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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- d'azur aux trois morailles d'or posées en fasce et rangées en pal, au chef d'argent chargé d'un lion issant de gueules -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The town of Gex, already a populated city during the Gall-Roman era, seems to have the jay (geai) as an emblem, homonymous of its own name, at the origin of the bird festival which continued over the centuries. At the beginning of the 12th Century the city was owned by a family of the same name to which the Genève Counts succeeded. Léonette, Amédée Ier's grand-granddaughter and comte (Count) de Genève gave it as dowry to Simon de Joinville, father of the famous chroniclor and companion of Saint Louis (Louis IX) whose life he wrote. The arms of the city as well as those of Gex region were Joinville's. Guillaume de Joinville awarded franchises to its inhabitants by a charter on November the 7th, 1292. Amédée VI, Count of Savoie (Savoy), captured Gex in 1353 after a siege of fifteen days and made a baronny of it. After the wars of the 16th Century, the Gex region became France's territory by the treaty of Lyon (Lyons) in 1601. In 1790 Gex was inclued in the departement of Ain, then in that of Léman in 1798. It returned to Ain in 1815. http://www.ville-gex.fr/ |