Photographed here at the level of its Cour carrée de la Dentelle, Alençon, a simple ford on the Sarthe in Gallo-Roman times, appeared as a fortified town at the beginning of the 11th century before being erected into a duchy in the 13th century. The city developed politically and culturally in the 15th and 16th centuries at the time of Marguerite de Navarre, who held a renowned court there with the greatest spirits of the time. Attached to the royal domain in the 16th century, Alençon became an important center of the Reformation. A seat of the royal lace factories founded by Colbert from 1665, the town saw in the 18th century the birth of a new district of which the town hall became the symbol before experiencing an industrial boom in the 19th century.