Alès

Alès is a commune and subprefecture in the Gard department in the Occitania region in Southern France. Until 1926, it was officially known as Alais.

Geography

Alès lies north-northwest of Nîmes, on the left bank of the river Gardon d'Alès, which half surrounds it. It is located at the foot of the Cévennes, near the Cévennes National Park. Alès station has rail connections to Nîmes, Mende and Clermont-Ferrand.

Alès may be the modern successor of Arisitum, where, in about 570, Sigebert, King of Austrasia, created a bishopric. In his campaign against the Visigoths, the Merovingian king Theudebert I conquered part of the territory of the Diocese of Nîmes. His later successor Sigebert set up the new diocese, comprising fifteen parishes in the area controlled by the Franks, which included a number of towns to the north of the Cevenne: Alès, Le Vigan, Arre, Arrigas, Meyrueis, Saint-Jean-du-Gard, Anduze, and Vissec. The diocese disappeared in the 8th century with the conquest of the whole of Septimania by the Franks. No longer a residential bishopric, Arisitum is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.
After the Edict of Nantes, Alès was one of the places de sûreté given to the Huguenots. Louis XIII took back the town in 1629, and the Peace of Alès, signed on 29 June of that year, suppressed the political privileges of the Protestants, while continuing to guarantee toleration.
At the request of Louis XIV, a see was again created at Alais by Pope Innocent XII, in 1694. The future Cardinal de Bausset, Bossuet's biographer, was Bishop of Alais from 1784 to 1790. It was suppressed after the French Revolution, and its territory was divided between the diocese of Avignon and the diocese of Mende. The Hôtel de Ville was completed in 1755.

Historically, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition:

Louis Pasteur did his research on the silkworm disease at Alès, and the town dedicated a bust to his memory. There is also a statue of the chemist J.B. Dumas. Alphonse Daudet wrote his semi-autobiographical novel "Le Petit Chose" while teaching at the Collège of Alès.

Alès is twinned with: