L'Aigle

L'Aigle grew around a fortified castle in the Pays d'Ouche, on the River Risle. Its walls could not save it from the Hundred Years' War: English forces took the town and demolished the fortress. In the years after the war, forges and small metalworking trades helped the town recover.

Pin-making became a particular speciality of L'Aigle and its neighbourhood. The industry used iron from local forges as well as supplies brought from farther afield. By the eighteenth century thousands of people worked for the pin industry in the town and surrounding country. On the site of the old fortress, the marquis Louis des Acres began a new château in 1690. Work continued under his successors and was completed some forty years later.