first called Altionos, the town was afterwards known as Caesarodunum. The Romans removed the town from the hill where it originally stood to the plain on the left bank of the river. Behind the present cathedral, remains of the amphitheatre (443 ft. in length by 394 in breadth) built towards the end of the 2nd century might formerly be seen. Tours became Christian about 250 through the preaching of Gatien, who founded the bishopric. The first cathedral was built a hundred years later by St Litorius. The bishopric became an archbishopric when Gratian made Tours the capital of Lugdunensis Tertia though the bishops did not adopt the title of archbishop till the 9th century. About the beginning of the 5th century the official name of Caesarodunum was changed for that of Civitas Turonorum. St Martin, the great apostle of the Gauls, was bishop of Tours in the 4th century, and he was buried in a suburb which soon became as important as the town itself from the number of pilgrims who flocked to his tomb. Towards the end of the 4th century, apprehensive of barbarian invasion, the inhabitants pulled down some of their earlier buildings in order' to raise a fortified wall, the course of which can still be traced in places. Their advanced fort of Larcay still overlooks the valley of the Cher. Affiliated to the Armorican confederation in 435, the town did not fall to the Visigoths till 473, and the new masters were always hated. It became part of the Frankish dominions under Clovis, who, in consideration of the help afforded by St Martin, presented the church with rich gifts out of the spoils taken from Alaric, confirmed and extended its right of sanctuary, and accepted for himself and his successors the title of canon of St Martin. At the end of the 6th century the bishopric was held by St Gregory of Tours. Tours grew rapidly in prosperity under the Merovingians, but abuse of the right of sanctuary led to great disorder, and the church itself became a hotbed of crime. Charlemagne re-established discipline in the disorganized monastery and set over it the learned Alcuin, who established at Tours one of the oldest public schools of Christian philosophy and theology. The arts flourished at Tours in the middle ages and the town was the centre of the Poitevin Romanesque school of architecture. The abbey was made into a collegiate church in the 11th century, and was for a time affiliated to Cluny, but soon came under the direct rule of Rome, and for long had bishops of its own. The suburb in which the monastery was situated became as important as Tours itself under the name of Martinopolis. The Normans, attracted by its riches, pillaged it in 853 and 903. Strong walls were erected from 906 to 910, and the name was changed to that of Châteauneuf. Philip Augustus sanctioned the communal privileges which the inhabitants forced from the canons of St Martin and the innumerable offerings of princes, lords and pilgrims maintained the prosperity of the town all through the middle ages. A 13th-century writer speaks with enthusiasm of the wealth and luxury of the inhabitants of Châteauneuf, of the beauty and chastity of the women and of the rich shrine of the saint. In the 14th century Tours was united to Châteauneuf within a common wall, of which a round tower, the Tour de Guise, remains, and both towns were put under the same administration. The numerous and long-continued visits of Charles VII., Louis XI., who established the silk-industry, and Charles VIII. during the 15th century favoured the commerce and industry of the town, then peopled by 75,000 inhabitants. In the 15th and 16th centuries the presence of Jean Fouquet the painter of Michel Colomb and the brothers Juste the sculptors, enhanced the fame of the town in the sphere of art. In 1562 Tours suffered from the violence of both Protestants and Catholics, and enjoyed no real security till after the pact entered into at Plessis-lès-Tours between Henry III. and Henry of Navarre in 1589. In the 17th and 18th centuries Tours was the capital of the government of Touraine. Its manufactures, of which silk weaving was the chief, suffered from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). In 1772 its mint, whence were issued the “livres” of Tours (librae Turonenses) was suppressed. During the Revolution the town formed a base of operations of the Republicans against the Vendeans. In 1870 it was for a time the seat of the delegation of the government of national defence. In 187 1 it was occupied by the Germans from the 10th of January to the 8th of March.
See P. Vitry, Tours et les châteaux de Touraine (Paris, 1905); E. Giraudet, Histoire de la ville de Tours (Tours, 1873); Les Artistes tourangeaux (Tours, 1885).
TOURVILLE, ANNE-HILARION DE COTENTIN (or Costantin), Comte de (1642–1701), French admiral and marshal of France, was the son of Cesar de Cotentin, or Costantin, who held offices in the household of the king and of the prince of Condé. He is said to have been born at Tourville in Normandy, but was baptized in Paris on the 24th of November 1642, was commonly known as M. de Tourville, and was destined by his family to enter the Order of Malta. From the age of fourteen to the age of twenty-five, he served with the galleys of the Order. At that time the knights were still fighting the Barbary pirates of Algiers and Tunis. The young Anne-Hilarion is said to have been distinguished for courage. His life during these years, however, is little known. The supposed Memoirs bearing his name were published by the Abbé de Magron in the 18th century and belong to the large class of historical romances which professed to be biographies or autobiographies. In 1667 he was back in France, and was incorporated in the corps of officers of the French Royal navy which Louis XIV. was then raising from the prostration into which it had fallen during his minority. The positions of French naval officer and knight of Malta were not incompatible. Many men held both. The usual practice was that they did not take the full vows till they were in middle life, and had reached the age when they were entitled to hold one of the great offices. Until then they were free to marry, on condition of renouncing all claim to the chief places. As Anne-Hilarion de Cotentin married a wealthy widow, the marquise de Popeliniere, in 1689 at which time he was made count of Tourville, he severed his connexion with the Order. Nor does he appear to have served with it at all after his return to France in 1667. He was at first employed in cruising against the Barbary pirates and the Turks. In the expedition sent against Crete in 1668–69 under command of the Duc de Beaufort he had command of the “Croissant” (44). The Duc de Beaufort was killed, and the expedition was a failure. When the war with Holland in which France and England acted as allies began in 1670, Tourville commanded the “Page” (50), in the squadron of the comte d’Estrees (1624–1707) sent to co-operate with the duke of York. He was present at the battle of Solebay (June 7, 1672), and in the action on the coast of Holland in the following year, when Prince Rupert commanded the English fleet. When England withdrew from the alliance, the scene of the naval war was transferred to the Mediterranean, where Holland was co-operating with the Spaniards. Tourville served under Abraham Duquesne in his battles with De Ruyter. He particularly distinguished himself at the battle of Palermo on the 2nd of June 1676. By this time he was known as one of the best officers in the service of King Louis XIV. Unlike many employed by the king to command his ships in the earlier part of his reign, Tourville was a seaman. He had the reputation of being able to do all the work required in a ship, and he had made a study of naval warfare. The great treatise on naval tactics afterwards published under the name of his secretary, the Jesuit Hoste or l’Hoste, was understood to have been inspired by him. In 1683 he was chef d’escadre—rear admiral—with Duquesne in operations against the Barbary pirates, and he continued on that service with D’Estrées. By 1689 he had been promoted lieutenant-general des armees navales, and was named vice-admiral du Levant or of the East. In June of that year he took up the commandership-in-chief of the French naval forces in the war against England and her continental allies which had begun in the previous year. From this time till the failure of his resources compelled King Louis XIV. to withdraw his fleets from the sea, Tourville continued to command the naval war in the Channel and the Atlantic. His conduct and example during this period were the source of the system of manoeuvring to gain an advantage by some method
