Musée l'Ancien Évêché

For a history student like me, visiting Musee de l'Ancien Eveche in Grenoble seems a natural thing. In the eighties, while the city was constructing its second tram line, it accidentally found some treasure under the Eglise de Notre Dame. It is an ancient site of baptism, or in French, le baptistere (the site where baptism takes place). This archeological find is certainly exciting, but to fully appreciate its significance, it is necessary to know a bit about the history of Grenoble and adjacent regions. Voila, the museum offers a second section that displays a good combination of archeological finds, paintings, and architectural models to demonstrate the regional history from the time when the oldest human skull was identified (11000 BCE) to the end of the Enlightenment (le siècle des lumieres). For me, it is quite informational.

If we skip the early history, and go directly to the Gauls who occupied the region for centuries until 121 BCE when they were conquered by Romans. Voila: a hybrid culture between the indigenous and the exogenous. At the time, the city Grenoble had a different name: Cularo, which was firstly mentioned in 43 BCE in a letter to Cicero. The history of France starts from the collapse of Roman empire and the rise of Clovis who defeated the Germanic group Burgondes, and unified the Francs in the 5th century CE. Nevertheless, Grenoble was not in the territory of Clovis at the time. Wars permeated the history of Europe in the Middle Ages. A noble family called the Dauphins, one of the many feudal forces in medieval Europe, gained ascendency in the 11th century, and ruled the region autonomously. In 1349, because of the political and financial reasons, the Dauphins transferred the power to the French count; the oldest prince of the King became the ruler of the region, though the region still enjoyed significant amount of administrative and judicial autonomy as a prerequisite of this transfer of power. This is why these days when the word Dauphin has a special meaning: it refers to the oldest son of the king or the leader. The autonomous consciousness of Dauphinois, as Grenoblois call themselves, continued in the following centuries. Let's jump to 1788, one year before the French Revolution. The parliament in Grenoble refused to pay the high tax imposed by Louis XVI. And when the king sent a troop to control the situation, the Dauphinois fought back by throwing tiles to the royal army. That is June 7, 1788, a moment that people in Grenoble are still proud of these days. "It is here that the Revolution starts!" they often say. Right now, I am sitting at a cafe that is not far from where the event took place more than 200 years ago. It makes me think about the regional history of Grenoble, which seems to be on the margin of the empire in most of its history. Well, it is in the mountains, so what do you expect? But this also cultivated a spirit that did not easily comply or submit. So it is perhaps not so surprising that it fomented the seed of revolution here. My speculation.