La Haye en Touraine

The Loire valley town where Descartes was born, renamed Descartes in his honour three centuries later.

La Haye was a small town on the Creuse in a region of vineyards and slow rivers. Descartes' mother died when he was a year old and he was raised by his grandmother while his father, a magistrate, sat in the parlement of Brittany. He was a sickly child and the Jesuits at La Fleche let him stay in bed in the mornings, a habit he kept for life and which he credited for most of his thinking. The town took his name in 1967.