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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The church of Saint-Martin, Ermenonville, erected in 1213 by the chapter Notre-Dame de Senlis, finds its origins in a primitive bell tower built around 1170–80. This bell tower, the base of the present north side, marks the beginning of an interrupted construction site, taken over in the 13th century for the Gothic choir sexpartite, inspired by the abbey of Chaalis. The vaults, completed in the second quarter of the 13th century, are accompanied by corrugated capitals and carved blazes, reflecting the influence of Senlis.

The nave, begun in the 14th century, remains unfinished due to the Hundred Years War. Its reconstruction between 1534 and 1540, financed by parishioners, adopts the flamboyant Gothic style, with prismatic vaults and complex filling windows. The work also includes the repair of the choir (1528) and the addition of a sacristy (1559). The Renaissance altarpiece (1614–15), commissioned by Méry de Vic to Simon Guillain and Louis Finson, adorns the bedside of a painting depicting Saint Martin's Charity, while marble funeral monuments, carved by Barthélemy Priory, honour Vic's family.

In the 19th century, the church enjoyed a controversial restoration (1883–86), financed by Prince Constant Radziwiłł and his wife Louise. This patronage, linked to the legacy of François Blanc (founder of the Société des bains de mer de Monaco), provides the building with neo-Gothic furniture — organ, pulpit, confessionals, stained glass — and a Florentine triptych offered in 1887. Despite criticism for its lack of authenticity, the church was listed as a historic monument in 1911, after being briefly removed from the list in 1886.

The exterior architecture, sober and asymmetrical, reveals Gothic foothills, a flat bedside pierced by a triplet and a revamped bell tower, whose neo-Gothic belfry floor (1880) contrasts with the Romanesque base. Inside, the blind nave, the low-sides with hanging vaults and the lateral chapels (Vierge, Saint-Michel) illustrate successive construction campaigns. The furniture, marked by the gifts of Vic (XVIIe) and Radziwiłł (XIXe), includes medieval foundation plates and works related to the local hotel-God, founded in the 13th century.

The parish history, documented by Abbé Jean-Louis Radel (XVIIIe), evokes community tensions (such as discontent with the Marguillier Antoine Boquet in 1610) and links with the chapter of Senlis, a collator of the cure until 1596. The French Revolution damaged the seigneurial vault and the epitaphs, noted in the 17th century by François Roger de Gaignières. Today attached to the parish of Notre-Dame de la Visitation du Haudouin, the church preserves Sunday Masses and an exceptional furniture heritage, witness to seven centuries of religious and social history.

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