History and Stories from the french province of Gâtinais

This Website has a unique aim : to facilitate and give access to a great number of documents about the Gâtinais. It’s not easy to know what "Gâtinais" is, where the old province begins and ends : you'll be able to find an explanation here. We are sure of one fact : The people contributing to this site are living in the region of Montargis, in the 'Département du Loiret', in France. And we are members of non-profit historian organizations : the "Société d'Emulation de l'Arrondissement de Montargis" and/or the association "Epona", which is more devoted to the region of Château-Renard.

What you may find

  Information about the associations we belong to : about the Société d'Emulation and about Epona. But even more interesting must be the access to the archives of our associations : the Société d’Emulation has been publishing since 1853 ! A lot of studies are therefore available.

   First you can find here the summaries and index of all the publications of both associations. All articles are available in the Library in Montargis , some publications can still be ordered (publications). But since you're reading these lines in english, we guess you must be living far away from Montargis. Here is the solution : write to ask anything you are interested in ! Snail Mail is not really out (and you know, French people like snails...!) Here is the Postal Address of the Société d'Emulation (Address) and of Epona (Address). But as we are modern people, many authors whose addresses you'll find in our articles are accessible by E-Mails. And anyway you can always get in touch with the Webmasters :

   Many complete articles are published in extenso on this site. Find their list by clicking on "Articles en ligne". Most of them are out of print. So is the Glossary of the old dialect of the Gâtinais, here in his first complete publication and with continuous contributions from readers.

    A lot of old pictures of striking places can be admired, classified by villages or by topics. 

    To navigate in the site, make use of the titles of chapters in the left frame, or use the search engine (available under the word "Recherche"). 

    What you may not find

    Not all pictures illustrating the articles are published here, for technical reasons. It's really worth trying to get the original paper edition. We are focusing more on the content than on the packaging. And we're ready to apologize for the tendency to the dryness of the layout. But we hope, you'll find the animation in the content of our stories !

    Advertising is also missing here : we all write and publish on a voluntary basis, and we'll be rewarded if you find some interest in our work, and why not, in our beautiful province, one of the most beautiful in the world, of course !

Gilbert Baumgartner, Frédéric Pige

Responsible for the translation : G. Baumgartner, with the friendly help of Catherine Van Couwelaar