Viroflay is a common department of the Yvelines, in the area Île-de-France, in France, to approximately 3 km in the North-East of the Château of Versailles, to 6,5 km of Paris (carries from Versailles), with the limit of the department of the Hauts-de-Seine. It merges with the canton same name.

The inhabitants are called the Viroflaysiens .

Geography

Populated approximately 18.000 inhabitants, Viroflay is bordered in north by the Forêt of False-Re-fixing, in the south by the Forêt of Meudon. With about half of the covered territory of forests, Viroflay is one of the most wooded communes of the outskirts of the city of Paris. It occupies part of the valley of the Ru of Marivel, entirely covered today. Uneven the, important one for the Parisian suburbs, in fact a sloping commune.

The commune is bordering on Chaville in the east, of Vélizy-Villacoublay in the south, Versailles in the west and City-with Avray in north. City-in Avray is accessible only by paths from the solid mass of False-Re-fixing, which shows well the importance of the relief and the forest in the geography of the two communes.

Viroflay is crossed by the secondary road 10 connecting Paris to Versailles, which constitutes the principal artery of the city. It is a fraction of the Main road 10 which goes from Paris to Spain, via Poitiers and Bordeaux.

With ten other cities of the western suburbs, Viroflay belongs to the Community of communes of Versailles Grand Park.

Transport

Rare fact for a commune of this size, three railway stations serve it:

  • the station of Right Viroflay-Bank on the line of Paris-Saint-Lazare to Right Versailles-Bank
  • the station of Left Viroflay-Bank on the lines Paris-Invalids with Left Versailles-Bank (the RER C) and of Paris-Montparnasse to Versailles-Building sites
  • the Station of Chaville-Vélizy on the line the RER C, actually located on the commune of Viroflay

The “looping” of the highway A86, in the course of construction, passes in underground under the commune along a North-South axis.

Lines of bus:

  • the RATP: and Noctilien 121
  • Phébus: and

Tram:

  • 2 stations, Right Viroflay-Bank and Left Viroflay-Bank, will serve Viroflay during the completion of the tram line Chatillon-Viroflay.

History

The name of “Viroflay” would come from Latin Villa Offleni or the Germain Villa Offlein. A Gallo-Roman villa, i.e. a vast farm directed by notable (of the name of Offlenus), would have existed at the bottom of the valley. No trace not having never been found, the historians are unaware of if it is of a legend or a reality. A rumor circulates that the name of Viroflay would come from a plant called giroflée, but this assumption with poetic connotation is not very probable.

  • Set up in parish in XVIe century, Viroflay is repurchased in 1695 by the royal family with the widow of the Michel Chancellor Tellier, marquis of Louvois, lord of Chaville and Viroflay. His/her son is then Secretary of State to the war of the king (a station whom he inherited his father): he will become chief of the royal army after the death of Turenne. Louis XIV incorporates Viroflay in the field of royal huntings, the Large Park. Some aristocrats build there residences close to the forests rich in game. The parish will remain " royale" until the Revolution.

  • Of XVIIe at the XIXe centuries, Viroflay knows an important activity of laundry thanks to the presence of waters running (Ru of Marivel, brooks going down from the hills) and with the proximity of the Court and the town of Versailles.
  • 1839: arrival of the railroad at Right Viroflay-Bank station. Thereafter, in 1840 and 1902, two other railway lines will connect Viroflay to Versailles and Paris. Of suburbs of Versailles, Viroflay becomes suburbs of Paris.

The currency of the east city: “Lux mea lex” (the light is my law).

The municipality of Viroflay, like that of Chaville, faithful to the memory of the Secretary of State to the war of Louis XIV, composed his urban blazon by making honor with Michel and his son François-Michel Tellier, marquis de Louvois, whose weapons appear in the left part (“first party”): three stars of gold and three money lizards. In the right part (“second party”), the flower of lily recalls the possession by Louis XIV of the field and the oak refers to the oak of the Virgin. A logo of common representing the Arcades has existed for a few years.

Sociology and economy

  • Common easy as a residential majority along the forests of False-Re-fixing and Meudon.
  • Some companies of the tertiary sector.

Great projects

  • a line of tyred Tram of 14 km, connecting Viroflay to Châtillon via Vélizy-Villacoublay, is projected for a startup envisaged as well as possible in 2012. It will be in correspondence with the stations of Right Viroflay-Bank and Left Viroflay-Bank. This line will be underground in Viroflay.
  • a complete refitting of D10 is being studied between the Grace of God and the Arcades, sector with architecture and the urban development heteroclite.

