Épernon () is a French commune in the Eure-et-Loir

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

Centre-Val de Loire Centre-Val de Loire (, , ,In isolation, ''Centre'' is pronounced . ) or Centre Region (french: région Centre, link=no, ), as it was known until 2015, is one of the eighteen administrative regions of France. It straddles the middle Loire Valley ...

. It lies some northeast of

Chartres Chartres () is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 170,763 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Chartres (as d ...

, at the confluence of the Drouette and the Guesle.

History

Épernon was originally the home of the counts of Montfort and Amaury. In the 11th century, they raised the fortresses of Épernon and Montfort for the protection of the Château de St Léger and granted a charter to the town. Four gates gave access to the medieval city: the gate of Chartres, the gate of Geolle, the gate of Paris and the gate of Beauce. Above the gates an inscription paid homage to the village that previously existed there: ''Autrist fut jadis mon nom/A présent on me nomme Espierremont'' (Autrist was once my name/now my name is Espierremont). Charters of the 12th and 13th century variously refer to the town as Sparno and Sparnonum, but by the 14th century it had evolved to Esparnon and Espernon, very close to its present appellation. In the 13th century it became an independent lordship, which remained attached to the crown of

Navarre Navarre (; es, Navarra ; eu, Nafarroa ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre ( es, Comunidad Foral de Navarra, links=no ; eu, Nafarroako Foru Komunitatea, links=no ), is a foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, ...

till, in the 16th century, it was sold by

Henry III of France Henry III (french: Henri III, né Alexandre Édouard; pl, Henryk Walezy; lt, Henrikas Valua; 19 September 1551 – 2 August 1589) was King of France from 1574 until his assassination in 1589, as well as King of Poland and Grand Duke of ...

to Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, for whom it was raised to the rank of a duchy in 1581. De Nogaret's second son, Bernard (1592–1661), succeeded his father to the dukedom and after his death, the title was borne by the families of Goth and of

Pardaillan Pardaillan (), the name of an old French family of Armagnac, of which several members distinguished themselves in the service of the kings of France in the 16th and 17th centuries. Antoine Arnaud de Pardaillan, maréchal de camp, served Henry IV ...

. The

Marquis de Sade Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814), was a French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer famous for his literary depictions of a libertine sexuality as well as numerous accusat ...

wished to be buried in an unmarked grave on his family property in Épernon; however, his instructions were not followed and he is buried in Charenton.

Épernon today

Although the Montforts were an important family and Épernon was an important duchy up through the 17th century, its location on the fringes of its greater neighbors of

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

and others left it somewhat passed over for a time. The population in 1999 was 5,498 but it is enjoying something of a resurgence as a fast-growing high-tech industrial center. At the industrial park of Val Drouette 3,000 people find employment.

Education

The town is endowed of one secondary school named after the French mathematician Michel Chasles and which was founded in 1973.Collège Michel-Chasles : 40 ans, ça se fête !
L'Écho Républicain, 7 May 2013. It is located on the Boulevard Michel Chasles and is composed of three buildings (A, B and C).

Population

References

External links