Montmorency (Val-d'Oise)
| Montmorency | ||
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| region | Île-de-France | |
| Department | Val d'Oise | |
| Arrondissement | Sarcelles | |
| Canton | Montmorency ( chef-lieu ) | |
| Community association | Plaine Vallée | |
| Coordinates | 48 ° 59 ′ N , 2 ° 19 ′ E | |
| height | 43-186 m | |
| surface | 5.37 km 2 | |
| Residents | 21,461 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 3,996 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 95160 | |
| INSEE code | 95428 | |
| Website | www.ville-montmorency.fr | |
Montmorency is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department in France . The city is located 13 kilometers north of central Paris. Its inhabitants are called Montmorencéens . The population is 21,461 (as of January 1, 2017).
Lying on a pronounced, wooded range of hills , Montmorency became a popular summer resort from the 17th century , attractive also for numerous wealthy and famous people. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's stay from April 1756 to June 1762 also made the city a literary attraction.
Etymology and name
The current name of the place comes from the Latin Mons Maurentiacus . Here indicates Mons out on the rocky ground and the hilly surroundings. Maurentiacus means "the property or lands of Maurentius".
This name appears for the first time at the time of the Carolingians . The city has been renamed several times up to the present day. 1793, during the French Revolution was Montmorency, Rousseau honor, by decision of the National Convention in Émile renamed. In 1813 Napoleon Bonaparte allowed the city to call itself Montmorency again. In 1814, on the return of Louis XVIII. , renamed Enghien , returned to Montmorency in 1815, during Napoleon's reign of the hundred days, and again to Enghien after his abdication in the same year. In 1832 the place finally got its traditional name Montmorency again. Since then, Enghien has only been called the thermal bath that was built on the shores of the lake at the foot of the village. That lake was then still called Étang de Montmorency . It has been called Lac d'Enghien since 1850, the year the independent municipality of Enghien-les-Bains was founded .
geography
Geographical location
The city lies on rocky ground in the middle of the Zeugenberg of the same name, surrounded by a wooded landscape. It extends over three hills that are steep on the sides but flattened at the top. The altitude varies between 42 and 60 meters above sea level in southern Bas-Montmorency (lower Montmorency) and 176 meters on the Plateau des Champeaux , which is connected to the north by the edge of the forest. The city center is about 130 above sea level. Thus dominates the Montmorency 4 kilometers north of the Seine lying Lac d'Enghien .
On this hill, she strategically dominated a considerable part of the river valley of the Oise and the Plaine de France, north of Paris .
The municipality extends over a length of 5 km, with an average width of 850 m.
The city is surrounded by the neighboring towns of Enghien-les-Bains , Soisy-sous-Montmorency , Andilly , Domont , Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt , Groslay and Deuil-la-Barre .
Cityscape and building fabric
The cityscape varies in its appearance depending on the district. In the older parts of Montmorency, steep streets and alleys as well as bourgeois houses characterize the cityscape. The densely built-up center is characterized on the one hand by townhouses from the 19th century, on the other hand by a maximum of five-storey buildings of poor quality from the 1970s and 1980s, often in need of renovation. At a little distance around the center you can find the relaxed, upper-class villa development of the 19th century with many small parks and gardens, as well as representative modern houses with a maximum of 4 floors, some of which have taken the place of old villas.
Detached houses predominate in southern Bas-Montmorency , only the Avenue de la Division-Leclerc , which forms the border to the neighboring municipality of Enghien-les-Bains, is characterized by large, tall buildings.
On the steep heights of the Plateau des Champeaux in the north, which tower over the city center, you will almost exclusively find detached houses. This neighborhood was mostly settled in the 1960s. On the far northern edge there are some social housing buildings with a maximum of four floors. Sports facilities have replaced the old brickworks that used to be there.
Apartments in Montmorency are generally larger and more comfortable than those in the rest of the Île-de-France region . New buildings are underrepresented compared to the rest of Île-de-France: in 1999 only 5.1% of residential buildings were no more than 10 years old, compared to 9.1% in Île-de-France. 54.5% of the population of Montmorency own their main residence or house, compared to 44.3% in Île-de-France. At that time, the city had 1,259 social housing (HLM, Habitation à loyer modéré) , which corresponded to 15.6% of the urban stock, compared to 23.4% in the regional average (all data from 1999).
history
Origins
Carved sandstone tools found in the Montmorency Forest show that the place was inhabited in the Neolithic Age.
middle Ages
A wooden fortress was built on a rocky mountain ledge in the 9th century. The promontory dominated the road to Rouen, named after Julius Caesar . In the first two centuries, the fortress went up in flames several times. In 997 it was given by King Robert II to Baron Burkhard the Bearded (Bouchard le Barbu) .
