Bussy-Saint-Georges

Geography

Population

Surrounding towns

• Bussy-Saint-Martin
• Chanteloup-en-Brie
• Collégien
• Favières
• Ferrières-en-Brie
• Guermantes
• Jossigny
• Pontcarré

History

• de Buci family from 1196 to 1490;
• de la Rosque from 1490 to the end of the 16th century;
• Louis Guibert and his heirs from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 18th century;
• at the beginning of the 18th century until the French Revolution, the family of Pondre, lord of Guermantes.

Administration

Main sights

• The tower, the only vestige of the lord’s castle of de Buci, a fortress offering a strategic refuge dominating the valleys de la Brosse and de la Gondoire, dated from 12th century. The current place de Verdun is on the previous location of the castle, which was surrounded by the ditches filled with water by the same source of a fountain which still exists in the place du marché. The graveyard, in the north of the tower, beyond the fortifications, was discovered during a private house building in 1960. The tower is 21 meters high and 9 meters large.
• The Farm of Roquemont. It takes its name from la Rosque’s fief, Bussy-Saint-Georges lords from 1490 to 1594; it was also the main source of the lords for the benefit of Bussy fief. Later, the farm was called the great farm of Bussy-Saint-Georges.
• The Russon mill, a water mill is located in the street of de la Brosse. The former owner has restored it. The mill was a component of the outbuildings of the Farm of Roquemont. It was used as a mill only for a few months and was otherwise used as accommodation for the farm hands.
• The Wash-house, built in the mid-19th century. Bussy already used a very old wash-house close to spring in Ferrières: the wash-house of Cessoy. But it was too far from the center of the village and difficult to reach for the washerwomen who used barrows for the laundry. The city council bargained with the family de Guermantesfor to acquire land attached to another spring, in the upper side of the street du Moulin, for building the second wash-house. Currently, the wash-house of Cessoy is private, in contrast to the public one in the street du Moulin.
• The Farm of Génitoy. The name, genesterium in Latin or genestay in Old French, later génitoire or génitoy, originates from the abundant Genista flowers. The farm was also an important fief with a castle. In 1672, Madame de Montespan had a baby in the castle of Génitoy, one of the Louis XIV's son: Louis-César de Bourbon, count of Vexin.
• La Jonchère. At the beginning of the 19th century, this was a great farm. The owner was M. Martin de Longchamps, who also owned Fontenelles. It was a féculerie in 1836, which dominated all the intensive potato production in the region. Unfortunately from 1845 potato blight affected the activity and then completely stopped it. The farmers decided to replace it with sugar beet. The domaine de la Jonchère was used for establishing the installations of the new product.
• The current village church was constructed on the location of a medieval church. François de la Rosque, parish priest, member of the lord of Bussy’s family, celebrated the consecration of the church in 1580. The construction was finished in 1595 and the baptism of the three bells followed on August 22, 1600: Louise, in reference to the foundation of the St-Louis chapel, Isabelle, a first name of the wife of Louis Guibert, and Georges, patron saint of the parish. The church was restored in the 19th century and, at the request of the inhabitants who were disappointed for not hearing the Angélus, the bell tower was raised in 1866 to the current height of 32 meters. The church became public property in 1905. Under the porch of the monument, there is an 18th-century gravestone. It covered the body of abbot Duchesne buried in the chancel of the church. Inside, the body and the transept have a refined ogival style. The beams hold a painted vault in the arch. On the right side, there is a Saint-Georges sculpture. On the left is a chapel, probably for the translation of relics in 1431, given to the parish of Bussy-Saint-Georges by the abott Duchesne, restored in 1904 thanks to a group of the Visitation of the Virgin. The baptistery has a renaissance underbody and the washbowl of a ceremony is decorated with four angel’s heads. We can also notice an embedded stone font on the left of the entrance.
• The modern church of Notre-Dame du Val, built in 1997 by the architectural office Gonot-Marcenat. Fully made with modern components, the dome is in natural copper. The location is at 33, boulevard Thibaud-de-Champagne.
• Rêve de la Mère: a statue erected in 2010 dedicated to the Boat people and refugees from the Vietnam War. Bussy-Saint-Georges is home to a significant Vietnamese population, and the statue is a symbol for Vietnamese refugees seeing France as a free nation and is a reminder for French-born Vietnamese of their ancestral roots and culture.

  Culture and leisure

• City Library: The Médiathèque de l’Europe was inaugurated in October 2006. In it can be found CDs, books, DVDs, music scores…
• Conservatoire: The Jean-Sébastien-Bach Conservatoire of Bussy-Saint-Georges opened its doors in 1995. Widened in 2004, the expanse for the reception of people was doubled. In 2006 more than 700 pupils and 45 employees were involved, 28 individual instrumental disciplines and 10 steel band disciplines.

  Education

• 9 preschools, 9 primary schools
• 3 public junior high schools and a private junior high school, Maurice-Rondeau
• 2 senior high schools/sixth-form colleges
• *Lycée Martin-Luther-King
• *Lycée Maurice-Rondeau
• capacity of 200 young children in day-care centers
• an artistic conservatoire
• a city library

Sport

• Michel Jazy Sport Complex, including a dance room, gymnastic structures, tennis courts, martial art areas, volleyball area.
• Maurice Herzog Sport Complex, including athletics training tracks, football space, archery practicing area, gymnastic room, climbing wall, a table tennis room.
• Laura Flessel Sport Complex.
• 5 tennis courts on the path of deux Châteaux, 2 outdoor courts on the golfers’ promenade, 2 outdoor courts at the Graveyard street.
• An international golf area covering 750,000 square metres.

  Economy

Transport

Festivals

• Wishes of the Buxangeorgiens: January
• Festival of Asia : February
• Carnival days: March
• Saint George's day: April
• Journée nationale du souvenir de la déportation et ravivage de la flamme du souvenir: April
• Commemoration of the end of World War II: 8 May
• antique roadshow days: June
• Commemoration for dead soldiers in French Indochina: 8 June
• Commemoration of the Général de Gaulle's call: 18 June
• Nation day : 13 July
• Golf Open of the city: September
• Forum of the associations: September
• Les virades de l’Espoir : September
• Secondhand trade days: September
• Commemoration of the Armistice in 1918: 11 November
• Night of the Beaujolais : November
• Commemoration for dead soldiers during the north-African wars: 5 December
• Christmas Time : December and January.

  People

• Maurice Boitel, painter

  International relations

• Radcliffe-on-Trent, United Kingdom, since 1999
• Kiryat Ekron, Israel, since 1998
• San Giuliano Milanese, Italy, since 2002
• Meiningen, Germany, since 2006

  List of mayors

• Jacques Macquin
• Guy Sadaune
• Maurice Koehl
• Daniel Doussot
• Dominique Blondel
• Bernard Ménager
• Hugues Rondeau
• Chantal Brunel
• Yann Dubosc