Avaray

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Coordinates: 47°43′24″N 1°33′55″E / 47.7233333333, 1.56527777778

Administration
Commune of Avaray
Location

Country	France
Region	Centre
Department	Loir-et-Cher
Arrondissement	Blois
Canton	Mer
Statistics
Elevation	75 m–118 m (avg. 106 m)
Land area^¹	13.88 km²
Population^² (1999)	577
- Density	41/km² (1999)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code	41008/ 41500
¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
² Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel) only counted once.

Avaray is a commune of the Loir-et-Cher département, in the Centre région of France.

[edit] History

Avaray is a French territorial title belonging to a family some of whose members have been conspicuous in history. The Béarnaise family named Besiade moved into the province of Orléanais in the 17th century, and there acquired the estate of Avaray. In 1667 Theophile de Besiade, marquis d'Avaray, obtained the office of grand bailiff of Orleans, which was held by several of his descendants after him.

Claude Antoine de Besiade, marquis d'Avaray, was deputy for the bailliage of Orleans in the states-general of 1789, and proposed a Declaration of the Duties of Man as a pendant to the Declaration of the Rights of Man; he subsequently became a lieutenant-general in 1814, a peer of France in 1815, and duc d'Avaray in 1818. Antoine Louis Francois de Besiade, comte d'Avaray, son of the above, distinguished himself during the Revolution by his devotion to the comte de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII, whose emigration he assisted. Having nominally become king in 1799, that prince created the estate of Ile-Jourdain a duchy, under the title of Avaray, in favour of the comte d'Avaray, whom he termed his "liberator."