RENNEMOULIN COMMUNAL MONOGRAPH

From the canton and 8 kilometers from Marly, Rennemoulin, located on the ru de Gally, is 8 kilometers from Versailles, 2 kilometers from the station of Noisy-le-Roi on the Grande Ceinture railway, 3 kilometers from Villepreux-les-Clayes station on the Granville line. The Pont Cavalier on the Ru de Gally, marks the intersection of the limits of the three communes: Rennemoulin, Noisy-le-Roi, Fontenay le Fleury.

Old Latin designation: Ranae Molendinum (frog mill), 1208.

Rennemoulin has a large flour mill with a fireplace overlooking the village.

In 1202, two owners had declared that they wanted to pay the costs of a chapel in Rennemoulin provided that the chapel was served by a religious of the Order of the Trinity. The bishop of Paris authorized, but in such a case the church henceforth imposed conditions intended to ward off the abuses which custom had established in favor of the founders and which made them, who were called patrons of the church , true owners of churches, whose rights were passed on to their descendants. In this case, the bishop inserted in the charter of foundation a clause reserving for him the right to appoint as to dismiss the minister, with the indication of the revenues allocated to the church.

Until the beginning of the 19th century, Rennemoulin had a church, apparently from the 13th century, dedicated to Saint-Nicolas. Before the Revolution the cure was a priory dependent on the Abbey of Hermières. The minister attended the presentation of the Abbé d'Hermières, taken from among the religious of his order. The Hermières abbey, of the Prémontre order, was located in the commune of Fouvières, in the current arrondissement of Meulan.

The parish having been removed and reunited with that of Villepreux, the church became barn, stable, attic.

On the bell, transferred to the church of Villepreux, we read the following inscription: “In the month of May 1690, I was melted down by the care of Brother Jean François Raymbert prior and parish priest of Rennemoulin and named Marie by Messire Pierre Raims priest and canon of the holy royal chapel of Vincennes and by Dame Leroy wife of Messire Philippe Lemoyne lord of said Rennemoulin, former adviser to the king and notary at the Châtelet in Paris, Louis Carlut, churchwarden. I was made by Guilles Lemoine, founder for the king. "

Jean François Raimbert, religious of Hermières, bachelor in theology, who was prior-pastor of Rennemoulin when this bell was installed, was elected in 1712 Abbot of Sainte-Marie d'Abbécourt in Orgeval, whose buildings he built.

In 1230, Marie de Rennemoulin widow of Jean Paolé gave the monks of Joyenval ten sous of income on her property in Noisy “in consu meo apud Nosiacum junta Marli. »And to the Abbey of Notre-Dame de la Roche (A Lévy-Saint-Nom) an income of 20 sous parisis on a house located in Poissy.

May 1541, following deed received by Mr. Yves Bourgeois, notary at Châtelet, Antoine du Hautbois, priest, lord of Rennemoulin, priory of Saint-Martin de Vertot near Châtillon sur Indre, ordinarily residing in Rennemoulin in Val de Gally, agrees lease from his priory to Bault Boutet, priest, residing in Saint-Martin en Vertot, for 120 livres tournois per year. (Coyecque)

In February 1580, at the assembly of the three orders of the provost and viscount of Paris for the reformation of the custom of Paris, appeared Anthoine du Vivier, squire, lord of Resnemoulin, secretary of François comte d'Alençon brother of the king.

In the minutes of the same assembly appears "the peasants and inhabitants of Resnemoulin

- au - Val de Gallie, represented by Master Jean l'Abbé, controller of sizes in the election of Gisors. "

Under Louis XIV, the village was included in the large park of Versailles.

Thanks to an intelligent priest who had a taste for archives, the commune of Rennemoulin possesses, for the period preceding and immediately following the Revolution, complete and very well-kept municipal registers. These authentic documents have been carefully analyzed and summarized by ME Tambour in an interesting volume: Les registers municipaux de Rennemoulin (1903).

In the 18th century, the state of vicinality remained deplorable. In 1788, Mr. Sené, parish priest of Rennemoulin, sent, on behalf of the municipal body of his parish, a memorandum to the intermediary office of Saint-Germain-en-Laye: "The village of Rennemoulin is cut in a straight line by a road. very narrow, very rough and uneven parish, consequently very dangerous for cars and walking people. And as it is impossible to get out of this gorge (where Rennemoulin is constricted) only by one side of this path, it must necessarily become worse day by day through the holes and ruts, already so dangerous. that in the very heart of summer one only escapes with double the number of horses. As a misfortune verified very recently, an inhabitant leaving for the halle de Paris with a carriage with nine horses to cross a bad step in this way saw his helmsman perish by a too harsh shock which burst him. In addition in this long lane, there are passages so narrow and raised in borders so narrow and so straight, that the valet at the slightest jolt are liable to be run over. In winter, this crossing is impracticable even on foot. »On April 13, 1788, the intermediary office of St Germain replied that, given the smallness of the funds at its disposal, also given the length of the road, the provincial assembly could not take care of it: the parish had to provide a voluntary constitution.

