Caen

Caen lies on the Orne and the Odon, a short distance inland from the Norman coast. Around 1060 William the Conqueror began the great castle above the town, and he and his wife Matilda of Flanders founded the two abbeys that flank the town, the Abbaye aux Hommes and the Abbaye aux Dames, where each was buried. The pale local limestone, known as Caen stone, was shipped across the Channel to build English cathedrals and castles. At Christmas 1182 Henry II held court in the castle's hall before more than a thousand knights.

On 26 July 1346 Edward III's army stormed the town in less than a day, killing some three thousand people and burning the merchants' quarter on the Île Saint-Jean; only the castle held out. Henry V took Caen by assault in 1417, and in 1432 John, Duke of Bedford, regent for the young Henry VI, founded a university here. French troops recovered the town in 1450. In July 1793 Girondin deputies fleeing Paris tried to raise Normandy against the Convention from Caen, and Charlotte Corday left the city to assassinate Marat.