A stroll through the hamlet of Vosves in Dammarie-lès-Lys

From the 17th century onwards, two châteaux dominated the hillside. One was the Château des Vives Eaux. It was remodelled and embellished by the Parisian architect Jacques Gondouin, who came here in 1791 with his family to escape the French Revolution.Like Château des Vosves, it was to become one of the holiday homes to grace the banks of the Seine from the mid-19th century onwards.

From the 17th century onwards, two châteaux dominated the hillside. One of them was Vosves.A fine bourgeois residence, it was one of the holiday resorts that graced the banks of the Seine and made it famous in the mid-19th century.

It is an old place situated on the descent of the rue de la gare. It is fed by the resurgence of a spring from the Bière plateau. A fountain leaning against the stone wall at the top of the street provided water for the few inhabitants of the hamlet.

The advent of the train meant faster connections between towns. Paris suddenly became very close, especially as one of the first lines directly concerned the conurbation, the PLM (Paris Lyon Méditérannée).The train from Paris stopped at Melun on 9 September 1849. Vosves station, on another line linking Corbeil to Montereau, saw its first train on 1 June 1897. From the end of the 19th century, these links enabled many city dwellers to enjoy the bucolic charm of the countryside and the banks of the Seine. At the same time, majestic holiday homes were springing up along the banks of the Seine: the Folies or Affolantes!

The Port of Vosves, like that of Dammarie-les-Lys, was listed as a "General supply port for the city of Paris".The boats transported goods produced locally: wine, wood from the forest and ashlar from nearby quarries, which was used to construct the capital's buildings. Before the construction of the lock, which will enable the boats to cross the gradient at this point on the Seine, the strong and courageous hauliers pulled the boats along the towpath, using oxen or Percheron horses. The Vives Eaux lock and dam were built between 1860 and 1864. Gradually, the hauliers lost their jobs and went to work on the lock and its maintenance or on the barges that took the boats across the Seine from one bank to the other.

The inn at "La Maison Blanche", which dates back to well before the French Revolution, is ideally situated on the banks of the lock and 200m from Vosves station.The establishment, whose main activity was catering, added a guinguette (dance hall) to its activities. For almost 100 years, the hard-working locals and some of the bourgeoisie would come here to enjoy themselves and have a good time.