Laval, town (1990 pop. 53,478), capital of Mayenne dept., NW France, in Maine. It has been noted for its linen products since the 14th cent. Among its other industrial products are textiles, shoes, furniture, and electronics. It was founded in the 9th cent. Laval was a center of the Chouans in the French Revolution.
Laval
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Coordinates: 48°04′24″N 0°46′08″W / 48.0733333333°N 0.768888888889°W
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Commune of Laval |
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| Location | |
  Laval, Mayenne
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| Administration | |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Region | Pays de la Loire |
| Department | Mayenne |
| Arrondissement | Laval |
| Canton | 5 cantons |
| Mayor | Guillaume Garot (PS) (2008–2014) |
| Statistics | |
| Elevation | 42–122 m (140–400 ft) (avg. 70 m/230 ft) |
| Land area1 | 34.2 km2 (13.2 sq mi) |
| Population2 | 51,233 (2006) |
| - Density | 1,498 /km² (3,880 /sq mi) |
| Miscellaneous | |
| INSEE/Postal code | 53130/ 53000 |
| 1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. | |
| 2 Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once. | |
Laval is a commune in the Mayenne department in north-western France.
It lies on the threshold of Brittany and on the border between Normandy and Anjou. Its citizens are called Lavallois.
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Geography
Laval is located on the River Mayenne in the région called the Pays de la Loire in north-west central France (around the Loire Valley). It is the centre of an urban area of about 100,000 inhabitants.
Economy
The town is historically a manufacturer of fine linens. There are foundries. Laval is also home of the Laval and Mayenne Technology Park where firms working in electronics, computing and peripherals, food technology, veterinary pharmaceuticals, virtual reality, audiovisual productions, patents, etc., marketing and a resource centre are all to be found in modern buildings.
It is also an important center for milk industries (cheeses, UHT milk, yoghurt).
There is a market in the town centre every Tuesday and Saturday, held near the Palais de Justice.
Administration
Cantons
Laval is the main town of five cantons:
- The canton of Laval-Est is composed of part of Laval plus the commune of Entrammes (11,732 inhabitants);
- The canton de Laval-Nord-Est is composed of part of Laval and the communes of Changé, Saint-Germain-le-Fouilloux et Saint-Jean-sur-Mayenne (14,687 inhabitants);
- The canton of Laval-Nord-Ouest is composed of part of Laval (12,022 inhabitants);
- The canton of Laval-Saint-Nicolas is composed of part of Laval (8,460 inhabitants);
- The canton of Laval-Sud-Ouest is composed of part of Laval (12,668 inhabitants).
Agglomeration
The urban area of Laval Agglomération covers 20 communes.
Mayors of Laval
The following are the latest changes.
- François d'Aubert (1995-2004) (Left the mayoralty on entering the Ministry for Research)
- Roland Houdiard (2004-2005)
- François d'Aubert (2005-2008) (Returned as mayor on account of a change of government)
- Guillaume Garot (since 2008)
History
The lords of Laval are of a dynasty which has made a mark in the history of France. The "Grande Rue" was for several centuries one of the principal ways into Brittany.
After the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453), during which the town had been taken and re-taken by one army and another, the fifteenth century marked a new period of expansion. The walls were completed by the addition of a powerful artillery fort in an innovative design, the Tour Renaise. The lords, governors of Brittany, which country's independence was formally ended in 1491, spent a large sum on building a prestigious hall near the keep of their castle. They built a grand vault for the interment of the lordly family in the Minster of St. Tugal. The town of timber framed buildings was partially rebuilt. The urban aristocracy built elegant houses and turrets in the upper town around the Rue des Cheveaux. The Abbots of Clermont preferred to assert their rank with carved decoration on panels (consoles) set between the members of the timber framing of their grand town house and in the manner of a cornice below the eves guttering.
During the Second Republic, the Second Empire and the early Third Republic the city saw its zenith. During this period a number of linen factories and foundries sprung up in the city and it began to thrive economically. On November 21, 1871, the Samelaine Monument was inaugurated to remind the Lavallois of their historic feats. The Museum for the Fine Arts and Sciences was completed in 1897 at the Herce Place next to it the Perrines, the terraced gardens and scenic promenade overlooking the city.
Between 1914 to 1918, with the Great War, many sons of the city died on the battle fields of Flanders to defend their home country against the onslaught by the Imperial German army, stalling the development of the city. In the period between 1918-1939 a new upper class emerged in the city, until in 1940 when the Democratic France was raided by the forces of Nazi Germany and Laval was occupied by the German Army. During the time of occupation the city suffered severe hardship, with Laval's Jewish inhabitants being deported to Death camps and many Lavallois taken Prisoner of War, having to work partially under slave-like conditions in the War Industries of Nazi Germany. The German occupation forces of Laval proved to be utmost brutal, with arbitrary internments, torture and executions of Laval's citizens being almost a daily occurrence. With its vicinity to the English Channel, however, there was the horizon of Liberty on the other side of the Channel, where the Free French Government under General Charles de Gaulle prepared the liberation of France. With the freedom of their city in mind, the French Resistance Movement of Laval, thus, inflicted on several occasions serious casualties on the German occupiers facilitating the liberation of France by the Allied Forces on D-Day. The German occupation was terminated in the afternoon of August 6, 1944, when the U.S. Third Army under General George S. Patton liberated Laval for good.