In the 12th century the wooden fortress was replaced by a stone castle. A wall was also built to protect the small settlement. This made Montmorency the only fortified town in the area. Although the place was on a steep hill and thus away from the traffic routes, a significant market developed, used by the residents of the entire area, and economic life flourished. All the food of the time was traded there: pigs, cattle, poultry, and even fish that was brought in from the Norman coast. Clothing and agricultural tools were also traded. Numerous craftsmen, such as cooper , bricklayer and blacksmith, settled here. In 1207 a Maison-Dieu (house of God), i.e. a hospital, was founded. In 1257 the Knights Templar settled there . He bought a large piece of land on Rue d'Étang , the name of which was subsequently changed to Rue du Temple .
During the Hundred Years War , the place was conquered and plundered several times, especially during the peasant revolt in 1358 and in 1381. The castle was also razed by the English. It was never rebuilt; the ruins fell into disrepair. The lords of Montmorency preferred the comfortable castles of Chantilly and Écouen .
Only a few relics from the 15th century are left of the medieval fortifications. As early as the 18th century, only two towers and some remains of the walls of the old castle were preserved. These remains were also removed during the French Revolution.
Renaissance and the 17th century
In the 16th century, Montmorency's population continued to grow. Two windmills belonged to the municipality, that of Jaigny and that of Clairvaux. Wine and fruit were grown on the hill, grain in the valley. However, the French wars of religion caused numerous destruction in the city and its surroundings, especially in 1589 by the Catholic party, the Ligueurs . At the end of the 19th century, the remains of several hundred corpses, witnesses to a mass murder by the Ligueurs , were found during new construction work on the market square .
In 1632, Henri II. De Montmorency was beheaded at the instigation of Cardinal Richelieu . Since he had no descendants, his possessions became the property of his sister Charlotte-Marguerite de Montmorency and through her that of Prince Henri II de Bourbon . Since the Condés had joined the Fronde , an association of nobles who opposed the emerging absolutism , the city was again the victim of looting and destruction. Nevertheless, it continued to develop and expand at the beginning of the 17th century, which was reflected, among other things, in the expansion of the hospital and the construction of the Cimetière des Champeaux cemetery in the north of the city.
The situation calmed down in the middle of the 17th century. At that time the city had around 1500 inhabitants. Montmorency is developing into a place of summer relaxation, which financiers and artists working at the royal court in particular liked to visit. In 1673, the painter Charles Le Brun acquired a plot of land with magnificent gardens and water features fed by the Saint-Valéry fountain. His castle, known as the petit château (small castle), and the park belonging to it have not been preserved.
The Oratory Congregation settled in Montmorency in 1617. She had a seminary built north of the collegiate church, which was expanded into a mighty four-story building with more than a hundred rooms in the next century. It was destroyed during the French Revolution.
18th century
In 1702, Pierre Crozat , a wealthy banker, bought Le Brun's property, which had been vacant since 1689. He had the palace renovated by a respected interior designer at the Palace of Versailles . In the east of the park he had a castle built, in which he lived until 1740. From 1754 to 1764 this castle was inhabited by the Marshal of Montmorency-Luxembourg, patron of Jean-Jacques Rousseau . The large castle escaped destruction during the French Revolution, but fell into disrepair due to lack of maintenance. In 1810 Count Aldini bought it and renovated it. The owner who followed him, a real estate agent, had it demolished in 1817 so that the building material could be used for other purposes. As a result, not a single one of Montmorency's old castles has survived. Only the semicircular orangery of the property, built in 1719 according to plans by Gilles-Marie Oppenord , has been preserved and has recently been restored.
In 1788, another palace was built in the classical style by Nicolas-Louis Goix . This building has been used as the town hall since 1906.
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From April 1756 to December 1757 was held at the Ermitage (Hermitage) of Madame Louise d'Epinay the most famous guest Montmorency refuge: Jean-Jacques Rousseau . Then, until June 8, 1762, he found accommodation with the Marshal of Montmorency-Luxembourg.
The philosopher was a regular guest at the literary salon of Madame d'Épinay in the château la Chevrette in Deuil-la-Barre . Accompanied by them, he discovered one day, while walking, about a kilometer from the town of Montmorency, which housed the municipality's water reservoirs. A small, lonely dwelling, a hermitage , was on it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau said to his hostess: Ah, Madame, quelle habitation délicieuse. Voici un asile fait pour moi. (Ah, Madame, what a delicious apartment. This is an asylum made for me.) To his surprise, his patron decided to have the house repaired and made available to him. The writer moved there in April 1756.
