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Flag of La Flèche - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 7 March 2004
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The municipality of La Flèche (14,902 inhabitants in 2018; 7,421 ha; municipal website) is located half distance (45 km) of Angers and Le Mans.
La Flèche got its name (lit., The Arrow) most probably derived from Latin fixa, "a peg", as a reference to an early settlement built on piles on river Loir. Another explanation is related to the spire (flèche) of the St. Thomas' church, which was the early center of the town.
Little is known on the early history of La Flèche, except the presence
of a Roman estate in the neighborhood.
The first lord of La Flèche was Jean de Beaugency, who built in the 12th century a fortified castle surrounded with moats. Until the 17th
century, La Flèche remained a village of lesser importance.
Hélie de la Flèche, count of Maine, married his daughter Gremburge to count Foulques of Anjou. Their son was Geoffroy Plantagenet, father of Henri II Plantagenet, the founder of the Anglo-Angevin Empire.
In 1540, Françoise d'Alençon, lord of La Flèche, built the château neuf (new castle) to replace the old medieval castle. Françoise married Charles de Bourbon-Vendôme; their son Antoine de Bourbon (1518-1562) married Jeanne d'Albret (1528-1572) and was crowned king of Navarre in 1555. Antoine and Jeanne had a son, Henri (1553-1610), later known as king Henri III of Navarre (1572-1610) and Henri IV of France (1589-1610). The good fortune of La Flèche was due to Henri IV, who was allegedly conceived in La Flèche. Wherever Henri was conceived, he spent a part of his youth in La Flèche and seems to have enjoyed his stay there.
When king of France, Henri appointed Guillaume Fouquet de la Varenne as
his porte-manteau, the officer who was in charge of carrying the
king's coat. Fouquet became his confidant and promoted his birth town, La
Flèche. In 1603, Fouquet persuaded Henri IV to found and fund in La
Flèche a Royal College administrated by the Jesuits.
The architect Louis Métezeau (1572-1615, from a famous dynasty of
architects from Dreux) drafted the plans of the College. It was
organized around a row of five courtyards, the Royal (or Fathers')
Courtyard; the Classes Courtyard, with the church; the Boarders'
Courtyard; and two smaller courtyards for the outhouses, called the
Fathers' Farmyards. The church and the Acts Hall were built in 1621,
whereas the Fathers' Courtyard and the Royal Gate surmonting an
equestrian statue of Henri IV, were achieved in 1655 only.
The College housed in 1625 1,500 students. Although the College
was religious, its boisterous students disrupted the quite life of the
small town: a long conflict known as the Frog's War, opposed the students, supported by the Fathers, to the military governor of the town, who wanted to forbid them
catching frogs in the moats.
After the building of the College, Fouquet continued to improve the
town, funding the cobbling of the streets, the building of new walls and
a guardpost in 1615. The Directoire government founded in 1800 the Prytanée, as "a free
college for the sons of those who had served the state, mostly in the
Army" (Littré). The Prytanée was named after the Ancient Greek
prutaneion, a public building where the prytanes met. In Athens, the
prytanes were chosen among the ten founding tribes and could be
appointed among the 50 senators. In other Greek cities, a prytane was
a magistrate of first rank (Grand Robert de la Langue Française). Most
Prytanées set up by the Directoire became our modern lycées (named after
Aristoteles' philosophy school in Athens). However, the Prytanée of La
Flèche kept its original name and military organization. Renamed in
1808 Prytanée Militaire Impérial, the college is known today as Prytanée Militaire de La Flèche. Today, the students, known as brutions, prepare in the Prytanée admission to the High Military Colleges. The high quality of teaching in La Flèche is reflected by the list of
famous people who were educated in the Prytanée: the philosopher René
Descartes (1596-1650); the "first grenadeer of France" Théophile Malo
Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne (1743-1800); Admiral Abel Aubert
