Editing Avignon (section)

=== "Sur le Pont d'Avignon" ===
{{Wide image|Avignon Panorama.jpg|900px|View over the Rhône looking northeast, with the [[Pont Saint-Bénézet]] or "Pont d'Avignon" at left}}

Avignon is commemorated by the French song '[[Sur le Pont d'Avignon]]' ('On the bridge of Avignon'), which describes [[folk dance|folk dancing]]. The song dates from the mid-19th century when [[Adolphe Adam]] included it in the [[Opéra comique]] ''Le Sourd ou l'Auberge Pleine'', which was first performed in Paris in 1853. The opera was an adaptation of the 1790 comedy by [[Pierre Jean Baptiste Choudard Desforges|Desforges]].<ref>{{citation | last=Anonymous | title=Théatre Impérial de l'Opéra-Comique, Le Sourd ou l'Auberge pleine: Comédie en trois actes de Desforges, mêlée de musique par Ad. Adam | journal=Revue et gazette musicale de Paris: Journal des artistes, des amateurs et des théâtres | volume=20 | issue=6 | date=6 February 1853| page=42 | place=Paris | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jZdfc-w51y8C&pg=PA42 | language=fr }}.</ref>

The bridge of the song is the [[Pont Saint-Bénézet]] over the [[Rhône]], of which only four arches (out of the initial 22) now remain. A bridge across the Rhone was built between 1171 and 1185, with a length of some {{Convert|900|m}}, but was destroyed during the [[Siege of Avignon (1226)|siege of Avignon]] by [[Louis VIII of France]] in 1226. It was rebuilt but suffered frequent collapses during floods and had to be continually repaired. Several arches were already missing (and spanned by wooden sections) before the remainder was abandoned in 1669.{{sfn|Rouquette|1974|pp=219–229}}