However, he fell in love with Sophie Lalive de Bellegarde, Madame d'Houdetot, the sister-in-law of Madame d'Épinay, fell out with his patroness and had to leave his hermitage prematurely in December 1757 . One of his friends, Monsieur Mathas, finance attorney for the Prince of Condé, offered him a small rural house that was in the village itself. The house was in poor condition and required extensive repairs. From May to August 1759, the Marshal of Montmorency-Luxembourg , his neighbor, made the little castle of Le Brun available to him to make him more comfortable during the renovation work. There Rousseau wrote some of his most famous works, Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse , Du contrat social and Émile ou de l'éducation . He stayed until June 8, 1762.
The last of the works he published in 1762, Émile ou De l'éducation (Emil or On Education) caused a public stir. The Paris Parliament finally decreed that he should be arrested. He preferred to leave France. With the help of his friend, the Marshal of Montmorency-Luxembourg, who provided him with a carriage, he fled to Switzerland on the night of June 8, 1762.
1793, during the French Revolution was Montmorency, Rousseau honor, by decision of the National Convention to Émile renamed. In 1794 his coffin was laid out for one night in the market square, which at that time was called Place de la Loi (Place of Law) . His remains were first buried in the park of Ermenonville and were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris in 1794 . These events gave rise to passionate public veneration for the writer.
19th century
Montmorency became the summer retreat for wealthy Parisians. Numerous famous people visited the place: the Duchess of Berry , the imperial family , François-Adrien Boieldieu , Rachel Félix , Louis Blanc , the historian Jules Michelet , Richard Wagner , Heinrich Heine and others. They lived in the Auberge du Cheval blanc on the market square and went on a donkey ride into the forest.
The city, which was poorly accessible for a long time, was connected to Enghien-les-Bains in 1866 by the Le Refoulons railway line . In 1954, however, this line was closed.
Montmorency has changed name no less than nine times in its history. As early as 1689, the city was renamed Anguien at the instigation of the Condé dynasty . Rousseau also used this name in his works. In 1790 it got its old name back, Montmorency , but lost it again in 1793 in favor of the name Émile .
In the years after the Polish November Uprising of 1830, many Polish families found refuge in Montmorency. Various monuments in the collegiate church of St. Martin commemorate her, as well as a crossroads in the Cimetière des Champeaux cemetery . Adam Mickiewicz , along with other compatriots, was buried there in 1855 before his remains were transferred to Krakow in 1890 .
During the Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871, Montmorency was occupied by Prussian troops. There were numerous looting by the Prussian occupiers and heavy financial burdens for the local population. The city had to make a payment of 400,000 francs to the occupiers before they finally withdrew.
20th century
At the beginning of the 20th century, the population increased very quickly, to over 10,000 around 1930. Nevertheless, the same urban density with large building complexes that was typical for many surrounding communities did not prevail in the city. Rather, large, representative residences were built to replace the upper-class houses of the 19th century. The city center was partially rebuilt, but retained its character with its market square and its steep, winding streets.
Only the Plateau des Champeaux , relatively isolated in the north of the municipality, experienced dense urban development in the 1960s and 1970s with multi-storey apartment buildings, although their size was still moderate. Despite its proximity to Paris, the town retained certain village characteristics, thanks to its hilly relief, its relative inaccessibility and its gardens and orchards. Only the aircraft noise caused by the Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, which is only 15 km away and which covers the entire Val-d'Oise , the planned construction of the Boulevard intercommunal du Parisis and the excellent view over the capital on a clear day remind us because you are in the agglomeration of a metropolis. The affluent Montmorency is still one of the most desirable residential areas in the region. There and in the neighboring municipality of Enghien-les-Bains , the highest prices in the department are paid for residential property.
Population development
The strong growth at the beginning of the 20th century accelerated again between 1946 and 1968. After that, the population stabilized at around 20,000, as the community only had a few areas left for building.
The age pyramid largely corresponds to that of the region, with certain peculiarities. The proportion of the young population generally fell between the two censuses in 1990 and 1999. In Montmorency there is a special feature that among the under 15 year olds only the proportion of boys decreased by half a percentage point, while the proportion of girls increased by 0.6 percentage points. Among the male population aged 15 to 29, the proportion in Montmorency even shrank by 4 percentage points, compared to 2 in the surrounding region.
Overall, the proportion of the population group under 15 corresponds to that in the region. The group aged between 15 and 45 is slightly underrepresented, while those over 45 are more represented than in the rest of the region. This overrepresentation of the elderly population increases steadily with the age group.
| year | 1962 | 1968 | 1975 | 1982 | 1990 | 1999 | 2006 | 2017 |
| Residents | 16,369 | 18,691 | 20,860 | 20,798 | 20,920 | 20,599 | 21,416 | 21,461 |
| Sources: Cassini and INSEE | ||||||||
Politics and administration
administration
Montmorency had been sub-prefecture (sous-préfecture) of the arrondissement of Montmorency since 1968 , a status that the city lost in 2000 when the sub-prefecture was moved to Sarcelles and the name of the arrondissement was subsequently changed.
