History of Rambouillet

Rambouillet is a French commune, situated in the Yvelines department (78) and the Ile de France region. Average size town surrounded by the forest of the same name, situated 50 km south-west of Paris, Rambouilletis in the middle of a vast territory including 2000 hectares of forest and 500 hectares of agricultural land.

Its precedent mayor is Gerard Larcher, senator and minister delegated to the relations of work in the Dominique De Villepin government.

The commune of Rambouillet is located on a forest platform of about 160 metres in altitude, where numerous brooks take birth to feed the rivers that brightens around the forest mass.It is the case of the Guéville river, a tributary of the Drouette, that takes its source in the castle park.The Drouette’s course, originating in the La Tour pond, drains the east part of the territory to the south at the Or pond.

The communal territory is constituted of 80% of rural space essentially forestall.
The forestall zones are located principally in the north and the eastern part of the west of the commune, as well as in the south-east fringe. Urbanisation, blocked to the west by the presence of the Rambouillet’s castle and its domain, has extended towards the south along the national road n°10, where a zone of activity has been established, and to the east, between the national road n°10 and the Drouette, with important estate areas.

Rambouillet’s Castle Diaporama

The town is served by the national road n°10, oriented north-south, which avoids the city centre by a deviation passing by the east. The departmental road 906, oriented east-west, joins Rambouillet to the Chevreuse valley and Maintenon (Eure valley).On the railroad level, the town has a train station served by the Transilien Paris-Montparnasse (Montparnasse station) on the line Paris Montparnasse Chartres. The trip takes about 34 mn.

The Rambouillet’s castle, which the construction started in 1375, received Rabelais, king’s doctor, and François the 1st, who loved to hunt around it. The 31st of march 1547, he died in one of the castle tower, which bears his name ever since. Property of the Angennes, of Joseph Fleuriau d’Armenonville, guardian of the seals of france, of the count of Toulouse, legitimate son of Louis XIV and Mme de Montespan, then of his son the duke of Penthievre, it has been acquired by Louis XVI who ordered to built in the park the Queen’s dairy to try (in vain) to make Marie-Antoinette being interested.
After the revolution, Napoleon restored it.
That is where Charles X, fleeing Paris from the so called ‘Trois Glorieuses’ insurrection, comes to take refuge with most of his family on the 31st of July 1830. Two days later, the king as well as the dauphin, abdicates in favor of the duke of Bordeau. It’s the president Felix Faure who made Rambouillet his summer residence in 1896.