Things to see and do Ile-De-France

The church Saint-Pierre, built around 1100, imposes its rustic architecture with its stretched roofs and original porch, which Françoise d 'Aubigné, Madame de Maintenon, wanted to teach the children of the parish. The interior is austere since there is no fresco, no table, no dorure… Why so much attachment to this building? Because the visitor appreciates his hidden treasures: Its Romanesque nef that leads to a Gothic choir dating back to 1555, its two statues of polychrome wood, its entrance to the cellar where the Trinitarian religious were buried, who were pasta from Avon from 1693 to 1790, and its sixty tombstones that are visible on one of his side. Long parish church of the vast country of beer, royal church to Louis XIV, classified as historic monument in 1840 by Prosper Mérimée, it became property of the commune in 1905 with the law of separation of churches and state. Finally, for the small story, the composer Jules Massenet was married in 1866.

As a former fortified town on the road to Paris, in the th century it became the favourite destination of the court. From its prestigious past, it kept about 1 400 meters of walls, its old bridge and, at each end of the Grand street, two magnificent doors - Porte de Bourgogne and Porte de Samois - among the three covered by the city.

The first building erected here dates from the life of the century, and it was demolished in the thirteenth century to accommodate a new construction. When a fire fell victim a few decades later, the church was rebuilt in a flamboyant Gothic style (xve century). The ornamental elements come mostly from other Parisian places of worship. Sumptuous stained glass windows, set up during the restoration of the building in the nineteenth century, adorn the windows. The most recent dates are from the twentieth century, the oldest of the xive. Not to miss in the chorus: the species of mineral forest formed by the torsaid pillars and the veins of the vault. Note that in the seventeenth century the Great Lady (aka the Duchess of Montpensier) financed as a member of the parish the creation of an oval chapel built on Jules Hardouin Mansart's plans. This includes "Miserere", a series of engravings of Georges Rouault (1913).

It is a beautiful building that will welcome you for all your daily activities. The city hall is located in the heart of the city, on this busy avenue de la République. Surrounded by a small park, it offers various services, such as communication, the press and media centre, events and participatory democracy. Please note that administrative matters are handled at the administrative centre located on Edmond Champeaux Street, just behind the main town hall.

Halle Saint-Pierre is an old market, built by one of Baltard's students.

Contemporary popular art, rough art, naive art, unusual art and "outsider" art are discovered here! The collections of Max Fourny, a publisher, a great collector and promoter of Naive Art, are over six hundred works including more than five hundred paintings, paper works, marquetry, textile works and others beneath fixed under glasses. If you wish to occupy your children a little bit, animations and storytelling tours are organised for kids.

It is a symbol of this district, and whose dome can be seen from very far away, since it is more than 80 meters high. Built relatively quickly, between 1860 and 1871, Saint-Augustin Church was the first to use mainly iron and cast iron for its construction. Over a length of about a hundred metres, with no pseudo-Byzantine representations on its sides, it has taken the shape of the land dedicated to it, thus displaying a relatively narrow façade and an immense choir. In recent years, it is precisely the facade that has been renovated, and we are waiting for work to be done on the rest of the building, particularly the chevets.

François-René de Chateaubriand bought this magnificent mansion, strangely named la Vallée-aux-Loups, in 1807. He was very attached to his "dear valley", his park, his vegetation, which he took great care of: " I was going, with hooves, planting my trees in the mud, seeing and reviewing all the small corners, hiding me wherever there was a thicket. " In the house, one crosses famous ghosts, from the beautiful Madame Récamier to the painters David, Girodet-Trioson, the famous rest bed of the Jacob-Desmalter immortalized by David's painting, or that of the scandalous madame de Staël before her forced exile in Switzerland… See absolutely: the charming Velléda tower, a small pavilion nestled in the park, which served as a work and library office in Chateaubriand. He écopa the nickname Velléda in memory of one of the martyrs'heroines, an epic novel that the writer wrote to the Vallée-aux-Loups.

The toddlers will be enchanted by the "fine stories of Sunday afternoon": At 16 a. m., a speaker tells a story or tale, in the park, the library or the video room. A mystery of a th century tale, daydreams by a young Chateaubriand, programming changes regularly (free activity).

It is known that Saint Louis came to request in a church preceding this one with the same campsite. It took there even the Croix with its knights in 1269 to leave to deliver Jerusalem. The current church was inaugurated in 1679. It was sold like national good with the Revolution, then repurchased, its current decoration with baroque tonality dating from the 19th century. The church offers to the public a wide access to the sacred music: Schola Saint-Louis, taking part in the liturgy of the parish and proposing a hearing at the end of the year is opened to any person wishing to look further into the Gregorian chant. Various concerts of spiritual music are organized and one can regularly hear the large barrel organs held per MM Alard and Rigot.

In this cemetery are buried soldiers who died during the two world wars: 1,541 during the first, 24 during the second, and a wall of the disappeared that perpetuates the memory of 974 people who were never found. It is the only one dedicated to the American dead of these conflicts. Unlike other military cemeteries, this one was installed not near a battlefield but because of the proximity of the hospitals, where the soldiers were treated. It was inaugurated in 1919 by the President of the United States, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, American General John-Joseph Pershing and French Marshal Ferdinand Foch. The chapel built in 1932 was enlarged in 1952. During opening hours, a person is always available at the reception desk to welcome and inform visitors who wish to reflect, or simply walk around this three-hectare memorial site.

The collegiate Saint-Spire was built in the tenth century to receive the relics of Saint Exupère, the first bishop of Bayeux, whose name was subsequently distorted in Saint Spire and Saint Loup, also bishop of Bayeux. This church was destroyed several times by fire and then rebuilt between xiie and the fifteenth century. She was the seat of a collegiate college until 1790, when she became a parish church. It was built in the cathedral in 1966: the creation of the Essonne department coincided with the creation of a corresponding diocese. Inside the church, you can notice the eighteenth century woodworks and furniture, as well as the gestures of Count Haymon, the masterpiece of the first church and death in 957. To note also the sculptures of the characters and animals of the sixteenth century that framed the door of the sacristie. The stained glass windows dated in 1946 because they were destroyed by bombing on August 13, 1944.