The city is represented in the Plaine Vallée community association, which was founded in 2015 and has around 100,000 inhabitants. The city council, which was elected in 2001, comprised 35 members: 25 of them belonged to the UMP , six from the Socialists , three from the UDF , one from the Front National .
Montmorency is home to a Tribunal d'Instance (District Court), a Conseil de Prud'Hommes (Labor Court), an Agence nationale pour l'Emploi (State Employment Agency), a tax office, a social security office and other administrative and legal bodies .
Political tendencies
Politically, the population tends to prefer the bourgeois-conservative side.
In the 2002 presidential election , Jacques Chirac received the most votes with 24.95%, followed by Jean-Marie Le Pen with 15.61%, Lionel Jospin with 14.65% and François Bayrou with 8.95%. Alain Madelin received 7.31%, Jean-Pierre Chevènement 6.99% and Noël Mamère 5.05%. All other candidates scored less than 5%.
In the runoff election, 84.85% vote for Jacques Chirac and 15.15% for Jean-Marie Le Pen, with 16.85% abstaining, which roughly corresponds to national voting behavior.
In the 2007 presidential election , the first ballot saw Nicolas Sarkozy in the lead with 42.54%, followed by Ségolène Royal with 21.83%, François Bayrou with 20.78% and Jean-Marie Le Pen with 6.90%. The other candidates stayed below 2.5%. The runoff election was clearly in favor of Nicolas Sarkozy with 62.3%, a clear difference to the national average of 53.06%. Ségolène Royal received 37.7% of the vote in the runoff election in Montmorency.
public finances
The burden on citizens through direct local taxes for the municipality, association of municipalities and department corresponds to the mean value of the municipalities with a comparable number of inhabitants in the Val d'Oise department.
Montmorency is one of the municipalities with the highest investment rates in the department. In 2005, it invested € 314 per inhabitant per year, compared to € 191 on average for the department. The investments amounted to € 4.7 million and were divided up to 52% in the construction of public buildings and facilities, 20% in the education system and 13% in the promotion of sports and youth. Debt is € 76 per inhabitant, compared to € 117 on average for the department.
public safety
The police district to which the city belongs includes the parishes of Montmorency, Soisy-sous-Montmorency , Andilly and Margency . In 2005, the crime rate in this district was 52 per 1,000 inhabitants. This is the lowest crime rate in the department, well below the national average of 83 crimes per 1,000 inhabitants. The clearance rate is 28.18%.
City arms
The coat of arms first appeared in the second half of the 12th century and initially only contained four small mutilated eagles ( lérions ) in blue. The other twelve eagles were added after the victory in the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, after Mathieu II of Montmorency captured twelve enemy banners. The red cross was added by King Philip II in honor of Mathieu II, who was injured in the shaft. It is supposed to symbolize the prince's shed blood.
Town twinning
- Kehl , Baden-Württemberg (Germany), since 1967
- Knutsford , Cheshire (England), since 1978
Economy and Infrastructure
Trade and commerce
The weekly market, for which Montmorency was famous in the Middle Ages, still exists, but has lost its appearance.
As a characteristic residential town, Montmorency does not have any pronounced economic activities. At the end of the 19th century, several brick factories were using the clay from the Plateau des Champeaux , but clay mining ceased soon afterwards. The production of roof tiles was maintained until the 1980s.
More recently, an industrial park of around 3 hectares has been created on the Plateau des Champeaux , on which the city encourages the settlement of technology and service companies. One of these companies is BALT Extrusion , which specializes in the manufacture of medical catheters and probes for examinations in the cardiovascular system . This company, with its export share of 80% of production, has been recognized as one of the most dynamic companies in France.
The city does not have any of the large shopping centers that are quite common in France. A medium-sized shopping center from Intermarché is located on the northern edge of the municipality, while a smaller one from Franprix is in the center. The retail trade is essentially concentrated on its traditional territory, namely the market square and the surrounding streets.
Public Employers
The city's most important employer is the hospital with 1,700 employees (see below).
In 1999, 18.6% of working citizens were employed by the municipality. The majority of workers work outside the Montmorency Valley, which does not offer enough jobs for its residents, be it in the Cergy-Pontoise agglomeration , in the Hauts-de-Seine department or in Paris .
