The Pont Napoléon

On 29 July 1808, Napoleon I arrived in Moissac, crossing the Tarn on a pontoon bridge. During a dinner at the Auberge de l'Ange et de la Marine, Mayor Pierre Détours requested a sub-prefecture for the newly created department (Tarn-et-Garonne), as well as a court, a secondary school and a new bridge. Since the Wars of Religion and the floods, the previous structures had been destroyed, and the perilous crossing was made by ferry. Work began quickly but ceased with the fall of the First Empire (1814). It resumed in 1820 and culminated in the inauguration of the Marie-Thérèse Bridge on 19 December 1824. It was named in honour of the Dauphine, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, who is said to have laid the keystone of the bridge. It finally became the ‘Pont Napoléon’ in 1859, after Napoleon III's visit to Moissac.