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50,000 years of a human epic The people of Neuchatel have apparently been present in the region since 50,000 B.C. Their history is told in a hundred archaeological sites under the ground and beneath the waters of the lake. The most famous is the “Tene”. This lent its name to the “Laténium” the archaeological museum inaugurated in 2001 in reference to the Celtic civilisation of the Iron Age.
 It was not until 1011 that the name Neuchatel first appeared. This was a translation of “novum castellum” (new castle) to distinguish it from the “old castle” already in existence. Indeed, it was at this date that Rudolph III of Burgundy who ruled over an area that extended from Arles to Basel, gave the town as a present to his wife Irmengard. Few documents covering the period still remain: we only know that Irmengard’s possessions fell into the hands of certain small regional nobles who created the House of Neuchatel. Among the traces left by this lineage is the tomb of the Counts of Neuchatel, erected in the 14th century and is housed in the 12th century collegiate church. This tomb counts among the major vestiges of Swiss medieval sculpture. A history full of reboundsThe dynasty of Orléans-Longueville dominates the history of the land of Neuchatel. In 1530, the influence of Bern and Guillaume Farel’s passage through the territory incited Neuchatel to rally to the Reformation. In 1707, following the death of Marie de Nemours and after much discussion among the great European families, the land of Neuchatel passed into the hands of Frederick I of Prussia. However, his power remained rather virtual. The prince (a Protestant) was content to be represented in Neuchatel by a governor, usually a descendant of one of the Huguenot families that had found refuge in Prussia. At the same time a system of State counsellors, selected from among the bourgeois families of Neuchatel, was instituted. Neuchatel was to enter a phase of industrialisation in the fields of textile printing, lace-making and above all, in the 19th century, watch making. During the era known as the Romantic period, Neuchatel was to see the passage of many famous personalities such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau who sought refuge at Motiers, his friend Pierre-Alexandre du Peyrou, a rich merchant and editor of his writings, to whom we also owe the splendid “Palais du Peyrou”, the revolutionary Marat who was born in Boudry and the writer, Isabelle de Charrière whose works carried the name of Neuchatel well beyond the boundaries of the canton. From Napoleon to “Le Corbusier”In 1806, the King of Prussia ceded the Principality of Neuchatel to Napoleon in exchange for Hanover. After Napoleon’s defeat, the King of Prussia, who wished to recuperate the territory, made a concession by agreeing to a linkage between the Canton-Principality and the Swiss Confederation. In 1815, together with 21 other cantons, Neuchatel signed the Federal Pact before falling into line with other European nations by becoming a Republic in 1848. Among the famous names from Neuchatel, let us cite Abraham-Louis Bréguet, one of the leaders in watch design of the end of the 18th century with notably the “sympathetic” watch (one which wound automatically), the architect Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, alias “Le Corbusier” responsible for certain outstanding buildings in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the authors Denis de Rougement and Blaise Cendrars, the psychologist Jean Piaget and Louis Chevrolet, the designer of the car that bears his name. A capacity for adaptationFor nearly two centuries, the watch making industry was the foundation of the canton’s wealth but the crisis of the 1970s forced a reorientation into the field of microtechnology. Because of the presence of large pharmaceutical groups, Neuchatel also appears to have found its way in the realm of biotechnology. The arrival of the Federal Statistical Office in 1999, the organisation of the National Exhibition in 2002, the inauguration of the “ Durrenmatt Centre” in 2000, erected by Mario Botta in homage to the writer who, for many years, had lived in Neuchatel and the Laténium, are all reminders of the national and international role of Neuchatel. |
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