Place:Digne-les-Bains, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France

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Digne-les-Bains (; Occitan: Dinha dei Banhs), or simply and historically Digne (Dinha in the classical norm or Digno in the Mistralian norm), is the prefecture of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of Southeastern France. As of 2018, the commune had a population of 16,333. Its inhabitants are called Dignois (masculine) and Dignoises (feminine).

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Prehistory and antiquity

Digne-les-Bains dates back to the Neolithic era. The presence of three rivers, the Bléone, the Mardaric, and the Eaux-Chaudes, made the place ideal for human settlement. Before the Roman conquest, it was the capital of the Bodiontici (or Brodiontii), whose name is found on the Tropaeum Alpium at La Turbie. The town then became a Roman town named Dinia in the 1st century, and became a frequent commercial stop during the Roman era. Following the Romans, it was known as Digna by 780,^[1] and was appreciated for its thermal waters.

There are a few rural settlements near to the town, such as the Hôtelleries de Gaubert, southeast of the town, where the excavated building was occupied from the beginning of the 1st century to the end of the 4th century. In this area, at the foot of Le Cousson, the soil has been cultivated continuously, from antiquity right up to the recent reforestation.

Middle Ages

Two separate districts were formed: The town and the city. The town, an ancient site, was surrounded with the castrum of the episcopal chateau built on the Rock. The two neighbourhoods functioned as two independent entities from each other and from their inception. The town remained under the supervision of the provost of the chapter while the city or castrum was of the bishop. The arrival of the Angevins at the head of the County of Provence in 1246 accelerated the recovery process of the comital rights usurped during the previous period by lay or ecclesiastical lords.

The return of the comtal power in the city led to a change in the relationship between local authorities and community: In 1260, the city of Digne was given the right to appoint cominaux responsible for ensuring the management of the city. The consolidation of the two sites was done administratively in 1385 by institutional trustees, replacing the cominaux, responsible for representing both the city and the village. The institution evolved with administrative rationalisation at the beginning of the 15th century.^[2]

From 1475, preaching by Franciscans caused several murderous anti-Jewish riots.

Early Modern era

Like the rest of France, Digne was taken in the Wars of Religion. In 1562, the Huguenots broke into the cathedral, shredded the tables and smashed statues, removed relics and ornaments and burnt them with the choir on the forecourt. The town was attacked by Protestants in 1574. In 1575, it was the Church of Saint-Jérôme which was sacked.^[3] In the following years, the city remained under pressure. In 1579, the captain of Archal occupied the surrounding countryside.

In 1589, with the advent of Henry IV, the ultra-Catholics in the Catholic League controlled the town, until 1591. The same year, the town fell before the Royal armies of Lesdiguières. The cathedral, guarded by the defenders, was attacked, bombarded with catapults and then stormed. It is also during this period that the inhabitants seized the château of the bishops, on Le Rochas, destroying it to prevent it from falling into the hands of one party or another.^[4]

French Revolution and the First Empire

The news of the storming of the Bastille was welcomed, this event announced the end of royal arbitrariness and, perhaps, more profound changes in the organization of the France. Immediately after the arrival of the new, a great phenomenon of collective fear seized France, the fear of an aristocratic conspiracy wishing to recover their privileges. Rumors of troops in arms, devastating everything in their path, propagated at high speed, causing shots of weapons, the organization of militias and anti-aristocratic violence. This great fear, arrived in Seyne on 31 July and belonging to the current "fear of the Mâconnais", reached Digne and its region on 31 July 1789 the day before spreading to Riez, where it arrived during the day, and Moustiers and Castellane.

The city was established as the capital of the Basses-Alpes from March 1790, to the creation of the departments. The of Digne was founded in September 1790 (the second Department by seniority); it was affiliated with the Jacobins in June 1791, and became a relay of the club in the Department, accepting the affiliations of many clubs in the Basses-Alpes.^[5] It also received the request of affiliation of Carpentras. First called Bourgeois Alcove, it then took the name of Patriotic Club, then on 9 October 1792, Société des amis de la Constitution, de la Liberté, de l’Égalité [Society of friends of the Constitution, of freedom, of equality]. It established a committee of correspondence responsible for relations with other societies affiliated on 14 November 1792. On 10 and 11 January 1793, performed a descent from Marseilles, supported by the Marseille club-goers with weapons. He took revenge because he was unable to obtain the post of attorney general trustee, two departmental administrators were removed and a fine of 13,000 livres paid to the Marseille club.

In 1792–1793, the section of Digne was controlled by the . In connection with the section of Marseille, it disseminated the ideas of the Girondists, until their proscription on 31 May 1793 and the crushing of the federalist insurrection in July, which resulted in a sentence to death in Digne.

