St-Germain-en-Laye,

St-Germain-en-Laye, a town of France, dept. Seine-et-Oise, stands on an eminence above the Seine, with a royal forest (10,000 acres) behind it and the river before it, Paris in the distance, 13 miles to the E. by rail. Above the river runs the famous terrace (2625 yards long by 115 feet wide), made by Lenôtre in 1672. The historic associations cluster round the old royal castle, which, until Louis XIV. removed the court to Versailles, was the favourite residence of the kings of France. Here were born Henry II., Charles IX., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV., and here died Louis XIII. King James II. of England lived in this castle from 1689 to his death in 1701. After that it was turned into barracks, then into a military prison, and finally by Napoleon III. into a museum of Gallo-Roman antiquities. Peace was signed within its walls between Charles IX. and the Huguenots in 1570, and the peace between France and Brandenburg in 1679. The Fête des Loges, one of the most popular of popular festivals, is held annually at a chapel in the forest. The people (15,997 in 1886) manufacture woollens and cottons. See Lacombe, Le Château de St-Germain (4th ed. 1874).—St Germain-des-Prés, named like the other from Germanus (q.v.), was a famous Benedictine monastery near Paris (see MAURISTS). Its church (1001-1163) ranks as the oldest in Paris.