Labor market and employment
According to an estimate from 2005, unemployment in the town is around 9%, which is slightly below the national average. The average household income of € 36,900 per year is well above the national average of € 20,400.
Managers and skilled workers are clearly overrepresented with 27.7% of employees, compared to 13.1% in the French average. On the other hand, workers are only 10.9% represented, compared to 25.6% in France as a whole.
traffic
Montmorency has not had a train station since 1954. The Montmorency – Enghien – Paris tram line has stopped running since 1935. which had been put into operation in 1897.
Instead, public transport is operated using lines 12, 13, 15M and 16 of the Réseau de bus Valmy and line 95.02 of the Busval d'Oise company. The latter forms the bus connection to Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle Airport, 15 km away .
For the main part of the city, the upper parts of the city, this is a relatively poor transport connection, especially since the frequency of the buses leaves a lot to be desired. The lower part of Montmorency, on the other hand, can be reached on foot within minutes from Enghien-les-Bains train station .
The city can be reached from the east via the A15 motorway and the connection via the connecting road N170, Boulevard Intercommunal du Parisis . It is accessed from the east via the RN1 national road.
Public healthcare system
There has been a hospital in Montmorency since 1207, a maison-dieu with twelve beds at the time. It was a secular institution founded by Matthieu II of Montmorency.
In the 1970s, the hospital was built in its current form. In 1992 it was named after Simone Veil as part of the merger with the Eaubonne hospital . It has a capacity of more than 1,000 beds and employs 1,700 people, including the hospital in Eaubonne. Eleven old people's homes and two clinics for general medicine and psychiatry are located on its premises.
The l'Ermitage psychiatric clinic employs almost 100 people.
education
schools
The city has five pre-schools , five primary schools , the large, renowned general high school Lycée Jean-Jacques-Rousseau , a technical high school and two colleges.
32.4% of the Montmorencéens have a higher education, compared to 18.1% on average in the Paris capital region.
Other facilities
Lectures on the history of Montmorency and the Montmorency Valley are held regularly in the Salle de l'Eden conference room on Rue de Pontoise .
The Municipal House of Culture (Maison des loisirs et de la culture) , a typical institution in French cities, organizes exhibitions and cultural events. It offers courses on a wide variety of topics, language training and artistic working groups.
Culture and sights
Museums
The Jean-Jacques-Rousseau Museum is located in the house where Rousseau lived between 1757 and 1762. At the lower end of the garden is the so-called donjon . In this case, however, it is not the imposing residential tower of a castle, but a small pavilion with a mansard roof , in which the writer's study was located.
Public libraries
The Bibliothèque d'études rousseauistes (Library for Studies on Rousseau) has a stock of 40,000 volumes. She specializes in the 18th century in general, and Rousseau in particular. It also houses the city archive.
35,000 books are available to the public in the city library, plus 2,000 books for children and young people. Exhibitions take place there regularly.
Buildings
See also: List of Monuments historiques in Montmorency (Val-d'Oise)
Collegiate church
The former collegiate church of Saint-Martin was built from 1515 to 1563 in the late Gothic Flamboyant style on the place of a building from the 12th century. Until the French Revolution it was the burial church of the Princes of Montmorency and from 1630 it became a parish church . It is notable for its stained stained glass windows from the Renaissance period and for the Polish plaques that were placed by exiles after the November uprising in the 19th century.
View from Rue du Temple to the collegiate church
West facade
West portal
North portal with flamboyant-style window
View into the main nave
Renaissance window
Epitaph of Polish exiles
Replica of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa
Marketplace
The market square is called Place Roger-Levanneur . It is surrounded by houses that were mostly built in the 19th century. The square had its greatest time as a well-known market in the 13th century. In 1789, as a result of an agreement between the Prince of Condé and the merchants, a wooden market hall was built.
This was demolished in 1834 and replaced by a brickwork hall. Her name was donkey Hall (porche aux ânes) because it was able to rent donkeys for rides in the forest. This hall was removed in 1884.
During the French Revolution, the square was called Place de la Loi (Place of Law). Its present name owes the place a young resistance fighters of the Resistance , who, in August 1944 at the age of 21 years, from the SS was arrested and tortured to death.
Houses and villas
The Auberge du Cheval blanc (White Horse Inn), the meeting place for celebrities at the time of the restoration , is located on the market square. It was founded in 1739 by Nicolas Leduc, who was a land surveyor for the House of Condé. At first the house was called La Fleur de lis (lily blossom). It was given its current name during the French Revolution. The figurehead was created by the painters Jean-Baptiste Isabey and François Gérard , who paid their bill for the accommodation in this form.
