Dourdan

Dourdan is a common French, located in the department of the the Essonne and the area Île-de-France.

Demography

Geography

Dourdan is located at the western end of the department of the the Essonne, it is sprinkled by the Orge and is in edge of very beautiful forests which compose the forest of Dourdan (see With the surroundings )

Twinnings

Dourdan is twinned with 4 cities all over the world:

Bad Wiessee in Germany since 1963
Troungoumbé with the Mali since 1988
Lake-Mégantic with the Quebec since 1989
Great Dunmow in England since 1991

History

The origin of the name probably comes from Dour derived from the root Gaulois E Dor which means water or river , even origin that for the English city of Dover. According to certain sources, the radical daN would have as a significance hill .

Dourdan develops as of the Gallo-Roman period because it is an important ceramics production center. Dourdan was the residence of Hugues Large the called also Hugues the White, father of Hugues Capet; it died there in 956.

Dourdan became royal city in 987, when Hugues Capet was crowned king.

In 1220, Philippe Auguste made build a new castle. The most famous owners of the castle which was often given in Apanage, were: White of Castille, Louis d' Évreux, Jean de Berry, François I of Own way, Sully, Anne of Austria, and the family of Orleans.

Transport

The town of Dourdan is served by two stations located on the RER C: Dourdan and Dourdan-the-Forest , terminus of one of the branches of this line.

The station the SNCF is served by the trains ensuring the connection between Vendôme , Chateaudun and Paris-Austerlitz .

Remarkable monuments

Auxerre-native Saint-Germain-the church

Beginning of construction 1150, completion of work at the 14th century. It undergoes important deteriorations on its high parts in 1428, on behalf of Salisbury , they will be restored at the end of the XVe. During the Wars of religion, the church is again damaged. In 1641 construction of the arrows, 1689 construction of the vault of the Virgin who increases the length of the building by 14 meters (from 36 to 50 meters). Inside the church one can see:

a tombstone decorated with the effigy with Guillaume de Chatillonville, it was used as bridge to span a ditch under the Révolution. It is in the church after being recovered by Dourdannais.
a Mounting of Saint-Félicien out of glass and noble metal, it was offered by the large duchess of Tuscany in 1695
Portraits of the priests of the church since the Révolution, in particular that of the abbot Gautier

Castle

A little history

Built at the request of Philippe-Auguste at the beginning of the 13th century with the site of a fortress out of wooden, it is characteristic of the military architecture of this time. Thestrong one is built on a square level, defense is ensured by turns of angle and an isolated keep.

The design of the ditch was similar to that of the castle of Louvre.

The castle becomes the property of Jean de Berry in 1385, then the seat of the garrison of the Duc of Own way during the Wars of religion, the stables were built at that time. The keep, showpiece of the castle, measure approximately 30 meters height and 13,6 meters in diameter. It is the type even keeps of the time of Philippe-Auguste. One finds at the ground floor the kitchen with his baker's ovens, on the floor the room, and the top, a room of guet. It does not have a archères, therefore did not play an important defensive role. Famous prisoners remained here:

Jeanne of Burgundy, beautiful girl of Philippe Beautiful the was locked up there following the business of the Tour of Nesle , before being released by her husband Philippe Length and becoming queen of France in 1316.
Hire, companion of Jeanne d' Arc which one finds in the card decks like the Knave of hearts

The keep was still used as royal prison at the 17th century.

Nowadays

It is located in full downtown area, it is surrounded by deep and broad ditches which were used as defense then of a stone enclosure flanked of eight turns, whose roofs were pointed in the beginning. The keep is with the Northern angle, its walls measure nearly 3,80 meters thickness, there would be an underground in which would be the stone of Dourdan , stone that one should not raise under ancun pretext under penalty of dead (" Who touches with the stone of Dourdan perishes by the eau"). It shelters a museum of local history, which has beautiful collections of rare books and old objects.

The Market

It goes back to 1836 and is located at the downtown area, it replaces the old market which dated from the 13th century. It had a stage or took place the debates civil, legal, feudal and forest, it was the royal audience , this one was transferred to the castle at the 18th century. The new market preserved a stage to point out the old one, it is the work of the architect Lucien-Tirte van Clemputte .

Famous characters

Hugues Large the there died in 956
Jean-François Regnard, French writer, died in 1709 with the castle of Cricket, in Dourdan. This castle was then bought in 1779 by Lebrun, future consul of the Consulat.
Francisque Sarcey, critical dramatic, was born there on October 8th 1827
the abbot Gautier , cleaned church under Napoleon III, was narrowly supervised by the police force because one reproached him “for wanting to take to the rich person to give the poor” and “never not to request God for the Emperor” when it went up in pulpit. He died in his station on March 21st 1867
In 1887 Emile Zola wrote there the 15th volume of the Rougon-Macquart, the Earth.
Michel Audiard died there on July 25th 1985
Roustam Raza , the Mamelouk of Napoleon 1^er, died there and is buried there.

With the surroundings

The national forest of Dourdan

It is an old royal forest where the kings of France drove out readily, it became domanial in 1870. It has a surface of 1683 hectares and is composed of two forests separated by the valley from the Orge,

the national forest of Saint-Arnoult in North
the forest of Ouÿe in the south, which owes its name with the presence at this place of the abbey éponyme.

They are primarily forests of leafy trees: oaks (80%), châtaigners, beeches, charms, birches and only 6% of pines.

The abbey of Ouÿe

The abbbaye of Ouÿe was installed there by the will of the king Louis VII the Young person in 1163 for the monks of Grandmont. It would have wished the foundation of this abbey to thank God for having allowed him D ouïr the calls of his companions whereas it had been lost in forest. It is located at the south of the forest.
Towards 1220, Philippe Auguste would have removed the donation made to the monks by Louis VII the Young person, because it was an enclave in its territory of hunting, but Louis IX, which was very pious earlier restores the donation made by its ancestor one century.
The abbey was devastated several times, in particular during the Wars of religion in 1567.
In 1771, the order of Grandmont was dissolved, and the nuns bénédictines of Clairefontaine-in-Yvelines settled in 1773 there.
The shortly after the French revolution, in 1790, the nuns were dispersed and their confiscated goods. The abbey was then destroyed mainly and the Mother Superior, Mrs. de Portal perishes on the scaffold in 1794, in spite of its benevolence towards the revolutionists.
Since 1946 it is occupied by the Ursulines of Orleans.
It remains only little of vestiges of its past: a vault and a building, they are not visited. It is located on the commune of the Barn-the-King

See too

External bonds

the official site of the city

History & Photographs of the Castle of Dourdan

Random links: