Rueil-Malmaison

Sister cities

• Bad Soden am Taunus
• Fribourg
• Le Bardo
• Helsingør
• Ávila
• Sarajevo
• Bukhara
• Dubrovnik
• Zouk Mikael
• Elmbridge
• Lynchburg
• Tōgane-shi

History

The territory of Rueil has been frequented since very ancient times: during foundation work for the construction of a new neighbourhood near the Seine, at the "Closeaux" site, a Mesolithic site of an Azilian people (10,300 to 8,700 BCE) was uncovered. Remains of an Eurasian cave lion, dating back 12,000 years, were also discovered there. The first historical mention of Rueil, or rather of Rotoialum villae, dates back to the 6th century CE, in the History of the Franks written by Gregory of Tours. The term refers to what was then a Roman-style villa. Also known as Roialum or Rotariolensem villam, it was a place of leisure and hunting for Merovingian kings from the 6th to the 8th century CE. The Rueil barracks of the Swiss Guard were constructed in 1756 under Louis XV by the architect Charles-Axel Guillaumot, and have been classified Monument historique since 1973. The Guard was formed by Louis XIII in 1616 and massacred at the Tuileries on 10 August 1792 during the French Revolution. Around 870, Charles the Bald gave this estate to the Abbey of Saint-Denis. At the end of the 12th century, Benedictine monks built a chapel dedicated to Saint Cucufa in the former Béranger woods, which later, after the 18th century, became known as the "Saint-Cucufa woods". During the Edward III's Chevauchée in 1346, Rueil was burned and thoroughly devastated by the Black Prince, taking a long time to recover from this disaster. In 1584, Antoine of Portugal, exiled in France, lived in Rueil and laid the first stone of a church on the site of the old one, which was in ruins. In 1622, Christophe Perrot, a counsellor to the Parliament of Paris, had a château built on the site called Malmaison, an estate that would become, in the following century, the property of the future Empress…

Most-observed species

• Common Wood-Pigeon

  Columba palumbus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  19,052
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  18,394
• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  17,928
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  15,413
• Rose-ringed Parakeet

  Psittacula krameri (Scopoli, 1769) · Aves
  14,853
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  14,549
• Eurasian Blue Tit

  Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  14,195
• Rock Pigeon

  Columba livia J.F.Gmelin, 1789 · Aves
  12,958

Most recent

• M 3.1 — 2005-06-01
  3 km N of Grandvilliers, France