The Maison des Commères (house of chatterboxes) got its name from Thérèse Levasseur , Rousseau's companion. During Rousseau's stay, two Jansenists lived in this two-story house from the 17th century, whom the philosopher feared might overhear him. The house was acquired by the city in 1974 and now houses the Bibliothèque d'études rousseauistes .
The maison Jean-Bertheroy house on Rue de l'Hermitage is an Italian-style villa built in 1891. It belonged to the Romancière Berthe-Corinne Le Barillier .
The former Notre-Dame church on the corner of Rue au Pain and Rue Notre-Dame was the first parish church in the town, its foundations date back to the 11th century. In 1411 it was enclosed in the city wall. During the French Revolution it was profaned and used as a town hall. When the latter moved to the Ancien Auditoire in 1809 , the former church was rededicated as a residential building.
The Hotel Le Laboureur on the Place au Pain belonged to the Le Laboureur family , a family of officers , in the 17th and 18th centuries . Today it houses the private vocational school Turgot.
The Ancien Auditoire on Place de l'Auditoire is a classical building from 1786. In 1809 it was bought by the city and served as the town hall until 1906. It then housed the peace court, which can still be seen from the inscription on the front, and served various other public functions, for example as a library and as a labor court.
The Villa Helvetia was up to the occupation of the country by the Germans in 1940, the center of a network of four sites in the region, where since 1935 up to 300 Jewish youths, separated from their parents in the kingdom (or later by the Germans occupied territories ), Accommodation, tuition and, depending on age, vocational training under the management of the OSE ( Œuvre de secours aux enfants ) in Paris. The directors of the home were the Austrian Ernst Papanek and his wife, who wanted to try out educational theories about the connection between work and learning. The project became more popular because many of the children took part in the St. Louis odyssey to Cuba and back. After the occupation, the children fled to various other OSE homes in the south of the country in guided groups.
Castles
The town hall is located in a neo-classical castle that was built by Nicolas-Louis Goix from 1788 to 1791. The initials RF on the window bars do not mean République Française , as many visitors think, but stand for Émilien Rey de Foresta , who bought the house in 1859. The latter was Mayor of Soisy from 1865 to 1880.
The building did not become the town hall until 1906. The castle consists of two floors on a mezzanine and which are accessible via a double spiral staircase. In the beautiful park that surrounds the castle, there was an approximately 200-year-old Lebanon cedar that was protected as a natural monument. Unfortunately it fell victim to a freezing rain on January 2, 1982. The property's conciergerie now houses the city's tourist and cultural offices.
The Château Gaillard is a typical building from the 19th century. In the midst of large parks, the nobility and the upper classes built their refuge in a romantic style. The conciergerie of this castle, built in 1830, is a remarkable testimony to the architectural style of that time.
The Duc de Dino's castle was built between 1879 and 1884 in neo-renaissance style by the banker Isaac Léopold Sée . The stone and red brick building stands on the site of the great castle that belonged to the Marshal of Montmorency-Luxembourg. The city bought it in 1991 and made it available to the MARS organization. This is dedicated to the rehabilitation of children who have come into conflict with society.
The semicircular orangery , built in 1719, is the only remnant of Charles Le Brun's palace . It was neglected for a long time. Finally, in the 19th century, it was converted into a residential house and disfigured because its sculptural elements were destroyed. The municipality bought it in 1984, had it restored to its old state from 1987 to 1992 and has since used it for the city's music and dance school.
Castles and fortifications
The 15th century fortress walls were hidden behind the city's central block for a long time. They came to light during demolition and new construction work in the 1970s and were restored by the city administration from 1985 onwards. With them, the Jardins de l'observance (observation gardens) were prepared. The latter are so named because from them in the 15th century the surrounding area was observed for suspicious movements.
The Fort de Montmorency was built from 1875 to 1879. It is the last of the Parisian forts still in use by the French army. Since 1992 it has housed a military-technical training center.
The Porte Jean-Jacques Rousseau on Rue de Saint-Denis is a small gate that originally served as access to the vegetable garden across the street. Rousseau fled the city through this gate in 1762. In the 19th century, the gate, which was originally only accessible to pedestrians, was replaced by a gate that carriages could pass through.
bridges
The little bridge Pont de la rue Saint-Victor was built by the bailiff Louis Le Laboureur (Louis the Peasant). It served to connect his fiefdom Châteaumont with the feudal estate, which, with the exception of the donjon located on it , had been sold to him in 1675 by the Prince of Condé.
The strange stone bridge Pont de la rue des Granges , built in 1792, served to connect the two parts of the castle. The street below is notable for the high 18th century walls between which it is enclosed and from which plants grow down onto the street.
Parks, green spaces and footpaths
The main attraction in the countryside, both for the city and for the whole region, is the Montmorency forest north of the city. It extends over 22 km².
