About eight kilometres north of Conflans the River Oise is crossed at
PONTOISE,
an historic town picturesquely situated on high ground above the river.
It became the capital of the ancient province of Vexin when Philippe I. of France united one-half of Vexin to the Crown, and the castle became a royal residence. The boundaries of the province were, roughly, the Oise, the Seine, and the Andelle, and dividing it into two portions, known as Vexin Français and Vexin Normand, was the little River Epte. In the tenth century the Epte was decided upon as the boundary of the Duchy of Normandy, and it remained so until Philippe Auguste (II.) added the Norman half of Vexin to France. It is an interesting fact that the French half of Vexin, through having been a possession of the Abbey of St. Denis, gave the viscounts of the province the right of carrying in battle the celebrated banner of the oriflamme: thus, when Philippe I. acquired the territory he obtained the privilege, and the oriflamme of St. Denis was transferred to the royal standard.
There was a bridge at Pontoise in Roman times, for it was then called Pons Iscaræ, and before the present steel structure made its appearance in recent years there was a stone bridge of five arches.
It is unfortunate that the remains of the Château are inconsiderable, for its history as a royal residence in early times is interesting, St. Louis (IX.) having spent much of his youth in its massive walls at the time when his mother, Blanche of Castile, was endeavouring to keep him from his wife, Marguerite de Provence. It was also at Pontoise that St. Louis, when ill, vowed that he would lead a Crusade if he recovered. It was the fifth expedition to the Holy Land which he eventually headed. The town was often besieged in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, and under Louis XIV. and Louis XV. the Parliament was held there in 1652, 1720, and 1753.
The ramparts still exist in part, but there has apparently been a great deal of reckless destruction in the town, for it has been robbed of many of its old buildings.
The Hôtel Dieu, built by St. Louis down by the river, was rebuilt in 1823-1827, and its only interest now is the picture, ‘The Healing of the Paralytic,’ by Philippe de Champaigne, who was one of the artists who helped to decorate the Luxembourg in Paris for Marie de Medici, the wife of Henri IV.
Bossuet, the most famous man in the Church of France in the seventeenth century, was consecrated Bishop of Meaux in 1681 in the church of the Cordeliers, which had a splendid refectory. This church, with others, and several convents has disappeared.
St. Maclou, the more important of the two which remain, is in part a twelfth-century building, although mainly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The west front has a fine Flamboyant porch. Pierre Lemercier, who was grandfather of Jacques Lemercier, who built the Sorbonne, the Sorbonne church, and the Palais Royale (1585-1660), was the architect of the Renaissance portions of the church.