickets from the driver. If you purchase a ticket from a machine, be sure to validate it in the machine when boarding. One-way tickets cost 1.40 euro and can be reused for transfers up to one hour from the first validation. Round-trip (aller-retour) tickets are 2.30.
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Montpellier first rose into importance after the destruction of Maguelonne by Charles Martel in 737. In the Toth century it consisted of two portions, Montpellier and Montpellieret, held from the bishops of Maguelonne by the family of Guilhem. The Guilhems were succeeded, through marriage, by the house of Aragon, a member of which in 1349 sold his rights to Philip of Valois, Montpellieret having already in 1 292 been ceded to the Crown by the bishops. In 1141 Montpellier acquired a charter afterwards materially extended, and the same century saw the rise of its school of medicine. Several of the ablest teachers of that school were members of an important Jewish colony established in the town. It had a school of law in 1160, and a university was founded by Pope Nicholas IV.
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As early as forty years ago, Montpellier could hardly have been described as dynamic. Its residents seemed to spend most of their time outside the city, on the beaches of the Mediterranean. But in the early 1960s, Montpellier was shaken up by the arrival of nearly 15,000 pieds-noirs, the Algerian-born members of France’s colonial community in Algeria. When these energetic and enterprising individuals had to leave Algeria to escape persecution during that country’s war of independence, they brought the energy of northern Africa into the sleepy south of France. Used to the hussle and bustle of Arab markets, they were first-class traders whose businesses began to take over the region’s established ones. That soon got the relaxed Montpellierain to stir.
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