Bridge of Mirabeau, Girder bridge in Jouques and Mirabeau, France
The Mirabeau Bridge is a reinforced concrete girder bridge spanning the Durance River between Jouques and Mirabeau. The structure stretches 175 meters across the river valley and rises 14 meters, supported by substantial pillars that anchor the roadway.
A first bridge was attempted in the 15th century, and successive structures were swept away by the Durance in 1440, 1635, 1843 and 1881, each time rebuilt because of its lucrative toll. Sauzet's 150-metre suspension bridge, delivered in 1831 and finished in 1835, was carried off by the flood of 2 November 1843 and rebuilt in 1845. The 1845 bridge was destroyed in the First World War; its replacement, a 175-metre single-span bridge with two 22-metre reinforced concrete pylons, was completed in July 1935. The present girder bridge was built from November 1988 and opened in 1990.
The monument listing of 6 July 1988 covers the two neo-Romanesque pylons of the 1831 suspension bridge, not the current span. A popular Provençal song, "Au pont de Mirabèu", tells of Catharina washing her linen below the bridge and three knights who court her; one ring falls into the Durance.
The bridge sits on the Route de la Durance toward Manosque and handles regular traffic between the two locations. It is accessible via local roads and provides a direct crossing over the river valley.
The neo-Romanesque pylons that anchored the 1831 suspension bridge still stand beside the crossing and were listed as monuments historiques on 6 July 1988. A memorial plaque facing Mirabeau, now largely effaced, recorded that the engineer Jean Laurent Isidore Cayre (1800–1863), head of the roads and bridges office in Aix-en-Provence, carried out the work.
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