Culture

Monuments

  • Saint-Eustace Church: built as from 1543 on medieval foundations in the center of the primitive village, this old royal vault into grinding is dominated by a rustic bell-tower. The royal horses, before taking part in a hunting, was blessed by the priest - royal - of Viroflay.
  • Church Our-Lady-of-Oak: built of 1960 to 1966 by the Sainsaulieu brothers and financed by the population of Viroflay, this church of vast dimensions (800 sitted places) resembles the hull of a large reversed ship. Its wooden carpentry includes/understands 1300 cells in the form of rhombus. The two ridge purlins support the whole of the frame. It is one most and of the vastest wooden carpentries of France (20 meters in height without pillar). Two acute arrows slate glazes, high, 34 meters surmount a green cast iron roof like that of certain cathedrals. Our-Lady-of-oak is characteristic of the architecture of the years 1960: mix reinforced concrete and of wood, forms curved, absence of pillars, well of light way Our-Lady-of-Ronchamp. A concrete crypt is under the building.
  • Saint-Vigor House (classified with the Inventory of the historic buildings): not far from the forest of Meudon, this traditional building was built in 1770 by a pupil of Gabriel, architect of the place of the Harmony and Small Trianon. It belonged to the family of the former nurse of Louis XV, Marie-madeleine Bocquet, called " Mrs Poitrine" by the child king. Recognizing forever, Its Majesty will anoblira its descendants which will become " of Saint-Vigor" and will settle in Viroflay. The central building, of a great sobriety, is connected to two houses by colonnades. The frontage on the garden includes/understands a doric peristyle with window with triangular pediment. A gigantic park surrounded the building. Part of this park became the residence known as of the " Closed Saint-Vigor".
  • the railway viaduct (Arcades), symbol of the city, 1407 meters length, spans the bottom of the valley where passes the secondary road. Built in 1851-1852, into grinding, brick and cast iron (in its central part), it includes/understands many arches. One of its characteristics, in addition to its height and its length, is to be slightly curved. Marguerite Duras implicitly evokes it in the Viaducts of the Seine and Oise . The railway line which borrows it, reserved a long time for the goods traffic, is today used by the connection the Canopy - Defense.
  • Alliance (street Rieussec): contemporary building (1990) with imposing neo-classic architecture. A paved esplanade precedes an openwork doric colonnade and curve. With the back of the columns a pyramid out of transparent glass which recalls, on a less scale rises, that of Louvre. Alliance is one of the largest buildings of the commune. It shelters the head office of the company Bongrain (dairy products).

Municipal buildings

  • the Hotel-of-City, out of wooden and grinding, called the " Large Chalet" , was built by Charles de Morny, said duke of Morny, politician and half-brother of Napoleon III, owner of the stud farm of Viroflay. The monument was high in the style " isba" , in homage at the Russian origins of the duchess of Morny.
  • the Ecu of France, old horse relay between Paris and Versailles, is a whole of recently renovated buildings. Artistic events take place there.
  • a library-media library, with theater, with the locality the " Grace of Dieu". It is next to the Ecu of France. The esplanade which precedes the building is regarded as the new center of the city.

Remarkable sites

  • Forest of False-Re-fixing (635 hectares): the part of the forest located on the commune of Viroflay is directed full south. It is remarkable by its reliefs, its points of view of, its small valleys, its visible wooded peaks of Viroflay, its geology (silts, clays with grinding, sands). Its flora is dominated by the chestnut, whose certain specimens reach imposing sizes. One finds also oaks, birches and pines. Certain grounds exposed to the south are covered with heathers. In 1907, Ardouin-Dumazet, in one of its 70 volumes of sound Voyage in France , written: " The peak, above Viroflay, in False-Re-fixing, reached 162 meters of alitude. They is 70 meters only with the top of the valley, but the stiffness of the slopes, the undulations and crumplings of the hills give an air of grandeur."
  • Forest of Meudon (1100 hectares): the slope located on the commune of Viroflay, directed full north, very stiff, is rather wet. It gives access a vast rather wild timbered plate. In the west of the slope an arranged view-point overhanging is the basin of Versailles: sight on the city, the Saint-Louis cathedral, the castle dominated by its vault.
  • Oak of the Virgin: located in edge of the forest of Meudon, this devoted tree is several times centenary. Pilgrimages intended to try to put an end to cholera epidemics took place at the XIXe century there.