The Châtaigneraie (chestnut grove), a grove of centuries-old chestnut trees, is protected as a natural monument ( Monument historique ). For Rousseau it was the preferred area for his walks, in the immediate vicinity of his residence. In the 19th century, the grove became popular with Parisians as a destination for Sunday walks. After the walk they went to the Auberge Homo . This restaurant, named after its owner Augustin Homo , was built by him at the Ermitage , Rousseau's former home. One could dance there and often met well-known painters or writers there. The Casino de Montmorency opened in 1866. A little further away are the ruins of Grétry. The Châtaigneraie was acquired by the city in 1920 and opened to the public after the buildings that did not fit there had been demolished.
In addition to the Châtaigneraie , the city has four other public parks:
- the Rathauspark (2.2 ha);
- the Jardins de l'Observance gardens on the fortress walls;
- the Park de la Serve at the edge of the forest, with a fitness trail (parcours sportif) ;
- the Square des Acacias on Avenue Charles-de-Gaulle.
The gardens of the Jean-Jacques-Rousseau Museum and the Duc de Dino Castle are owned by the city but are not open to the public.
The city maintains a network of footpaths that meander through the city's green and residential spaces. They are grouped into seven courses that are marked with waymarks. Time and again, these paths offer the walker picturesque panoramas of Paris, the surrounding lowlands and the Montmorency valley.
The Mare des Champeaux is a pond on the southern edge of the Plateau des Champeaux, which has formed due to a water-impermeable subsoil made of clay . It offers an excellent vantage point that Rousseau appreciated. In the 19th century it was a popular destination for walks and rides on donkeys. The construction of the neighboring fort in 1874 punctured the clay layer in places, which led to a considerable loss of water and a corresponding loss of area of the small lake.
Monuments
The first version of the bronze statue of Jean-Jacques Rousseau , located on the roundabout of Avenue Émile, was erected in 1907 by Louis Carrier-Belleuse . In 1942 it was melted down by the German occupiers. In 1960 the municipality commissioned the artist Hélène Guastalla to create a new statue. This in turn was destroyed by a car in 1994. It was replaced in 1998 by a new statue, based on a design by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse , father of the former artist.
The Grétry Monument on the corner of Rue Grétry and Avenue Georges Clémenceau was inaugurated in 1911 in honor of the composer André-Modeste Grétry .
Regular events
- In March there is a market for regional products in the ballroom and in the park of the town hall.
- In June, in the market square near Montmartre à Montmorency, artists can look at the easel at work and buy their paintings.
- In September, the corrida pédestre , an organized public walking day, takes place on the footpaths mentioned above .
media
The city magazine Vivre Montmorency deals with the topics about and in Montmorency.
Sports
societies
Montmorency has 18 sports associations and clubs.
The main ones are: FC Montmorency ( football ), Olympique Groslay Enghien Montmorency ( rugby ), Cercle de Savate de Montmorency ( Savate ).
Sports facilities
The sports facilities in Montmorency together cover an area of around 15 hectares.
- The Center nautique intercommunal outdoor swimming pool has two water basins measuring 25 m × 15 m and 15 m × 15 m as well as 1000 m² of open space.
- The stadium stade de la Butte-aux-Pères was built in 1977 and contains a training hall, a multi-purpose hall, a boules court, three grass courts and two hard courts for rugby and football, tennis courts, a skate park and an archery range.
- The Complexe sportif des Gallerands includes tennis courts, an archery range and a training hall.
- The Gymnase Ferdinand-Buisson has specialized in martial arts, gymnastics and dance gymnastics.
- The Stade du Fort is a rugby stadium.
Culinary specialties
The city is famous for its tiny sour cherries , les cerises de Montmorency . They are orange-red to light red in color. They became famous through Madame de Sévigné and were mainly used to make fruit brandy. Today they are also traded as dried fruit. In the 19th century, donkeys were used to go to the orchards near the city to pick them. Nowadays, as a result of urban densification and the abandonment of these fruit tree crops, it has become very difficult to find these cherries in the wild.
Personalities
- The famous philosopher and political theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived in Montmorency from 1756 to 1762 and wrote some of his most important works here. In Book IX of his Confessions he describes his entry into the Hermitage of Madame d'Épinay: The closer I looked at this charming refuge, the more I felt that it was made for me. This lonely, even wild place gave me the impression that I was at the end of the world. He had such touching beauty that one can hardly find anywhere else near the cities; if you had suddenly been transferred there you would never have believed you were only four miles from Paris.
