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Origin and history

The dungeon of Montchauvet, built in the 2nd quarter of the 12th century, is a vestige of the fortification erected by Louis VI le Gros and Amaury de Montfort when creating a new city on this strategic site. This castle, completed in 1136, was part of a defensive network controlling the tracks between Paris, Dreux and Évreux, on a feudal motte overlooking the Vaucouleurs valley. The excavations and the current ruins reveal a structure associated with a double enclosure, whose Gate of Brittany remains as a trace of the fortifications commissioned later by Philippe Auguste.

Over the centuries, the Château de Montchauvet was a major military issue. In 1378 he was taken by Du Guesclin during the Hundred Years War, when the Rue du Massacre was named after a bloody battle between French and English. Kings Charles V and Henry IV ordered its complete demolition, reducing the building to its dungeon and underground remains. The moth, now stabilized by embankments, still houses underground departures and a local legend evokes a treasure hidden by monks or Protestants under its foundations.

The dungeon, classified as Historic Monument in 1991 (decree of 13 June), is today limited to ruins preserved in the state, property of the commune. The site also includes the soil of adjacent plots (cadastres AB 210, 214, 217), where a partially visible wall of fortification extends towards the forest. Although access to the mound is restricted to avoid landslides, the dungeon remains an architectural testimony to medieval urbanization in Île-de-France, linked to Capetian expansion and Franco-English conflicts.

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