Fontainebleau

Fontainebleau [fõtɛnˈblo] (formerly folk etymologically Fontaine belle eau, actually from fontaine and blitwald, from the Germanic personal name Blit) is a French town of 15,407 inhabitants (as of 1 January 2018) in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region. It is located 55 kilometres south of Paris and is the capital of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau.

History

The landscape designation "Gâtinais français" was used for the historical provinces of France for the region around Fontainebleau. In July 1313, the marriage between Joan of Burgundy and Philip of Valois, who later became King of France as Philip VI, took place there.

With the Edict of Fontainebleau, King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes of 1598, which had granted religious liberties to the Protestant Huguenots, at Fontainebleau Castle in 1685.

The first performance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's opera Le devin du village took place on 18 October 1752. In 1753, Daphnis et Eglé, a heroic work by Rameau, was written. On October 23, 1754, the opera Anacréon by Jean-Philippe Rameau was premiered. The colony of New Orleans passed to Spain in 1762 under the secret treaty of Fontainebleau, which was confirmed in the Peace of Paris in 1763. From 1812 to 1814, Napoleon I held Pope Pius VII prisoner at Fontainebleau.

On 27 October 1807, Spain had to grant the French army rights of passage to Portugal in the Treaty of Fontainebleau. The reason for this was the refusal of the Portuguese King John VI to attack England after Napoleon's defeat in the naval battle of Trafalgar. Portugal was subsequently occupied and the House of Braganza deposed.

In 1810, the Napoleonic Decree of Fontainebleau was issued as one of the follow-up documents to the Berlin Decree. The new Treaty of Fontainebleau was concluded in 1814. Napoleon abdicated and with the Second Restoration the Bourbons returned to the throne.

In 1948, the nature conservation organisation IUCN was founded here in the context of an international conference.

From August 1953 to April 1967, Fontainebleau was the seat of NATO's Allied Forces Central Europe Headquarters (AFCENT). Near the town, on Camp Guynemer, was the headquarters of the Allied Air Forces Central Europe (AAFCE). After France's withdrawal from NATO military integration in 1966, AFCENT was moved to Brunssum in the Netherlands, and AAFCE was disbanded by 1974.

In 1984, a meeting of the European Council took place in Fontainebleau, the decisions of which put an end to Eurosclerosis. The British rebate ended the financial dispute within the European Community that had been simmering for years; two committees set up by the summit (the Ad Hoc Committee on Institutional Affairs, also known as the Dooge Committee, and the Committee on a People's Europe, also known as the Adonnino Committee) finally led to the adoption of the Single European Act, the first amendment to the Treaties of Rome. The meeting is thus considered a milestone of European integration.

Napoleon's farewell to the imperial guard at Fontainebleau (1814)

Twin Cities

• Germany Constance in Germany since 28 May 1960: A ship of the car ferry Constance-Meersburg therefore bears the name MF Fontainebleau.
• England London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in England since 1977
• Cambodia Siem Reap in Cambodia since June 11, 2000: This city contains the temple complex Angkor Wat.
• Italy Lodi in Italy since 2011
• Portugal Sintra in Portugal since 8 March 2016

In addition, Fontainebleau is a member of the Confederation of European Napoleonic Cities.