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The painter Camille Pissarro spent the summers of 1854, 1856 and 1857 in Montmorency and painted several pictures here: Les Lavandières (the laundresses), Le Châtaignier brûlé (the burned chestnut tree), En forêt de Montmorency (in the forest of Montmorency) and Paysage à Montmorency (see picture), which was exhibited at the 1859 Salon.
Camille Pissarro , Landscape near Montmorency - André Grétry , composer from Liège and ardent admirer of Rousseau, acquired the hermitage in 1798 and died there.
- The poet Heinrich Heine lived for a while in house number 7 on rue de la Châtaigneraie . The house no longer exists today.
- Charles Le Brun , painter and decorator of the castles of Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles , built and lived his little chateau in Montmorency in the 1670s .
- The tragic actress Rachel Félix , famous under the stage name Rachel, lived in house number 10 on rue de l'Hermitage .
- The composer Richard Wagner discovered Montmorency in 1849, rented a room at the Auberge Homo , but had to leave in a hurry because his wife had found out where he was.
- From 1854 to 1860 the medic Louis-Adolphe Bertillon lived and practiced in Montmorency. With his main work "Démographie figurée de la France" he later became known as a statistician and demographer and was a pioneer of anthropology.
- The poet Germain Delavigne died in Montmorency.
- In 1956 the countertenor Gérard Lesne was born in Montmorency .
Other sons and daughters of the city
- Jean-François Garreaud (1946-2020), actor
- Walter Vaz (* 1990), football player
religion
The main church for the Catholic Christians is the collegiate church. Another church was built for the Champeaux district in 1971 and is dedicated to Francis of Assisi . Montmorency belongs to the Diocese of Pontoise .
The parish church for Protestant Christians is located in the neighboring town of Enghien-les-Bains .
The Jewish community has a community center in the city. The synagogue is outside the city, on the Malleville-Enghien road.
literature
In French:
- R. Biais, G. and G. Dornier: Connaître et aimer Montmorency . Editions du Valhermeil, Auvers-sur-Oise 1993.
- Michel Rival: Le Refoulons ou le chemin de fer d'Enghien à Montmorency . Editions du Valhermeil, Auvers-sur-Oise 1989.
- Jean Aubert: Les Grandes Heures de Montmorency et ses environs . Éditions Horvath, Lyon 1983 (first edition: 1975).
- Brigitte Bedos: Histoire de Montmorency - Le Moyen Âge . 1979.
- Ch.Rowe: Montmorency en 1900 . Bibliothèque européenne, 1990 (first edition: 1974, réédition).
- Charles Lefeuve: Histoire de la vallée de Montmorency. Le tour de la vallée . 1984 (first edition: 1856, réédition du Cercle historique et archéologique d'Eaubonne et de la vallée de Montmorency).
Web links
- Website of the municipality (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ flagspot.net
- ↑ Les confessions , Book VIII
- ↑ INSEE: pyramide des âges 1999 - Montmorency ( Memento of the original from March 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ INSEE: pyramide des âges 1999 - Région Île-de-France ( Memento of the original of March 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Results of the municipal elections de 2001 on the site de la ville ( Memento of the original dated November 25, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Scrutin présidentiel de 2002 - Montmorency
- ↑ Scrutin présidentiel de 2007 - Montmorency
- ↑ Site officiel de la direction générale des Impôts ( Memento of the original of March 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Données: mairie de Montmorency - Vote du budget 2005.
- ^ Préfecture et services de l'État dans le Val-d'Oise
- ↑ Histoire de Montmorency ( Memento of the original from March 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ INSEE ( Memento of the original from March 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ INSEE - Population active ayant un emploi par catégorie socioprofessionnelle ( Memento of the original from March 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Home site of the Hôpital Simone Veil ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , visited on May 19, 2007
- ↑ INSEE - Population de quinze ans ou plus par sexe et age selon le niveau d'études ( Memento of the original of March 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Katy Hazan (PDF) short version of her book about the OSE, both in French. Cf. Ernst Papanek: The children of Montmorency. Fischer TB, Frankfurt 1983, 1987 ISBN 3-596-23494-8 ; Europa-Verlag, Vienna 1984 ISBN 3-203-50769-2
- ^ Association MARS 95
- ↑ Associations et clubs sportifs ( Memento of the original dated May 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. sur le site de la ville
- ^ Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Les Confessions . Volume II, Book IX, Geneva 1789. In the original: Plus j'examinais cette charming retraite, plus je la sentais faite pour moi. Ce lieu solitaire plutôt que sauvage me transportait en idée au bout du monde. The avait de ces beautés touchantes qu'on ne trouve guère auprès des villes; et jamais, en s'y trouvant transporté tout d'un coup, on n'eût pu se croire à quatre lieues de Paris.
