page_title: History of Avignon
section_title: From the French Revolution to the end of the 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Avignon / From the French Revolution to the end of the 19th century
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Boote in Avignon um 1840. Stich von E. Brandard nach einer Zeichnung von T. Allom.English: Avignon boat scene, around 1840. Drawing by T. Allom, engraving by E. Brandard.Français&#160;: Bateaux à Avignon. Dessin de T. Allom, gravure de E. Brandard.
context_page_description: The following is a history of Avignon, France.
context_section_description: On 12 September 1791 the National Constituent Assembly voted for the annexation of Avignon and the reunion of Comtat Venaissin with the kingdom of France following a referendum submitted to the inhabitants of the Comtat.
  On the night of 16 to 17 October 1791, after the lynching by a mob of the secretary-clerk of the commune who was wrongly suspected of wanting to seize church property, the event called the Massacres of La Glacière took place, when 60 people were summarily executed and thrown into the dungeon of the tower on the Palais des Papes.
  On 7 July 1793 federalist insurgents under General Rousselet entered Avignon. During their passage along the Durance to retake the city by troops from Marseilles one person was killed: Joseph Agricol Viala. On 25 July General Carteaux appeared before the city and it was abandoned the next day by the troops of General Rousselet as a result of a misinterpretation of orders from Marseille.
  On 25 June 1793 Avignon and Comtat-Venaissin were integrated along with the former principality of Orange to form the present department of Vaucluse with Avignon as its capital. This was confirmed on 19 February 1797 by the Treaty of Tolentino in which Article 5 definitively sanctioned the annexation stating that:
  "The Pope renounces, purely and simply, all the rights to which he might lay claim over the city and territory of Avignon, and the Comtat Venaissin and its dependencies, and transfers and makes over the said rights to the French Republic."
  On 1 October 1795 Alexandre Mottard de Lestang, a Knight, captured the town for the royalists with a troop of 10,000 men. The mission representative Boursault retook the city and had Lestang shot.
  Before the French Revolution Avignon had as suffragan sees Carpentras, Vaison and Cavaillon, which were united by the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801 to Avignon, together with the Diocese of Apt, a suffragan of Aix-en-Provence. However, at that same time Avignon was reduced to the rank of a bishopric and was made a suffragan see of Aix.
  On 30 May 1814 the French annexation of Avignon was recognized by the Pope. Ercole Consalvi made an ineffectual protest at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 but Avignon was never restored to the Holy See. In 1815, Bonapartist Marshal Guillaume Marie Anne Brune was assassinated by adherents of the royalist party during the White Terror. The murder took place in the former Hotel du Palais Royal that was located Place Crillon in front of today's Hotel d'Europe.
  In the years 1820-1830 Villeneuve was forced to yield part of its territory to Avignon: the part called the Île de la Barthelasse.
  The Archdiocese of Avignon was re-established in 1822, receiving as suffragan sees the Diocese of Viviers, Valence: (formerly under Lyon), Nîmes, and Montpellier (formerly under Toulouse).
  On 18 October 1847 the Avignon - Marseille railway line was opened by the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Marseille à Avignon (Marseille to Avignon Railway Company). In 1860 the current Avignon Centre railway station was built. In November 1898 the tramway network of the Compagnie des Tramways Électriques d'Avignon (Electric Tramways Company of Avignon) was opened to replace the old company of horse-drawn transport.
  During the coup of 2 December 1851 the people of Avignon, with Alphonse Gent, tried to oppose it.
  In 1856 a major flood on the Durance river flooded Avignon.
caption: Boats at Avignon (drawing by T. Allom, engraved by E. Brandard).
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