In 1788, the lands of the commune of Rennemoulin were distributed as follows:

I ent Taxable land: gardens, 8 arpents 88 perches; - plowing, 260 arpents 20 perches, - near, 13 arpents, - pasture, 2 arpents 22 perches, - wood 203 arpents 12 perches.

II ent Non-taxable land, belonging to the king, plowing 8 arpents 88 perches, - wood, 150 perches.

The mill of Rennemoulin was rented by the civil list 820 pounds per year to François Robine.

On July 13, 1788, a furious storm devastated the region.

The trustee and the members of the municipality of Rennemoulin wrote to the members of the Intermediate Bureau of St Germain en Laye that the harvest, wheat, meslin, rye, barley, which was very beautiful, is lying, chopped, pressed against the ground and intermingled, and partially shelled. The beans which would have given at least five setiers the arpent will not give half. The chènevières suffer three quarters of loss. The pos and vetches are totally lost.

On September 15, 1788, the municipal assembly of Rennemoulin, with a view to receiving relief, decides that the arpent of wheat will be valued at 80 pounds of loss, the arpent of rye at 30 pounds ... The total valuation rises for the inhabitants of the parish at 14,890 pounds including 10,900 pounds for Jérôme Sénéchal, farmer to the king, and 2,630 pounds for Robine meunier, more for horsains 1,455 pounds.

On the other hand Jérôme Sénéchal, farmer of a royal farm in Rennemoulin, benefited from the king's share of a discount of 3000 pounds on his rents.

We have seen that in 1580, the parish of Rennemoulin had been represented at the assembly of the provost and viscount of Paris. Since that time, in the seventeenth century, Versailles had been set up as a bailiwick and formed one of the secondary bailiwicks belonging to the provost and viscounty of Paris. During the elections to the Estates General of 1789, it was at the preliminary assembly of the Bailiwick of Versailles that the inhabitants of the parish of Rennemoulin were represented. However, while its representatives thus attended the assembly of the Bailiwick of Versailles, default was pronounced against the parish at the preliminary assembly of the Provost and Viscount of Paris outside the Walls. On April 12, 1789, the electors of the parish of Rennemoulin elected as their deputies to the said assembly of Versailles: Jérôme Sénéchal, farmer of the Rennemoulin state farm, and Pierre Salles.

In the order of the clergy, at the assembly of the provost and viscount of Paris outside the Walls, attended Mr. Sené, prior parish priest of Rennemoulin.

Rémi Sené, born in Reims in 1731, Premonstratensian religious, priest of Rennemoulin since 1785, secretary of the municipality, took the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy, abjured in Nivôse Year II, left the town in 1796 to retire to Favières (Seine et Marne) and died in 1807.

The notebook of grievances of the parish of Rennemoulin characterizes the state of mind of the rural populations on the eve of 1789. They are not concerned with philosophical principles or political rights; absorbed as they are by material needs which the economic situation makes it difficult to provide, they could not be touched by the speculations of the great thinkers who, following in particular Jean Jacques Rousseau, are preparing a renovation of society: their only concern is to avoid painful burdens. Those of Rennemoulin especially have to complain about the game which abounds in the royal park, the daily and arbitrary annoyances to which they are exposed from arrogant gamekeepers, the damage caused by the pigeons of the loft ...

"Rigorous and vexatious is the inquisition which the arbitrary regime of officers and game wardens continually exercises against the inhabitants, from which regime it follows that at no time are the aforesaid inhabitants really sure of the liberty of their persons and of the free use of their properties. Indeed, everyone knows that the hatred of a simple guard directed against such and such can be enough to lead to prison the support of an entire family, and that the farmers can neither shape nor sow their land, nor harvest their grains or fodder. without depending on the inspection of hunting officers, who do not always use it in moderation. "

“… That an examination be ordered of the game sheds which cover the territories of Rennemoulin and Villepreux, as well as the damage caused by the multitude of said sheds. "

When the National Assembly prescribed the sale of ecclesiastical goods, the very natural and very human desire to own one's land rabbit, to enlarge one's field, appeared among our rural populations. They even covet a part of the royal domain, which would be much more useful in the hands of the cultivators.

The Revolution was well received because on the other hand it suppressed the tithe and the feudal rights.

