Moulin de la Galette

The Moulin de la Galette is a windmill and associated businesses situated near the top of the district of Montmartre in Paris. Since the 17th century the windmill has been known for more than just its milling capabilities. Nineteenth-century owners and millers, the Debray family, made a brown bread, galette, which became popular and thus the name of the windmill and its businesses, which have included a famous guinguette and restaurant. In the 19th century, Le Moulin de la Galette represented diversion for Parisians seeking entertainment, a glass of wine and bread made from flour ground by the windmill. Artists, such as Renoir, van Gogh, and Pissarro have immortalized Le Moulin de la Galette; likely the most notable was Renoir's festive painting, Bal du moulin de la Galette.

The windmill Moulin de la Galette, also known as Blute-fin, was built in 1622. The name Blute-fin comes from the French verb bluter which means sifting flour for the separation from bran.

The Debray family acquired the two mills in 1809 for producing flour, the Blute-fin and the Radet, built in 1717. But it was also used to pressurize the harvest or grind materials needed for manufacturing.

An association Friends of Old Montmartre saved it from destruction in 1915. In 1924, its owner moved the windmill to the corner of Girardon and Lepic streets. It was restored in 1978, but is not running. The windmill has been classified as a monument since 1939.

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1814, during the siege of Paris three Debray men lost their lives defending the windmill against Cossacks; the miller was killed and nailed to the wings of the windmill.

During the Franco-Prussian War Montmartre was attacked by 20,000 Prussian soldiers. During the siege, Pierre-Charles Debray was killed and nailed to the wings of the windmill. A mass grave for those killed during the siege was made just steps away from the Moulin de la Galette.

The mill was turned into a guinguette by the surviving son of the miller killed during the siege of Paris in 1814.

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Wikipedia