Tournon

Tournon stands on the Rhône beneath the castle of the family that bore its name. In 1536 Cardinal François de Tournon, a counsellor of Francis I, founded a college in his ancestral town, modelled on institutions in Paris. The college passed to the Jesuits in 1561 and became an important centre of Catholic education in the Rhône valley. Its presence gave the small riverside town a reach beyond its lordship.