DIJON owes its origins to its
strategic position in Celtic times
on the tin merchants' route from
Britain up the Seine and across the
Alps to the Adriatic. It became the
capital of the dukes of Burgundy in
around 1000 AD, but its golden age
occurred in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries under the
auspices of dukes Philippe le Hardi
(the Bold), who as a boy had fought
the English at Poitiers and been
taken prisoner, Jean sans Peur (the
Fearless), Philippe le Bon (the
Good), who sold Joan of Arc to the
English, and Charles le Téméraire
(the Bold). They used their
tremendous wealth and power -
especially their control of
Flanders, the dominant manufacturing
region of the age - to make Dijon
one of the greatest centres of art,
learning and science in Europe. It
lost its capital status on
incorporation into the kingdom of
France in 1477, but has remained one
of the country's pre-eminent
provincial cities, especially since
the rail and industrial booms of the
mid-nineteenth century. Today, it is
smart, modern and young, especially
when the students are around.
The City
of Dijon
The rue de la Liberté forms the
major east-west axis of the town,
running from the wide, attractive
place Darcy and the
eighteenth-century triumphal arch of
Porte Guillaume , once a city gate,
past the palace of...
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