Main sights
- Medieval Château de Laval (tower and building)
- Significant remains of the town walls and of a town gate. The town came together around the foundation of the castle in 1020 in its position in the march, the border lands between France and Brittany. It was built for Guy I of Dénéré who became a vassal of the Count of Maine. at the end of the twelfth century, local troubles combined with the town's position on the road into Brittany led the lord of Laval to build a great round keep which still has its original hoarding. At first the town was composed of scattered settlements such as the bourg cheverel and the bourg hersent. However, from the time of the new castle, it grew rapidly. It was enclosed in ramparts from the thirteenth century. There were five gates in the walls of which the sole one remaining is the porte Beucheresse or gate of the woodcutters.
- Cathedral of the Trinity (La Trinité). Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque characteristically, it has rich wall paintings and figurative stone carving but the general architectural style of the buildings is restrained. In Laval, that architectural sobriety was retained through the early Gothic period. The painting can be seen well in the calendars in Notre-Dame de Pritz, Saint-Martin, and Saint-Pierre-le-Potier. The architecture shows best at Grenoux, and Avesnières; while the stone carving is well displayed in the zoomorphic column capitals at Avesnières. The early Gothic, what in England would be called Early English but in Laval is Angevin Gothic, is to be seen in la Trinité. Here we are close to Anjou, the home of the Angevin kings of England beginning with Henry II. In the Cathedral, on the effigy tomb of the bishop Louis Bougaud (1888), the following inscription may be read:
- HEIC IN PACE QVIE SCIT
- LUDOVICVS BOVGAVD EPISCOPUS VALLEGVIDONENSIS DECESSIT VII IDVS NOVEMB AN MDCCCLXXXVIII (1888)
- ANNOS NATVS LXV.M.V.III.D.VII
- VIVAS IN DEO
- The Jardin botanique de la Perrine, a botanical garden and park
Arts
The town has obtained the label Ville d'Art et d'Histoire from the fact of its rich heritage.
As a response to the Douanier Rousseau's having been born in Laval, there is a biennial festival of naive art, the Biennale Internationale d'Art naïf de Laval. It seeks to explore the course of modern primitivism. Pictures are brought from all round Europe.
Sport
- Stade Lavallois, football team
Notable people
- Jean Bauer, maker of stringed musical instruments.
- Francis Bayer du Kern, Breton poet
- André Bellesort, writer
- Alain Gerbault, sailor
- Jean-Marie Guyau, writer and philosopher
- Géo Ham, illustrator and designer
- Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), writer (birthplace)
- Charles Landelle, painter
- François de Laval (1623-1708), first bishop of Quebec (birthplace)
- Louis Lemercier de Neuville, dramatic author and puppeteer
- Prosper Mortou, musician
- Ambroise Paré, medical doctor
- François Pédron, writer
- François Pyrard, sailor
- Pascal Rannou, writer
- Jean-Yves Reuzeau, writer
- Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), known as le Douanier, painter (birthplace)
- Robert Tatin, artist
- Augustine Tuillerie, alias G.Bruno, writer
- Grégory Bourillon, football player
Twinnings
Laval is twinned with:
Boston, United Kingdom. An agreement dating formally from June 1958.
Chalkidiki, Greece.
Gandia, Spain
Garango, Burkina Faso
Laval, Canada
Mettmann, Germany. The source of the Bergian Christmas market organised in 2004
Vătava, Romania
Sources
- Michel Dloussky, Invasions allemandes et pénurie de monnaie en Mayenne, in La Mayenne : archéologie, histoire, 1994, N° 17, p. 159-193.
- Michel Dloussky, L’été 1944 en Mayenne, in L’Oribus, 1994, N° 36, p. 74, and N° 37, p. 38-60.
- Denis Glemain, Le Cinéma en Mayenne sous l’Occupation (1940-1944), Multigraphié, 1998, p. 166 , Mémoire de Maîtrise, University of Nantes.
- Jean Grangeot, Laval, Rennes, Ouest-France, 1977.
- Pierre Le Baud, Histoire de Bretagne avec les Chroniques des maisons de Laval et de Vitré, Paris, 1638.
- Jules Marcheteau, La libération de Laval par les Américains, in L'Oribus, 1988, N° 26, p. 22-33.
- Gaston Pavard, Chronique des années sombres (années 1939-1945), in L'Oribus, 1996, N° 40 and 42, p. 49-71.
- Francis Robin, La Mayenne sous l’Occupation : déportations, internements, fusillades, Laval, Imprimerie Administrative, 1966, p. 32.
- Malcolm Walsby, The Counts of Laval: Culture, Patronage and Religion in Fifteenth and Sixteenth-Century France Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007
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