Dreux

For the saint of this name, see Saint Drogo.

Dreux
Saint-Pierre church
Dreux
Administration
Country France
Region Centre
Department Eure-et-Loir
Arrondissement Dreux
Intercommunality Drouais
Mayor Gérard Hamel
(2008–2014)
Statistics
Elevation 75–139 m (246–456 ft)
Land area1 24.27 km2 (9.37 sq mi)
Population2 31,212  (2008)
 - Density 1,286 /km2 (3,330 /sq mi)
INSEE/Postal code 28134/ 28100
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Dreux is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France.

Contents

History

Dreux was known in ancient times as Durocassium, the capital of the Durocasses Celtic tribe. Despite the legend, its name was not related with Druids. The Romans established here a fortified camp known as Castrum Drocas.

In the Middle Ages, Dreux was the centre of the County of Dreux. The first count of Dreux was Robert, the son of King Louis the Fat. The first large battle of the French Wars of Religion occurred at Dreux, on December 19, 1562, resulting in a hard-fought victory for the Catholic forces of the duc de Montmorency.

Population

Historical population of Dreux
Year 1793 1800 1806 1821 1831 1836 1841 1846 1851 1856
Population 5383 5437 6037 6032 6249 6379 6367 6774 6764 6498
Year 1861 1866 1872 1876 1881 1886 1891 1896 1901 1906
Population 6940 7237 7418 7922 8254 8719 9364 9718 9647 9928
Year 1911 1921 1926 1931 1936 1946 1954
Population 10,692 10,908 11,313 12,200 13,361 14,184 16,818
Year 1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999 2008
Population 21,588 29,408 33,101 33,379 35,230 31,849 31,212

Sights

Chapelle royale de Dreux

Main article: Chapelle royale de Dreux

The House of Bourbon-Penthièvre was one of the greatest land owning families in France before the French Revolution. In 1775, the lands of the comté de Dreux had been given to the duc de Penthièvre by his cousin Louis XVI. In 1783, the duke sold his domain of Rambouillet to Louis XVI. On November 25 of that year, in a long religious procession, Penthièvre transferred the nine caskets containing the remains of his parents, the comte and comtesse de Toulouse, his wife, Marie Thérèse Félicité d'Este, princesse de Modène, and six of their seven children, from the small medieval village church next to the castle in Rambouillet, to the chapel of the Collégiale Saint-Étienne de Dreux.[1] The duc de Penthièvre died in March 1793 and his body was laid to rest in the crypt beside his parents. On November 21 of that same year, in the midst of the French Revolution, a mob desecrated the crypt and threw the ten bodies in a mass grave in the Chanoines cemetery of the Collégiale Saint-Étienne. In 1816, the duc de Penthièvre's daughter, the duchesse d'Orléans, had a new chapel built on the site of the mass grave of the Chanoines cemetery, as the final resting place for her family. In 1830, Louis-Philippe I, King of the French, son of the duchesse d'Orléans, embellished the chapel which was renamed Chapelle royale de Dreux, now the necropolis of the Orléans royal family.

Other sights

Personalities

Dreux was the birthplace of:

International relations

Dreux is twinned with:

See also

References

  1. ^ G. Lenotre, Le Château de Rambouillet, six siècles d'histoire, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1930, reprint: Denoël, Paris, 1984, (215 pages), chapter 5: Le prince des pauvres, pp. 78-79

External links