Vestiges of human occupation in the Neolithic period, creation of parishes in the Middle Ages, redistricting and administrative formalization after the Revolution. So many steps in the creation of the 36 municipalities of the Hauts-de-Seine department, itself created in 1968 at the time of the reorganization of the Paris region. And, for each municipality, the opportunity to choose a key moment to mark its “birth” and celebrate it.
This is how Courbevoie opted for April 28, 1784, the date of the creation of the Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul parish. The opportunity to celebrate its 240th anniversary this Sunday, including the installation of historical markers on its territory and activities around its rich industrial past.
“I searched for a long time for the date of the creation of the city, and it is only very recently that we found a register in which Father Hébert mentions that the inhabitants had won their case with the creation of the parish”, explains the mayor (LR) Jacques Kossowski, at the head of the city since 1995, who will therefore celebrate this “anniversary” for the first time, notably by mobilizing the Courbevoie History Society and the neighborhood councils.
“But the town of Courbevoie already existed before this date as a branch of Colombes and 1784 therefore marks in some way its independence”, specifies Pierre Chancerel, director of the departmental archives of Hauts-de-Seine who defines three main stages of the creation of the towns of the department.
The oldest municipalities: parishes and lordships from the Middle Ages
Archaeological research reveals that Nanterre is the oldest territory occupied by man in Hauts-de-Seine, with Neolithic remains, i.e. between 6,000 and 2,000 years ago. Furthermore, the first mention of the existence of a place called Nanterre dates back to around 480.
That is, a few decades before Saint Cloud, which takes its name from Clodoald, grandson of the first king of the Franks and who celebrated its 1,500th anniversary in 2022! As for Boulogne-Billancourt, the city celebrated its 700 years of existence in 2019. “Bagneux is also one of the oldest towns in the department, in the Middle Ages it was a very important lordship of which certain territories then acquired their independence in the 18th century with the creation of Sceaux and Bourg-la-Reine », explains Pierre Chancerel.
Further north in the department, Clichy is also one of the oldest towns, with traces dating back to the 7th century since it was the residence of Merovingian monarchs, such as the illustrious King Dagobert.
The creation of “modern” cities after the Revolution
We then had to wait until 1790 for the administrative emergence of the communes as we know them today. Even if, on a map of the “surroundings of Paris” dating from 1751, the names already appear, with different spellings, of Ruel, Genevilliers, Villedavray, Bilancourt, Vanvre… “It should be noted that after the Revolution, the territory which was today that of Hauts-de-Seine only has 31 towns,” specifies the director of departmental archives, emphasizing that the case of Courbevoie is in this sense a little special because the parish town was created a few years earlier.
“Courbevoie gained importance in the 1750s with the installation of a barracks then in 1771 with the construction of the Pont de Neuilly, one of the first stone bridges in France, which made the town more accessible and contributed to its growth », explains Pierre Chancerel.
The last cities born at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries
There were only 31 in 1790 and there are now 36. Five communes in Hauts-de-Seine are therefore much more recent. This is the case of Levallois-Perret, founded in 1867 by breaking away from Clichy on the one hand and Neuilly on the other. “It is a sort of commercial affair since the subdivision was bought by two men, Nicolas Eugène Levallois and Jean-Jacques Perret,” explains the director of the archives.
Then, in 1883, the commune of Malakoff was born, which acquired its independence from Vanves and whose name is that of a cabaret, the Malakoff Tower, created during the Crimean War. In 1896, it was the turn of Bois-Colombes to see the light of day, at the time of the development of the railway and therefore of a station in this hamlet of Colombes. In the same way, La Garenne-Colombes was born in 1910. But the “youngest” town in Hauts-de-Seine is Villeneuve-la-Garenne, which acquired its independence from Gennevilliers in 1927.
If municipal boundaries have evolved over the centuries, some towns have also changed their names. This is for example the case of Plessis-Robinson which was called Plessis-Piquet until 1909, a year which serves as a reference today to date its creation. “This is a reference to the Robinson tavern which was created in 1848 in reference to the book “Robinson Crusoe”, with tree houses, a sort of amusement park of the time to bring Parisians in the countryside,” explains Pierre Chancerel. Finally, in 1928, Rueil added Malmaison to its name, in reference to the estate purchased in 1799 by Joséphine de Beauharnais, wife of Napoleon.
