Last modified: 2007-02-02 by ivan sache
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![[Flag of Montmorency]](../images/f/fr-95-mo.gif)
Flag of Montmorency - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 23 September 2006
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The municipality of Montmorency (21,000 inhabitants; 137 ha) is located
13 km north of Paris and 15 west of the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle
airport. This very uneven town is made of an old village surrounded by
wealthy estates and the forest of Montmorency (2,000 ha).
Prehistoric artifacts found in the forest of Montmorency have been
dated from the Mesolithic, the transition period between the
Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The corresponding local facies,
characterized by big tools made of polished and lustred sandstone, is
called Montmorencien.
The name of Montmorency appeared in the Carolingian period as "Mons
Maurentiacus". "Maurentiacus" means Maurentius' estate and was
Germanized into Morency. "Mons" (the mounts) refers to the rocky spur
on which a primitive wooden fort (a castrum) was built in the IXth
century. The fort was a simple square tower built on the levelled top
of the spur and protected by two stockades. It was part of the defense
system set up by Robert le Fort (815/820-866), Duke of Neustria and
root of the Capetian dynasty, in order to watch the road to Paris
threatened by the Northmen invasions. In the beginning of the IXth
century, the fort was ruined and King of France Robert the Pious
(972-1031, King in 996) awarded it to Bouchard the Bearded, provided he
would revamp the fortress.
Bouchard, who took the title of Bouchard I de Montmorency, was one of
the so-called "barons", the lords of lower rank who lived mostly of
plunder. In spite of being the grand-nephew of the powerful Bishop of
Sens Gautier I, he was expelled from Sens. He married the widow of a
knight who owned of a fortress on the St. Denis island. This small
island, located in the middle of the Seine, north of Paris, was a
strategic place allowing the control of the navigation on the river.
Bouchard caused a lot of trouble to its powerful neighbour, the St.
Denis abbey. The abbey was the organizer of the popular fair of Lendit
(named after the Latin word indictus, a fixed meeting place), then
the most important fair in the region of Paris. Bouchard held to ransom
the merchants shipping their goods to the fair, perceiving a "tax" that
should have been perceived by the abbey. In order to solve the problem,
Robert the Pious "relocalized" Bouchard to Montmorency and asked him to
abandon the "tax" on the river and his actions against the abbey.
Bouchard remained owner of the island; he and his followers
progressively increased their territory by "incorporating" lands
belonging to the abbey. A series of lawsuits and raids lasted until
1295, when the two parts exchanged their respective enclaves and signed
a definitive peace.
Anyway, the rascal Bouchard is the root of a lineage which contributed
to the fame of the Kingdom of France with six constables, twelve
marshals and four admirals. They owned a big domain made
of 31 adjacent parishes, ran from the chastel (castle) of
Montmorency. In the XII-XIIIth century, a village developed around the
revamped fort and the castrum was renamed in 1205 castellum, which
means a fortified village. In spite of being far from the main roads
and tortuous, Montmorency became famous for its Wedenesday's market,
where all kind of stuff could be found. The fortified village quickly
morphed into a rich town with several guilds. An hospital was founded
in 1207 and the Knight Templars settled in Montmorency in 1257, where
they grew grapevines. The town was severely damaged during the Hundred
Years' War, by the Jacques (revolted farmers) in 1356 and by the
English in 1358 and 1381. The troops of Duke d'Orléans also sadk the
city in 1411, and city walls were eventually built to protect the
inhabitants. This did not prevent the troops of the Saint League to
sack the city once again in 1589.
In the XVth century, the sons of Jean II of Montmorency (1402-1477)
caused the split of the lineage. Jean de Nivelle and Louis de Fosseux,
born from Jean's first marriage, faught with the Burgundians and their
English allies against the King of France. Their father, despite his
age, took part to the battles and disinherited on 24 July 1463 his
elder sons to the benefit of Guillaume de Montmorency, born from his
second marriage. Baron Guillaume decided to rebuild the town church;
the building started around 1520 and ended in the late XVIIth century,
the today's facade being completed only in 1910. The church is famous
for its set of 14 stained-glass windows from the Renaissance. In 1551,
Constable Anne de Montmorency (1493-1567) was made Duke and Peer of
France by King François I. The Oratorians were granted in 1617 the
collegiate church and built a big college. The golden age of the
Montmorency lineage ended in 1632, when Henri II de Montmorency,
rebelled against King Louis XIII, was captured and beheaded in Toulouse on the order of Cardinal de Richelieu.