On 5 frimaire year III, the Représentant en mission purified the society.

Digne welcomed the prefecture under the Consulate. The prefect Lameth (1802-1805), created a shaded promenade between Pré de Foire and the banks of the Bléone and planted plane trees on the boulevard Gassendi.

In early March 1815 Napoleon Bonaparte passed through Digne-les-Bains on his way from imprisonment on the island of Elba, gathering support as he moved north. This was early in his Hundred Days which ended with his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.

Contemporary era

In 1851, the announcement of the coup d'état of 2 December caused uplift in rural areas, and peasants installed a provisional government in Digne.^[1]

As many municipalities of the Department Digne acquired schools well before the Jules Ferry laws. However, no instruction was given to girls in 1861, only the Falloux Laws (1851) required the opening of a girls school in the communes with more than 800 inhabitants (and that Courbons and Gaubert, small neighbouring rural communes, have a girls school). It was only in the 1860s that the town of Digne chose to open a school for girls (plus the Gaubert and Courbons schools for girls). It was with the Ferry laws that all girls of Digne and the attached villages were regularly educated.

In 1862, Digne absorbed the neighbouring areas of Courbons, Gaubert and Les Sieyes.^[6] These connected communes also had their schools, each a school for boys,^[7] with Courbons and Gaubert furthermore possessing a school for girls.^[8] The commune of Dourbes had two schools for boys (at Dourbes and at Villard),^[7] and none for girls.^[8]

210 people of Digne died for France during World War I. The hospital took care of the soldiers injured in the fighting, including nearly seventy who died of their injuries, and are buried in the military cemetery of the village square. This square also includes the bodies of two soldiers who died during the Second World War.

WWII

The first resistance fighters were a group organized around Simone Pellissier who distributed the journal Combat, from 1941. On 1 May 1942, she laid a wreath at the war memorial, during a demonstration; she was arrested the next day^[9] with six other protesters.

Digne was occupied by Italy, then by the German army, following the invasion of the free zone, after the landing of the Allies in North Africa on 8 November 1942. Thirty-four Jews were arrested in Digne before being deported.

With the dissolution of the , Commandant Chaumont of the began to structure the local Organisation de résistance de l'armée (ORA).^[9]

Liberation

On 16 August 1944, the city was bombed by P-47 Thunderbolts, which took off from field close to Bastia in Corsica. Their goal was the great bridge of Digne, crossing the Bléone, but only a single bomb reached the bridge, impeding the passage of vehicles for only a few hours. Several buildings were damaged. The bombing killed twenty-four civilians and two Germans^[10] (25 in total according to Jean Garcin). The city was liberated on 19 August 1944^[11] by Taskforce Butler, a motorized detachment of armoured elements, infantry and artillery from the 36th U.S. "Texas" infantry division and the 45th U.S. infantry division, assisted by the forces of the Resistance.

The release of Digne was part of a movement of circumvention of the Rhône Valley, across the Alps, by the Route Napoléon, entrusted to Taskforce Butler and which aimed to cut the retreat of the German army stationed in Provence. In Aspres-sur-Buëch, the column moved westward, in the direction of the Rhône and Crest (Battle of Montelimar). The fighting was in the day, with six killed and eleven wounded on the Allied side and at least 21 killed on the German side. German soldiers who fell during the fighting for the liberation of Digne were buried in the German military square of the cemetery of the village, with the other soldiers killed during the occupation, during various battles against the forces of Resistance. In March 1958, their bodies were exhumed and transferred to the German military cemetery of Dagneux in Ain.

Immediately after the Liberation, the cleanup began. Executions after trials (with a judge, but without lawyers) took place.

The German prisoner of war camp had up to 2,700 prisoners. One of them participated in the rescue expedition after the double air disaster of the in 1948.

The end of the war

From the beginning of 1945, new convoys of troops moved through the town, in the direction of the pockets of German resistance around the Ubaye.

From 1945 to the early 21st century

In 1974, the neighboring village of Dourbes was attached to Digne.^[6] The municipality changed its name to Digne-les-Bains in 1988.^[6] Nowadays, the town of Digne-les-Bains continues to expand, mainly along the banks of the Bléone. It forms, with Entrages, Marcoux, La Robine-sur-Galabre, and Mezel, the (CC3V). The areas of Le Pigeonnier and Barbejas have been classified as Sensitive urban zones.

On 24 March 2015 Germanwings Flight 9525, carrying 150 people (including six crewmembers), had a rapid descent from cruising altitude approximately 45 minutes after takeoff. It crashed a few miles from the city, en route to Düsseldorf from Barcelona.

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