Famous characters

  • Louis XIV: king de France. He liked to drive out game on the hills dominating Viroflay, all close relations of the castle.
  • Louvois (François-Michel Tellier, marquis of): key character of the reign of Louis XIV, he becomes very powerful Master of the royal army after the death of the marshal Turenne in 1675, transforming himself into rival of Colbert. His/her father the Michel chancellor Tellier was lord of Chaville and Viroflay before the territory does not become royal field. The father made build in Chaville a sublime castle inspired of Versailles of Louis XIII. The immense field with basins, jets of water, commun runs, ponds, forest overflowed on the current commune of Viroflay, where the breeding (in the " was practiced; park with the vaches" who will become " stud farm royal" then district of the Stud farm). In Viroflay, the current castle of Gaillon, in edge of the forest of Meudon, was built in the place of a small castle pertaining to Louvois. Today, there remain nothing the field of the marquis de Louvois, except for a wall of the park, with the exact limit between Yvelines and the Hauts-de-Seine.
  • Joseph Rieussec, or Nicolas Joseph Rieussec (1779-1835), after having created the stud farm of Buc, repurchases in 1812 the stud farm of Viroflay and takes part in the foundation of the Jockey Club and that of the Company of encouragement for the improvement of the races of horses, while continuing his military career. Mayor of Viroflay of 1819 to 1831, colonel of the National guard, it was killed on July 28th, 1835 in the attack perpetrated by Giuseppe Fieschi against Louis-Philippe Ier going to the Bastille to commemorate the Revolution of 1830. He is buried with the other victims with the Invalids. Its name was given to a street of its city.
  • Charles de Morny (1811-1865), small hidden son of Talleyrand and wire of the Hortense queen. The duke of Morny was the half-brother of Napoleon III and one of the most important characters of the Second Empire. Dandy of the policy, racketeer, promoter of industrial rise and the railroads, Morny bought the stud farm of Viroflay in 1855 and made there build a residence of countryside for his wife, the Troubetzkoï princess, of Russian origin, and their four children: Charlotte, Auguste, Serge, Sophie. This " Large chalet" is current the Hotel-of-City. The Morny children often remained in Viroflay, where their nurse was.
  • Gaston Boissier (Nimes 1823-Viroflay 1908): normalien, professor of rhetoric in Angouleme then with the Charlemagne college of Paris, it becomes university lecturer at the National university and professor at the Collège de France. He collaborates with the Review of the Two Worlds. In 1876, he is elected member of French Academy, of which he becomes the perpetual secretary in 1895. In 1886, he is elected member of Academy of the inscriptions and the humanities. Its works of scholarship, whose Cicéron and its friends , who is translated into English in 1897, were in their time a broad success. It settled in Viroflay in 1876, with the n°12 of the avenue bearing its name. it is there that it died out in 1908
  • Jules Clarétie (1840-1913): journalist, novelist, administrator of the Comédie-Française of 1885 with his death, elected official with the French Academy in 1888, lived with 34 rue de la Saussaie, become street Gabriel Péri. This dénonmmée property " The Elms " was attended by the great names of the French letters of the time.
  • Jean Rey (1861-1935): one of the largest French engineers of the 20th century. Its inventions relate to especially the maritime field (lighting of the headlights, rudder of the ships, steam turbines…). Civil engineer of the Mines, member of the Academy of Science, it liked to rest in Viroflay in his property of the " Feuillantines" (with 30 rue de Versailles) acquired in May 1907 with the family Chaix (which gave their name to the railway timetables).
  • Fulgence Welcome (1852-1936). Born in Uzel, it was allowed at the Polytechnic school and the School of the Bridge-and-Roadway. It was pointed out by the originality and the audacity of its work in the railroads of the west. It became the " father of the subway parisien". It had a country house, " The city with the bois" , to the 20 of the street of Sands.
  • Jacques Chaban-Delmas: politician, Prime Minister of Georges Pompidou of 1969 to 1972. He lived in Viroflay during one year, just after the Release of Paris in 1944, before being elected appointed of the Gironde then mayor of Bordeaux.
  • Philippe of Dieuleveult: adventurous journalist missing mysteriously at the time of a raid on the river Zaire (forwarding " Africa-Raft") in 1985. He lived Viroflay with 144 rue des Prés- with-Wood, or street Chanzy as indicated on his passport shown on Canal+ on December 13rd, 2006.
  • Hippolyte Refined (Arras 1839-Viroflay 1891). Normalien in 1859, professor of history to the College Shakes (Versailles), it lived street of the Willow plantation (currently 50 rue Gabriel Péri). Son-in-law of Louis Auguste Blanqui, member of the republican opposition under the Second Empire, it was elected appointed then senator de Seine-et-Oise. Burning mutualist, it endeavoured to make triumph his ideas in the social domain. He is the founder of the National league of reciprocity.
  • Louis Althusser: major actor of the structuralist current of the years 1960 with Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault. He died on October 22nd, 1990 at the hospital of the Canopy (Yvelines) and buried with the cemetery of Viroflay.
  • Jean-François Kahn: journalist. He was born in Viroflay the June 12th 1938. Former director of the Event of Thursday, he is today director-founder of the weekly magazine Marianne and author of a series of works.
  • Benoit Duquesne: journalist of television. He lived street of the Birds until 2006.
  • Jehan Despert: poet and essay writer. He suggested the name of “Yvelines” to baptize the department. He currently lives Viroflay. One of its poems, Viroflay-on-Giroflée , is engraved on a stone of the market.
  • Guy Lartigue: contemporary sculptor. He lives and creates part of his sculptures with Viroflay.
  • Esther Levi : singer and East-German dancer
]]

Twin towns

  • , to see on WP German-speaking
  • , in progress, to see on Portuguese-speaking WP

Mayors

See too

Related articles

  • Common of Yvelines
  • Line 8 of the Parisian tram (T8)
  • Images of Viroflay

External bonds

  • Town hall of Viroflay, official site
  • Seen air of the commune of Viroflay on the site of IAURIF
  • Viroflay on the site of IGN
  • site of the library of Viroflay
  • Viroflay on the site of Plane INSEE
  • of intendance of the parish of Viroflay on the site of the files of Yvelines

Gallery

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