The work of MM. Defrène et Evrard Les subsistances dans le district de Versailles is full of information on the measures to which the various authorities had to resort to obviate the serious economic difficulties which troubled the first years of the Revolution in the jurisdiction of the district of Versailles which included the town of Rennemoulin .

In 1791, to an inquiry ordered by the administrators of the said district, the municipality of Rennemoulin replied that the grains that its land produced best were rye, barley and oats. Wheat only sees in the second line.

On March 3, 1793, the municipalities around Versailles included in the areas of the civil list ask the Convention that the lands and woods abandoned to the pleasures of the former kings for hunting be shared to be placed in arable land, that they are auctioned by arpent in favor of the day laborers who will bring ears of wheat there instead of feeding rabbits. On March 7, 1793, Coutures, manager of the estates of Versailles and Marly, proposed to the Convention that the uncultivated lands of these estates be distributed. The inhabitants of Rennemoulin did not wait for the decisions to be made on these proposals: they seized uncultivated land forming part of the property of the crown and began to clear it.

On September 21, 1793, the general council of the department of Seine and Oise requires Seneschal farmer in Rennemoulin to provide 30 sets of wheat within eight days to the subsistence store of Versailles.

In September 1793, the municipality of Rennemoulin denounced to the Directory of the Department the incursions made by citizens of neighboring municipalities among the farmers of Rennemoulin and in particular at Sénéchal, who supplied the Versailles market: if these farmers are not protected, we will see their barn empty before two months.

On 9 Nivôse Year II, December 29, 1793, on the complaint of the municipality of Rennemoulin, against Pierray, inhabitant of this municipality which openly transgresses the laws, having sold the oats of his harvest without acquittal of deposit and left to lose by negligence 600 bunches of alfalfa, the directorate of the district of Versailles invites this municipality to vigorously enforce the decrees relating to subsistence and to maintain the respect due to the authorities.

On 6 Pluviôse Year II, February 4, 1794, the inhabitants of Rennemoulin assured the District that they had supplied the Versailles market and provided all the requisitions requested, but they were on the verge of running out of wheat. They ask that we reserve for them what is in the barns of the farmer Seneschal and the miller Robine.

On 24 Ventôse Year III, March 14, 1795, the commune of Rennemoulin decided to join the communes of the canton of Marly to petition the Convention and obtain subsistence.

On 30 Germinal Year III, April 19, 1795, the municipality of Rennemoulin distributed at cost price, 52 cents a pound, the rice it received from Marly on the 15 current, i.e. 21 pounds of rice out of the 18 quintals granted to the canton of Marly.

The Committee of Public Safety having prescribed, on 4 Germinal Year III, March 24, 1795, a census with a view to the requisition of a fifth of the grains, flour and pulses for the subsistence of Paris and the armies, the census commissioners in Rennemoulin let know on 10 Floréal Year III, April 29, 1795, that they found only 30 sets of grains, wheat, rye and barley, which may be enough for two months at most. They do not speak of flour, for the difficulty of obtaining it is so great that one only grinds a bushel or two at a time, or at most a mine of granules of granules (granules: waste seeds that poultry are fed.)

On 30 Prairial Year III, June 18, 1795, in execution of the order of the Public Safety Committee of 24 Floréal, a report was drawn up of the harvests. State of the land sown at Rennemoulin: Wheat, 107 arpents 70 perches, rye, 18 arpents 95 perches, meslin 7 arpents 56 perches, barley 16 arpents 39 perches, oats 103 arpents, clover, 75 perches, alfalfa, 16 arpents 33 perches, wood , 30 arpents.

“The harshness of the winter, prolonged beyond the ordinary time for sap, destroyed part of a species of winter wheat called in this canton red wheat which yields much more than wheat. "

March grains and forages have suffered greatly from the drought and cold of spring. Heavy rain has been covering the best of the harvests for two days. However, we hope that the grains will be able to recover in part.

It was the time when the Thermidorian reaction destroyed the last mountain people, the victims of the prairial.

On 24 Brumaire Year IV, November 15, 1795, the first month of the directorial government, the prosecutor syndic of Versailles warns the municipality of Rennemoulin that in execution of the requisition of the Department the municipality must provide 342 pounds of hay and 4583 pounds of straw.

The population of Rennemoulin, which had never reached one hundred inhabitants, has just exceeded this figure in the last census.

In the enumeration of the Paris election of 1709, Rennemoulin counted 16 fires; to that of 1745, 18 fires.

Population in 1866… 60 inhabitants

1926… 90 inhabitants

1931… 116 inhabitants

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Source: the departmental archives of Yvelines, document number: J 3211/18 [8], Communal monograph written by Paul Aubert, transcription Mathieu Thédié