Editing Rethel (section)

==History==
{{expand section|date=July 2016}}
According to legend, the city was founded by [[Julius Caesar]], who established a camp on the site of the city during his campaigns.

The parents of [[Arnulf of Metz|St. Arnulf of Metz]] were said to have given all they owned ''in villa Reistete'' (in the city of Rethel) to [[Saint Remigius|St. Remigius, bishop of Reims]], so that their prayers for a child would be answered.

The city belonged to the [[Abbey of Saint-Remi]] and was administered by its [[advocatus|advocati]]. One of them, Manasses I, became the first [[Counts and dukes of Rethel|Count of Rethel]]. In 1481 the county, with Rethel as its seat, was elevated to the [[Peerage of France]]; it was elevated to a [[duchy]] in 1581 and in 1663 it became the Duchy of Mazarin.

During the [[Franco-Spanish War (1635–59)|Franco-Spanish War]] it was captured by Spanish forces under [[Louis, Grand Condé|Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé]] on 30 October 1652 after a four-year siege, but was retaken by the French in July 1653.

In 1814 Spanish prisoners of war from the [[Napoleonic Wars]] introduced [[typhus]] to the city. Jean-Baptiste Reberotte-Labesse cared for the soldiers who were ill. [[Cholera]] epidemics occurred in 1832 and 1849, while [[typhoid fever]] ravaged the city in 1839, with an average of thirty deaths a day.

During [[World War II]] Rethel was the site of heavy combat from May to June 1940 during the [[Battle of France]]. French troops under [[Jean de Lattre de Tassigny]] repelled German assaults on the town for a month before it fell.

In 1974, Rethel absorbed the former commune Pargny-Resson.<ref>[https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/jo/id/JORFCONT000000021342 Modifications aux circonscriptions administratives territoriales (fusion de communes)], ''[[Journal officiel de la République française]]'' n° 0030, 3 February 1974, pp. 1283-1284.</ref>