Épineuil-le-Fleuriel (; oc, Espinuelh de Flurièt) is a commune in the

Cher Cher (; born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Often referred to by the media as the Honorific nicknames in popular music, "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female ...

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, ...

in the

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 ...

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Geography

An area of lakes, streams and

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

consisting of the village and several hamlets situated by the banks of both the river

and the canal de Berry, some south of

Bourges Bourges () is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre. It is the capital of the department of Cher, and also was the capital city of the former province of Berry. History The name of the commune derives either from the Bituriges, t ...

at the junction of the D4, D64 and the D97 roads. The

A71 autoroute The A71 autoroute is a motorway in central France. It is also called ''l'Arverne''. It starts at Orléans and ends at Clermont-Ferrand. Orléans to Bourges The autoroute is 2x2 lanes and is operated by the Société Cofiroute (Orléans-Bourg ...

runs through the western part of the territory of the commune and it shares a border with the department of

Allier Allier ( , , ; oc, Alèir) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region that borders Cher to the west, Nièvre to the north, Saône-et-Loire and Loire to the east, Puy-de-Dôme to the south, and Creuse to the south-west. Named afte ...

Population

Sights

* St Martin's church, dating from the twelfth century. * The eighteenth-century chateau of Cornançay. * The nineteenth-century school and

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

of writer Alain-Fournier. * A

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a wa ...

motte with a

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

. * Traces of another

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

castle. * The chateau of Fougerolles. * Old tile works at la Bouchatte. * A washhouse at Cornançay.

Personalities

Alain-Fournier Alain-Fournier () was the pseudonym of Henri-Alban Fournier (3 October 1886 – 22 September 1914Mémoi ...

, writer, spent his childhood here, where his parents taught at the school. The setting of his novel,

Le Grand Meaulnes ''Le Grand Meaulnes'' () is the only novel by French author Alain-Fournier, who was killed in the first month of World War I. The novel, published in 1913, a year before the author's death, is somewhat autobiographical – especially the name of th ...

, is based on the area around the village.

References

External links