Dreux
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Saint-Pierre church
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 Dreux
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Location within Centre-Val de Loire region
Dreux
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| Coordinates: 48°44′14″N 1°21′59″E / 48.7372°N 01.3664°ECoordinates: 48°44′14″N 1°21′59″E / 48.7372°N 01.3664°E | ||
| Country | France | |
| Region | Centre-Val de Loire | |
| Department | Eure-et-Loir | |
| Arrondissement | Dreux | |
| Intercommunality | Drouais | |
| Government | ||
| • Mayor (2008–2014) | Gérard Hamel | |
| Area1 | 24.27 km2 (9.37 sq mi) | |
| Population (2008)2 | 31,212 | |
| • Density | 1,300/km2 (3,300/sq mi) | |
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | |
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | |
| INSEE/Postal code | 28134 / 28100 | |
| Elevation | 75–139 m (246–456 ft) | |
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1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. 2Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once. |
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1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
Dreux (French pronunciation: [dʁø]) is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France.
Dreux was known in ancient times as Durocassium, the capital of the Durocasses Celtic tribe. Despite the legend, its name was not related with Druids. The Romans established here a fortified camp known as Castrum Drocas.
In the Middle Ages, Dreux was the centre of the County of Dreux. The first count of Dreux was Robert, the son of King Louis the Fat. The first large battle of the French Wars of Religion occurred at Dreux, on 19 December 1562, resulting in a hard-fought victory for the Catholic forces of the duc de Montmorency.
In 1775, the lands of the comté de Dreux had been given to the Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre by his cousin Louis XVI. In 1783, the duke sold his domain of Rambouillet to Louis XVI. On 25 November of that year, in a long religious procession, Penthièvre transferred the nine caskets containing the remains of his parents, the Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse and Marie Victoire de Noailles, comtesse de Toulouse, his wife, Marie Thérèse Félicité d'Este, Princess of Modène, and six of their seven children, from the small medieval village church next to the castle in Rambouillet, to the chapel of the Collégiale Saint-Étienne de Dreux. The duc de Penthièvre died in March 1793 and his body was laid to rest in the crypt beside his parents. On 21 November of that same year, in the midst of the French Revolution, a mob desecrated the crypt and threw the ten bodies in a mass grave in the Chanoines cemetery of the Collégiale Saint-Étienne. In 1816, the duc de Penthièvre's daughter, Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, duchesse d'Orléans, had a new chapel built on the site of the mass grave of the Chanoines cemetery, as the final resting place for her family. In 1830, Louis-Philippe I, King of the French, son of the duchesse d'Orléans, embellished the chapel which was renamed Chapelle royale de Dreux, now the necropolis of the Orléans royal family.
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