Montmorency's goods were mostly transferred to Henri de Bourbon, Prince
de Condé, whose wife was Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, Henri's
daughter. In 1689, Henri Jules de Bourbon, Prince de Condé and Duke de
Montmorency, was allowed to rename the Duchy of Montmorency Anguien.
This was the first of a long series of changes in the name of the Duchy
and the town:
1689-1790: Anguien
1790-1793: Montmorency
1793-1813: Emile (after Jean-Jacques Rousseau's character)
1813-1815: Montmorency
1815- 1832: Enghien
1832-: Montmorency
In 1629, Nicolas Desnots was allowed by the Prince de Condé to enclose
a piece of land and built a landscaped garden with fountains and
waterfalls. The domain was purchased in 1670 by Charles Le Brun, the
King's painter, who built there a "small castle". In 1702, the new
owner, the banker Pierre Crozat, built a "big castle" and an orangery,
which is today the only remain of the castle. Marshal de Luxembourg
bought the estate in 1750. After his death, the domain was abandoned
and used as a quarry until the end of the XIXth century and the
purchase of the domain by Duke de Dino, Marquis de Talleyrand-Périgord.
In April 1756, the young philosoph Jean-Jacques Rousseau left Paris, "that muddy and smoky town", for Montmorency. He stayed in a small estate called L'Ermitage, and used to walk in the neighbouring chestnut grove (still there). Then he rented a small house called Montlouis, where he mostly stayed in a small, uncomfortable pavilion he nicknamed Donjon. There he wrote his most famous works, including La Lettre à d'Alembert, Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse, Les Lettres à Malesherbes, Du Contrat Social, and Emile ou de l'éducation. The neighbouring house belonged to two churchy men, who were accusated by Rousseau to spy him and to gossip about him in the town. He nicknamed them commères (gossips) and te house has remained known as maison des commères. Marshal de Luxembourg proposed to Rousseau to settle in Le Brun's "small castle", where the writer did not stay for long. Rousseau was warned that the Parliament of Paris had launched a warrant for arrest against him because of the book Emile and left Montmorency on 8 June 1762 to Switzerland. He never came back to Montmorency but a ceremony took place in the town on 19 Vendémiaire of the Year III (10 October 1794), on the eve of the transfer of his ashes from Ermenonville to the Panthéon in Paris.
The Belgian musician André Modeste Grétry (1741-1813) settled in L'Ermitage in 1795 and died in Montmorency. Born in Liège, Grétry had his first opéra-comique played in Geneva in 1766, Isabelle et Gertrude, libretto by Favart after a short story by Voltaire. Protected by Count von Creutz, Ambassador of Sweden, Grétry became famous in Paris and was appointed private musician by Queen Marie-Antoinette. His fame was not interrupted by the Revolution; he was appointed member of the Institute in 1795 and Napoléon awarded him with the Légion d'Honneur. Grétry is considered as the inventor of the opéra-comique, and composed 15 operas and 40 opéras comiques. His masterpiece is the vocal quatuor Où peut-on être mieux qu'au sein de sa famille ?, in Lucile (1769), which was reused by Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881) in the adagio of his famous fifth violine concerto (nicknamed Grétry).
In 1766, Father Louis Cotte (1740-1815), teacher and later director of
the Oratorian College, and considered as the father of modern
meteorology, found by chance the sulphur-bearing thermal waters of
Enghien, close to Montmorency. The spa of Enghien-les-Bains quickly
developed and the economy of Montmorency declined. Posh housing estates
were built in the ancient parks; a 3-km cog railway, then the steepest
in France, linked Montmorency to Enghien from 1864 to 1954.
In the XIXth century, members of the upper classes from Paris enjoyed
the forest of Montmorency. Several rich people took their vacation
there and eventually settled in estates located near the town. The
Polish elit, exiled after the failed insurrection of 1830-1831 against
the Russian rule, settled in Montmorency. The most famous members of
this community were the poet and politician Julian Niemcewicz
(1757-1841), General Karol Kniaziewicz (1762-1842) and the national
poet Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855). Mickiewicz was buried in the cemetary
of Montmorency until his ashes were sent repatriated to Poland in 1890.