Dupetit-Thouars (1793-1864), who established the French protectorate on Tahiti; Marshal Louis Nicolas Davout (1770-1823), created Duke of Auerstaedt and Prince of Eckmuehl by Napoléon I; General Jean Andoche Junot (1771-1813), made Duke of Abrantès by Napoléon I; Marshal Count Jean-Baptise Jourdan (1762-1833), winner in Fleurus (1794) and commander
of the Spain Army (1808-1814); General Count Henri Bertrand (1773-1844),
who went with Napoléon I in exile to Elba and St. Helena and organized the return of the emperor's ashes to France in 1840; Marshal Aimable Pélissier (1794-1864), winner in Sebastopol (1855) and governor of Algeria (1860), created Duke of Malakoff by Napoléon III; Marshal Joseph Gallieni (1849-1916), organizer of the French colony in Madagascar (1896-1902), Military Governor of Paris in 1914 and winner on the Marne, Minister of War (1915-1916), created marshal posthumously in 1921, etc.. In spite of the boisterous students of the Royal College, La Flèche was
known under the Ancient Regime as a very quiet, not to say boring, town. The poet Jean Baptiste Louis Gresset (1709-1777) was exiled from Amiens to La Flèche by the Jesuits because he had published
satirical poems deemed licentious. He took revenge in describing La
Flèche as follows: In 1789, La Flèche had 3,800 inhabitants. At the end of 1793, the bridge
over the Loir was partially destroyed to prevent the insurgents from the
Catholic and Royal Army of Vendée to enter the town, which they did
twice, however. Marie Pape-Carpentier (1815-1878), a pioneer in teaching young
children, founded in La Flèche the first elemntary school in France. In
1848, she was appointed the first Inspectrice générale des Écoles
Maternelles de France. She was also the first woman to give a public
lecture in the Sorbonne University in Paris. The zoological park of Tertre Rouge (website) was opened near La Flèche by Jacques Bouillault in 1971. The other main economical activity in La Flèche is the printing house Brodard et Taupin, printer of the Livre de Poche book series. Ivan Sache, 7 March 2004 The flag of La Flèche is white, charged in the center
with the municipal coat of arms, "Gules an arrow in pale the point upwards between two towers argent a chief azure three fleurs-de-lis or". Olivier Touzeau & Ivan Sache, 7 March 2004
In 1764, the Jesuits were expelled from France. The College was
transformed into a College for Cadets, preparing them for the entry to
the École Militaire in Paris. In 1776, it wa transformed once again into the
The town had only one barber, two billiards and one café. The social
life was ruled by several convents that imposed the cult of the Blessed
Virgin, so that the town was nicknamed "La Sainte-Flèche".
The collector of the taille, Jérôme Le Royer de la Dauversière
(1597-1659) was a pious man. Upset by the misery experienced by the
peasants in the region of La Flèche and the ignorance of God experienced
by the Indians in Canada, he organized the emigration of 278 men, 45
women and children, and 3 nuns to Canada, from 1640 to 1659. The
emigrants sailed from Port Luneau, built on the Loir and active
until 1914, in local flat-bottom ships called futreaux. They reached
Nantes and La Rochelle and sailed to Canada. On 18 May 1642, emigrants from La Flèche founded Ville Marie, later renamed Montréal. La Dauversière organized the emigration in a very rational way, creating the Société de Notre-Dame pour la Conversion des Sauvages. In 1646, three Jesuit fathers from La Flèche were martyrized by the Hurons. A former student of the Royal College, François de Montmorency-Laval, was appointed in 1674 the first bishop of Nouvelle-France.Un climat assez agréable / A climate fairly nice
De petits bois assez mignons / Small woods fairly lovely
Un petit vin assez potable / A small wine fairly acceptable
De petits concerts assez bons / Small concerts fairly good
Un petit monde assez passable / A small world fairly tolerable
La Flèche pourrait etre aimable / La Flèche could be pleasant
S'il était de belles prisons / If there were pleasant prisons
La Flèche is the birth city of Paul Balluat d'Estournelles de Constant,
one of the founders of the International Court of Justice in the Hague,
awarded the Nobel Prize of Peace in 1909.
The musician Léo Delibes (1836-1891), known for the comic opera Lakmé
and the ballets Sylvia and Coppélia, was born in the village of
Saint-Germain-du-Val, incorporated into the municipality of La Flèche in 1965.
Flag of La Flèche
These arms appear in a wood engraving dated 1664. The chief of France was allegedly granted by King Henri IV.