Rue Blanqui, long known as rue du Faubourg-Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, extended the Grand-rue (today’s rue du Commerce, rue Colbert and rue Albert-Thomas) beyond the 14th-century city walls. The two streets were linked by the Porte d’Orléans, which stood level with today’s rue du Port-Feu-Hugon. Both followed the course of the ancient road that crossed the city along the Loire and which, to the east, led to Amboise.
Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Pierre-des-Corps became rue Saint-Pierre-des-Corps in 1844, before being named rue Blanqui by decision of the Town Council on 5 January 1905. Although the district’s history goes back a very long way, its name is relatively recent. It comes from the main street around which the district grew up: rue Blanqui, so named by decision of the Town Council on 5 January 1905. The name honours the memory of the politician (1805-1881) who, after 1830, fiercely opposed the July Monarchy and whose life was one long succession of conspiracies and imprisonments. Nicknamed “L’Illustre enfermé” (the Illustrious Prisoner), he left the prison of Mont-Saint-Michel for a stay at the hospital in Tours from 1844 to 1848. As for its own name, the former Faubourg Saint-Pierre-des-Corps takes it from an ancient cemetery that lined this riverside road, traces of which were found when the canal basin was dug in 1825. Funerary urns from the 1st and 2nd centuries were discovered there.
Under the Ancien Régime, this area was organised around the parish, a religious but also an administrative unit. Probably founded in the 11th century, it took the name Saint-Pierre-des-Corps (Saint Peter of the Bodies), in memory of the Gallo-Roman cemetery. Its centre was a simple oratory, turned into a parish church in the 13th century.
Its authority extended over a vast area of 1,000 hectares between the Loire and the Cher. Known as the “varennes de Loire”, this land consisted mainly of very fertile alluvial soil, which allowed food crops to be grown for the city of Tours. It also contained clay along the river, much prized by potters. The Faubourg Saint-Pierre-des-Corps was the built-up part of this parish, one of the largest in Tours. It was also unusual in lying outside the fortifications whose construction began in 1356. The parish of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps was split for the first time when the new defensive wall, begun in 1591, was built.
Its built-up part, including the church, came inside the walls, while its rural part, stretching as far as La Ville-aux-Dames, remained outside.
When the communes were created by the law of 14 December 1789, the rural part of the parish of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps became an independent commune, but kept its original name. Its first town hall was actually on rue Blanqui.
Then the digging of the canal linking the Loire and the Cher, carried out from 1824 to 1828, split the area once again, and its western part finally left the commune of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps to join that of Tours in 1854.
Fully part of Tours since that date, it lost its status as a faubourg to become a district of the city in its own right.
From then on, its development centred on market gardening, small crafts and river trade. Encouraged by social legislation, small private houses multiplied there in the early 20th century, creating a close-knit community that is still alive today.
Text taken from booklet no. 5 of “Tours se raconte” – Histoire du Quartier Blanqui (History of the Blanqui District)
Archives municipales de Tours (Tours Municipal Archives)