The French Romantic poet Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863) included in his
Poèmes antiques et modernes (1826), section Poèmes modernes, a long
poem called Les amants de Montmorency (with the subtitle Elevation), written in Montmorency on 27 April 1830. Vigny had a very pessimist conception of life, which he perfectly expressed in Les
amants de Montmorency, based on a real event. The first two verses of
the poem are a short summary of the drama:
Etaient-ils malheureux, Esprits qui le savez ! / Were they so unhappy,
Spirits who know it!
Dans les trois derniers jours qu'ils s'étaient réservés / In the last
three days they had spared for themselves.
Then there is a long description of the two happy lovers going to
Montmorency and the first stanza ends with:
[...] et c'est ainsi / and so
Qu'ils allèrent à pied jusqu'à Montmorency / They walked up to
Montmorency.
The second stanza describes how they loved each other in the beautiful
nature. The third stanza gives the sad outcome of the story, starting
with a blunt sentence:
Or c'était pour mourir qu'ils étaient venus là / Indeed they came
there in order to die.
A more modern version of a similar story was popularized by Edith Piaf
as Les amants d'un jour (words by C. Delécluse and M. Senlis; music
by M. Monnot; 1956).
Montmorency is world famous for the Montmorency sour cherry (in French, griotte), which represents 95% of the North American sour cherry market. The name of the cherry recalls that Montmorency was once famous for its orchards; cultivation started in the XVIIIth century, encouraged by King Louis XV, and the fruit was locally known as gaudriole. In the XIXth century, people from Paris going to Montmorency on Sunday could hire a tree on a hourly basis in order to pick up and eat cherries directly from the tree. Ironically, there is not a single Montmorency cherry tree left in today's Montmorency.
Source: Municipal website
Ivan Sache, 23 September 2006
The flag of Montmorency is yellow with a red cross and four
blue alerions in each quarter. The flag is flown in two copies over the
town hall. Four years ago, the municipal administration told that Montmorency had no flag but would have one soon.
The flag is a banner of the municipal arms, which are, unsurprisingly,
the arms of the Montmorency lineage, d'or à la croix de gueules, cantonnée de seize alérions d'azur ordonnés deux et deux (Or a cross gules cantonned by sixteen alerions azure - Brian Timms).
The French heraldist Meurget de Tupigny defines the alerions as de
petits aigles au vol abaissé et généralement représentés sans bec ni pattes, that is "small eagles with inverted wings and usually
portrayed without beak and legs."
According to Brian Timms, the word alérion was coined in
Armorial d'Urfé, dated 1380/1400. The alerion seens to be confined in
French heraldry, mostly related with Montmorency and Lorraine.
The Montmorency municipal website reports the "origin" of the arms of Montmorency as follows. The arms bore originally only four alerions, recalling the victory of Bouchard I de Montmorency over the 60,000-men army sent by Emperor of Germany Otto II in 987. The twelve other alerions recall the battle of Bouvine (27 July 1214), when King of France Phiippe-Auguste defeated a coalition led by the German Emperor and the Count of Flanders; this battle is considered as the first significant military victory of a King of France and allowed Philippe-Auguste to increase the royal power over his challenging vassals. Baron Mathieu II de Montmorency captured twelve standards from the German Emperor Otto IV, therefore the twelve alerions. The red cross is said to have been traced by Philippe-Auguste with Mathieu's blood on the battlefield. This story is of course too good to be history: it is known that the cross on the arms of Montmorency predates Bouvines and the probability that Bouchard bore any coat of arms as early as 987 is very low.
Arnaud Bunel's Héraldique Européenne website shows the coat of arms
of the Montmorency lineage as follows:
The old arms of Montmorency (or a cross gules) are shown not for
Bouchard I but for Thibaut de Montmorency, Constable of France
(1083-1086). The shield of a constable is supported by two hands each
holding a rising sword and emerging from a white cloud. Thibaut was the
sixth Constable of France and the first whose arms are known.
The second arms of Montmorency, with the four alerions, are shown for
Mathieu de Montmorency (d. 1160), Lord of Montmorency, Ecouen, Marly,
Conflans-Sainte-Honorine and Attichy, ninth Constable of France c.
1138.
