Saint Maurice

The commune of Saint Maurice was called Charenton-St Maurice until 1843.

The village is reported from the 11th century, and under the name of Sanctus Mauricius in the 13th century. There are only few archives about him until the wars of religion; indeed, at that time, a Protestant temple, authorized after the Edict of Nantes, was built in 1606-1608. However, the Catholics destroyed it in 1621… again, they destroyed it in 1685, five days after the Revocation of October 18, and a church was built on its site.

The village was made up of the town and the hamlet of La Gravelle, located near the secondary arm of the Marne.

The agricultural land in the southern part of the plateau and the hillside planted with vines overlooking the valley were expropriated in 1659 to enlarge the royal domain of the Bois de Vincennes.

On September 13th, 1641, Sébastien Leblanc, adviser and controller of the wars of Louis 13, donated to the Brothers of Saint-Jean de Dieu houses and land in the parish of Charenton, in order to welcome the sick and the insane at the " Maison royale de Charenton” which later became the lunatic asylum of Charenton (today called the Esquirol Hospital) A 411-bed hospital was built much later, in 1855, in the southwestern part of the Bois de Vincennes on a area of 16 hectares to accommodate workers who have suffered accidents at work or occupational diseases. This hospital, which became the Saint-Maurice national hospital, was merged with the Esquirol hospital in 2011.

During the French Revolution, the town bears the names of Charenton-Républicain and of Montgravier.

The few remarkable monuments are:
- The Moulin de la Chaussée, a former watermill dating from the 17th century
- The birthplace of Eugène Delacroix, at 29, rue du Maréchal-Leclerc and the monument erected in 1898 in his honor (recently destroyed by the Municipality)
- The Saint-Maurice studios which hosted many film shoots between 1930 and 1971