La Roche-Guyon

French commune
nomcommune=La Roche-Guyon


caption=La Roche-Guyan, the castle and the keep
latitude=49.0822
longitude=1.6303
région=Île-de-France
département=Val-d'Oise
arrondissement=Pontoise
canton=Magny-en-Vexin
intercomm=CC du Vexin Val de Seine
maire=Alain Quenneville
mandat=2001-2008
alt mini=13
alt maxi=143 m
area=4.61
sans=550
date-sans=1999
dens=119
insee=95523
cp=95780|

La Roche-Guyon is a commune of the Val-d'Oise "département" in France. The commune grew around the Château de La Roche-Guyon, upon which historically it depended for its existence. The commune's population in 1999 was 550.

Demographics

At the 1999 census, the population was 550.

The estimate for 2007 was 464.

Château de La Roche-Guyon

The present Château de La Roche-Guyon [Its early seigneurs, vassals of the comtes de Meulan, traditionally bore the name "Guy"; La Roche-Guyon signifies the "Rock of Guy"] was built in the twelfth century, controlling a river crossing of the Seine, itself one of the routes to and from Normandy; [A ninth-century document leads historians to believe that the site was already fortified as part of the defenses against Viking marauders who used the Seine as a pathway upriver to Paris (Le Ménestrel du Vexin).] The Abbé Suger described its grim aspect: "At the summit of a steep promontory, dominating the bank of the great river Seine, rises a frightful castle without title to nobility, called La Roche. Invisible on the surface, it is hollowed out of a high cliff. The able hand of the builder has established in the mountainside, digging into the rock, an ample dwelling provided with a few miserable openings". [Suger, "Vie de Louis VI", "Au sommet d'un promontoire abrupt, dominant la rive du grand fleuve de Seine, se dresse un château affreux et sans noblesse appelé La Roche. Invisible à sa surface, il se trouve creusé dans une haute roche. L'habile main du constructeur a ménagé sur le penchant de la montagne, en taillant dans la roche, une ample demeure pourvue d'ouvertures rares et misérables."] In the mid thirteenth century, a fortified manor house was added below. Guy de La Roche fell at the battle of Agincourt, and his widow was ousted from the Roche, after six months of siege, in 1419; she preferred to depart rather than accept Henry Plantagenet as her overlord. It came to the Liancourt family with the marriage of Roger de Plessis-Liancourt to the heiress Marie de La Roche; he was a childhood companion of Louis XIII, first gentleman of the "Chambre du Roi" and made a duke in 1643. He and his wife made great changes to the "château-bas", opening windows in its structure and laying out the terrace to the east, partly cut into the mountain's steep slope.

The domain of La Roche-Guyon came to the La Rochefoucauld family in 1669, with the marriage of Jeann-Charlotte de Plessis-Liancourt with François VII de La Rochefoucauld. The Château retained its medieval aspect of a fortress, with its moat and towers and cramped, dark living apartments. The Château was largely extended in the 18th century.

When Turgot, the minister of Louis XVI, failed in his schemes for fundamental reforms in 1776, he retired to the Château briefly, as the guest of Louise Elisabeth Nicole de La Rochefoucauld, duchesse d'Enville.

The castle was used as a setting for the medieval segment of a famous Franco-Belgian graphic novel on time travel: "Le Piège diabolique" (The Diabolical Trap) of the Blake and Mortimer series by Edgar Pierre Jacobs. German Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) defended Normandy against the Allies in World War II from a bunker located here, the castle also was Rommel's headquarters.

La Roche-Guyon was the birthplace of François Alexandre Frédéric, duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (1747-1827).

Restorations and archaeological surveys undertaken after 1990 by the Conservatoire régional des Monuments historiques revealed new additions to the documentary history of La Roche-Guyon, undertaken in the nineteenth century by Hippolyte Alexandre and Emile Rousse

ee also

* Operation Gaff
*Communes of the Val-d'Oise department

Notes

References

* [http://www.chez.com/clioroche/duchesse.html " La duchesse d'Enville à la Roche-Guyon"]
* [http://wwww.montjoye.net/chateau_de_la_roche_guyon History of the castle of the Roche Guyon] (French)
* [http://www.uniondesmairesduvaldoise.fr Association of Mayors of the Val d'Oise] fr icon
* [http://www.insee.fr/en/home/home_page.asp INSEE] en icon
* [http://www.ign.fr/rubrique.asp?rbr_id=1&lng_id=EN IGN] en icon

External links

* [http://www.larocheguyon.fr Official website] fr icon
* [http://www.chateaudelarocheguyon.fr Château de la Roche-Guyon: Official website] fr icon
* [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/merimee_fr?ACTION=CHERCHER&FIELD_98=INSEE&VALUE_98=95523 Mérimée database - Cultural heritage] fr icon
* [http://www.iaurif.org/en/gis/fichescom/mos99/ficmos/mos95523.html Land use (IAURIF)] en icon