Indre-et-Loire is one of the original 83 departments established during theFrench Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the formerprovince ofTouraine and of small portions ofOrléanais,Anjou andPoitou.[4] Its prefecture,Tours, was a centre of learning in theEarly Middle Ages, having been a key focus of Christian evangelisation since St Martin became its first bishop around 375. From the mid-15th century, the royal court repaired to theLoire Valley, with Tours as its capital; the confluence of the Loire River and Cher River became a centre of silk manufacturing and other luxury goods, including the wine trade, creating a prosperous bourgeoisie.
After the creation of the department it remained politically conservative, asHonoré de Balzac recorded in several of his novels. Conservative Tours refused to welcome the railways which instead were obliged to route their lines by way ofSaint-Pierre-des-Corps on the city's eastern edge. The moderate temper of the department's politics remained apparent after theFranco-Prussian War of 1870: sentiments remained predominantly pro-royalist during the early years of theThird Republic. For most of the nineteenth century, Indre-et-Loire was a rural department, but pockets of heavy-duty industrialisation began to appear towards the century's end, accompanied by left-wing politics. 1920 saw the birth of theFrench Communist Party at theCongress of Tours. By 1920, Saint-Pierre-des-Corps had become a major railway hub and a centre of railway workshops: it had also acquired a reputation as a bastion of working class solidarity.
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