History...Ground of history, beauty and tourism, located in the southernmost area of the hills of Perche, Belleme and its area are marked, before the year 1000, by the Lord of Belleme and the foundation of "Notre-Dame du Vieux Chateau", the current vault of Saint Santin . Towards 950, the building of the castle, of which there remains today the admirable porch and the street "ville close" (means closed city), filled with wonder the contemporaries. Its rich past was signed, in particulary, by the seat Blanche de Castille regence, with the King Louis IXth, her young son (called too in France, Saint-Louis), who carried out in Bellême during the winter 1128-1129, exerting his monitoring of the locality "the Cross Feue Reine", preserved site and remarkably arranged. The canton can be glad of famous people : Aristide Boucicaut, founder of the modern commercial and Parisian department stores "le Bon Marché"; Doctor Tuffier, inventor of the blood transfusion, and Roger Martin du Gard, the famous writter, Nobel Price of Literature in 1937 for his novel about Thibault family.
With an important agricultural activity, Perche is famous with the breeding of the horses called "Percherons".
Earth of woods and forests exploitation, the sylviculture predominates in many villages, and stays the main activity of Igé and Bellême.
Heritage
Plenty of beauty and tourism, the area is equiped with a civil and religious heritage; and many hotels and restaurants, luxurious or more modest, but always nice and welcomed. You can find one of the most beautiful forests of oaks of France, who is classified in the inventory of patrimonial world of UNESCO. In this forest, many sorts of mushrooms grow up and an important and famous meeting around this item, is organised each year (last week-end of september).
