La Ferté-Macé

La Ferté-Macé
L'Avenue Thiers; l'église Notre-Dame (church of Our Lady)
Coat of arms
La Ferté-Macé
Location within Lower Normandy region  La Ferté-Macé
Coordinates: 48°35′36″N 0°21′22″W / 48.5933°N 0.3561°WCoordinates: 48°35′36″N 0°21′22″W / 48.5933°N 0.3561°W
Country	France
Region	Normandy
Department	Orne
Arrondissement	Alençon
Canton	La Ferté-Macé (chef-lieu)
Intercommunality	La Ferté-Saint-Michel
Government
• Mayor (2014-2020)	Jacques Dalmont
Area^1	31.86 km^2 (12.30 sq mi)
Population (2013)^2	5,797
• Density	180/km^2 (470/sq mi)
INSEE/Postal code	61168 / 61600
Elevation	165–203 m (541–666 ft)
Website	http://www.lafertemace.fr
^1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. ^2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

La Ferté-Macé is a commune in the Orne department in north-western France.

History

During the First World War the village housed a military detention camp, the Dépôt de Triage. Among others, the American poet E. E. Cummings and his friend William Slater Brown, then volunteers in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps in France, were held there between September 21, 1917 and December 19 of the same year, on charges of "espionage" which in fact consisted of having expressed anti war opinions. Cummings' experiences in the camp at La Ferté-Mace were later related in his novel, The Enormous Room.

On 12 January 2016, the former commune Antoigny was merged into La Ferté-Macé.^[1]

Twin towns

• Ludlow, Shropshire, England^[2]
• Savoigne-Biffèche, Senegal
• Neustadt am Rübenberge, Germany
• Saint-Maurice, Quebec, Canada

Heraldry

The arms of La Ferté-Macé are blazoned : Gules, a beehive and a shuttle bendwise sinister Or.

See also

• Communes of the Orne department
• Parc naturel régional Normandie-Maine

References

• INSEE

1. Arrêté préfectoral 12 January 2016 (French)
2. Ludlow Town Council Ludlow's Twin Towns