Le Mesnil-le-Roi

Geography

Le Mesnil-le-Roi is situated between the Forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the left bank of the River Seine. It is bordered by Maisons-Laffitte to the north, Le Pecq to the south and Saint-Germain-en-Laye to the west. To the east, the Seine separates it from Montesson. The communal land includes an equal part of an island in the Seine, the Île de la Borde.

Outside the town, conjoining with Maisons-Laffitte, the commune includes a second major estate, Carrières-sous-Bois.

The commune is crossed in its southern part by the A14 autoroute, partly underground. This autoroute crosses the Seine on a viaduct of reinforced concrete, forming two parallel bridges.

History

Heraldry

Azure, two spurs fesswise lower one contourny undersole straps one against the other intertwined in pale rowelled and buckled Or, and on a chief argent a salamander gules between two fleur-de-lis Or.

This coat of arms, adopted in 1952, derives from the La Salle family, the ancient landowners of Carrières-sous-Bois, and it was given to them by Francis I.

Administration

Demography

|1968|5473 |1975|5680 |1982|5557 |1990|6206 |1999|6207 |2007|6401 |2012|6383 |2017|6292

Culture

The town participates in a Concours des villes et villages fleuris ("Towns and Villages in Bloom" competition) and in 2007 won two flowers.

Monuments

• Church of St Vincent: Church in the Flamboyant Gothic style, consecrated on 2 August 1587
• Château du Val, 17th Century, situated on the edge of the Forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, built by the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart.
• The Orangery of the Château du Mesnil, situated in a protected zone of POS ND-EBC (Non-cultivable woodland)) which has been converted to 43 private houses
• Old abandoned mineshafts (Château du Mesnil, now demolished), situated on the edge of the Orangery on the Rue de Général Leclerc
• Artificial caves (abandoned), ancient glaciers (abandoned) and ruins of canals (now abandoned) in the communal woodlands (Château du Mesnil, now demolished).

Twin towns

ENG England: Newmarket, Suffolk

Famous people

• Émile Littré, bought a house in Mesnil-le-Roi, which he styled "Ménil-le-Roi," in 1847, and stayed there until his death in 1881; it was here that he did the bulk of his work on his great Dictionnaire de la langue française (1872; supplement 1877)
• Augustin Henry-Lepaute, watchmaker
• Jacques Fath, tailor, born in Mesnil-le-Roi in 1912
• Serge Gainsbourg, until then Lucien Ginsburg, married Élisabeth Levitsky at Mesnil-le-Roi Town Hall on 3 November 1951. He worked at this time at the Maison Champsfleur (actually an old people's home) as an assistant to young Israeli children whose parents were victims of the Holocaust.
• Jeanne Bourin, novelist and media personality
• Louis Pauwels, journalist
• Jules Rein, Politician, mayor of Mesnil-le-Roi, originator of the canton of Maisons-Laffitte – Le Mesnil-le-Roi – Houilles.

Economy

• Residential community.

References

References

1. (13 September 2022). "Répertoire national des élus: les maires". data.gouv.fr, Plateforme ouverte des données publiques françaises.
2. [https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/4515315?geo=COM-78396#ancre-POP_T1 Population en historique depuis 1968], INSEE
3. "Palmarès du Concours des villes et villages fleuris dans les Yvelines".
4. Nicole Savy, ''Le Siècle des dictionnaires'' (Paris: Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication/Éditions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1987), p. 23.