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Montrichard () is a town and former
commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...
in the
Loir-et-Cher Loir-et-Cher (, ) is a department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France. Its name is originated from two rivers which cross it, the Loir in its northern part and the Cher in its southern part. Its prefecture is Blois. The INSEE and La P ...
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 Valle ...
, France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Montrichard Val de Cher. During the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are consider ...
, the commune was known as ''Montégalité''.


Geography

The town lies on the north bank of the river
Cher Cher (; born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Often referred to by the media as the "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industr ...
. south of
Blois Blois ( ; ) is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours. With 45,898 inhabitants by 2019, Blois is the most populated city of the d ...
, west of
Vierzon Vierzon () is a commune in the Cher department, Centre-Val de Loire, France. Geography A medium-sized town by the banks of the river Cher with some light industry and an area of forestry and farming to the north. It is situated some northwest ...
and east of
Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metrop ...
. The countryside is mainly constituted of vineyard, woods, cattle and cereals.


Sites and monuments

* Château de Montrichard, a
mediaeval 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 period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
. * Nanteuil Church (12th, 13th, 15th centuries), whose statue of the
Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jews, Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Jose ...
is the object of a very ancient
pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
on
Whit Monday Whit Monday or Pentecost Monday, also known as Monday of the Holy Spirit, is the holiday celebrated the day after Pentecost, a moveable feast in the Christian liturgical calendar. It is moveable because it is determined by the date of Easter. In ...
. * Church of the Holy Cross (''Église Ste-Croix'') has a fine Romanesque doorway and was the site of Joan of France's marriage to the future king. * Château de Pont-Cher, a 15th-century home built into the cliff, containing the René Galloux collection of prehistoric and
Gallo-Roman Gallo-Roman culture was a consequence of the Romanization of Gauls under the rule of the Roman Empire. It was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman culture, language, morals and way of life in a uniquely Gaulish contex ...
artefacts from excavations in the Cher valley.


Pronunciation

The right pronunciation should be « MON-TRICHARD » ɔ̃tʀiʃɑʀ with a ''t''. One of the explanations that may justify the pronunciation of "t" is the following: Montrichard was supposed to come from the French words "mont" (mountain, hill), "tri" (for three) and "chard" (square) because the town is situated on a hill surrounded on three sides by square towers.Webpage
(in French) explaining the city name "Montrichard".


Notable people

*
Joan of France, Duchess of Berry Joan of France (french: link=no, Jeanne de France, Jeanne de Valois; 23 April 1464 – 4 February 1505), was briefly Queen of France as wife of King Louis XII, in between the death of her brother, King Charles VIII, and the annulment of her mar ...
, married the future king of France
Louis XII Louis XII (27 June 14621 January 1515), was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, he succeeded his 2nd cousin once removed and brother in law at the time ...
in Montrichard, though the marriage was later annulled. *
André Alerme André Alerme (9 September 1877 – 31 January 1960) was a French actor. Alerme was born Marie André Alerme in Dieppe, Seine-Maritime, France and died at the age of 82 in Montrichard, Loir-et-Cher, France. Selected filmography * ''Black and W ...
, a French actor who appeared in more than 70 films, died here in 1960. * Paulette Abagnale, mother of
Frank Abagnale Frank William Abagnale Jr. (; born April 27, 1948) is an American author and convicted felon. Abagnale targeted individuals and small businesses yet gained notoriety in the late 1970s by claiming a diverse range of victimless workplace frauds, ...
, confidence trickster * Eugénie Luce, French educator who lived and worked in
Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques d ...
, died in Montrichard in 1882.


Popular culture

The town is mentioned in the 2002 feature film ''
Catch Me If You Can ''Catch Me If You Can'' is a 2002 American biographical crime comedy-drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks with Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen, Nathalie Baye, Amy Adams and James Br ...
'', as the town from which the mother of
Frank Abagnale Frank William Abagnale Jr. (; born April 27, 1948) is an American author and convicted felon. Abagnale targeted individuals and small businesses yet gained notoriety in the late 1970s by claiming a diverse range of victimless workplace frauds, ...
came. Later in the film, Abagnale has set up a high-end printing facility for printing corporate cheques in Montrichard when he is tracked down and arrested by the FBI. The exterior shots of the town, however, were filmed in the Place Royale in the lower town of Quebec City, which is easily identifiable by the Notre Dame des Victoires church.


References

Former communes of Loir-et-Cher {{LoirCher-geo-stub