The complete arms of Montmorency, with sixteen alerions, are shown for
Mathieu II de Montmorency (d. 1230), Lord of Montmorency and Constable
of France. The same shield, with different ornaments related to their
bearer's title, were also used (inter alia) by:
- Guillaume de Montmorency (d. 1531), Baron de Montmorency, Lord de La
Rochepot, Ecouen, Chantilly, Damville, Conflans-Saint-Honorine, Thoré,
Chavercy, Offoix and Montespilloir. Guillaume was awarded the title of
Premier Baron Chrétien (First Christian Baron)
- Anne de Montmorency (1492-1567), Duke de Montmorency and Damville,
then Duke de Montmorency and Peer of France (1551), Count de
Beaumont-sur-Oise and Dammartin, Viscount de Melun..., Marshal of
France and Constable of France (1538). He was awarded the title of
Grand Maître de France (Grand Master of France). Anne de Montmorency,
who was given his weird surname by his godmother Anne de Bretagne, was one of the most powerful lords in France and the main military
councillor of kings François I and Henri II. He was also fond of arts
and commissionned the architect Jean Bullant to build the beautiful
castles of Chantilly and Ecouen (today the National Museum of
Renaissance).
- François de Montmorency (1530-1579), Duke de Montmorency and Peer of
France, Count de Dammartin, Baron de Châteaubriant and Lord de
L'Isle-Adam, Marshal of France (1559) and Grand Master of France.
Anne's son increased the rivalry of the Montmorency with the
ultra-catholic Guise family. Governor of Paris, he was not able to
secure the city and left it a few days before the Saint Bartholomeuw's
Day Massacre; it is said he had been himself listed as a target for the
massacre.
- Henri I de Montmorency (1534-1614), Lord de Damville then Duke de
Montmorency and Peer of France, Count de Dammartin and Alais, Baron de
Châteaubriand, Lord de Chantilly and Ecouen, Marshall of France and
Constable of France. François's brother, he was appointed Governor of
Languedoc and took the party of Henri of Navarra, later King of France
Henri IV.
- Henri II de Montmorency (1595-1632), Duke de Damville, Duke de Montmorency and Peer of France, Count de Dammartin and Offémont, Admiral of France and Marshal of France. Son of Henri I, he was influenced by Marie de Medicis and joined in 1630 the plot set up
by Gaston d'Orléans against his brother, King Louis XIII, and Cardinal
de Richelieu. On 22 July 1632, Languedoc seceded from the Kingdom of
France. A few nobles followed Governor Henri II, but the capital city,
Toulouse, remained loyal to the king. The cities of Carcassonne and
Narbonne refused to welcome the rebel army, whereas the king sent a big
army commanded by Marshal de Schomberg. The two armies met in
Castelnaudary on 1 September 1632; the rebels were defeated in half an
hour. Montmorency was severely injured and captured. He was sentenced
to death for crime of lèse-majesté and beaheaded in Toulouse, in spite
of the call for royal pardon by the Pope and several European princes.
The case was an opportunity both for Louis XIII to impose his absolute
power to the nobles and for Richelieu to complete his personal revenge
against Montmorency. Henri II de Montmorency was also Governor of Nouvelle-France from 1620
to 1625. Samuel de Champlain named after him the Montmorency
Waterfalls, located in Quebec City, in 1613.
The elder branch of Montmorency kept the arms with the sixteen
alerions, whereas the other branches usually placed a charge or an
escutcheon over the cross:
- Montmorency-Harchicourt: Montmorency an escutcheon quarterly 1 and 4
Hornes 2 and 3 quarterly (contre-écartelé) Moers and Saarwerden
- Montmorency-Fosseux and Montmorency-Loresse: Montmorency a mullet
argent
- Montmorency-Bours: Montmorency a crescent argent
- Montmorency-Laval: Montmorency five scallops argent
- Montmorency-Laval-Châtillon, then Montmorency-Laval-Loué:
Laval-Montmorency a canton Beaumont-le-Vicomte
- Montmorency-Laval-Loué Montmorency-Laval a canton Bauçay
- Montmorency-Luxembourg: Montmorency an escutcheon Luxembourg-Piney
- Montmorency-Bouteville: Montmorency-Luxembourg a label argent
The Montmorency-Laval are used in Canada by the town and the oUniversity
of Laval.
Arnaud Leroy, Pascal Vagnat, Dominique Cureau & Ivan Sache, 23 July 2006