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PLACE NAMES


 
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Argenteuil
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Argenteuil is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 12.3 km (7.6 mi) from the center of Paris. Argenteuil is a sub-prefecture of the Val-d'Oise department, the seat of the arrondissement of Argenteuil.
Argenteuil is the second most populous commune in the suburbs of Paris (after Boulogne-Billancourt) and the most populous one in the Val-d'Oise department, although it is not its prefecture, which is shared between the communes of Cergy and Pontoise.
The name Argenteuil is recorded for the first time in a royal charter of 697 as Argentoialum, from a Latin/Gaulish root argento meaning "silver", "silvery", "shiny", perhaps in reference to the gleaming surface of the river Seine, on the banks of which Argenteuil is located, and from a Celtic suffix -ialo meaning "clearing, glade" or "place of".
Argenteuil was founded as a convent in the 7th century. The monastery that arose from the convent was destroyed during the French Revolution.
A rural escape for Parisians, it is now a suburb of Paris. Painters made Argenteuil famous, including Claude Monet, Jean-Étienne Delacroix, Auguste Renoir, Gustave Caillebotte, Alfred Sisley and Georges Braque.
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