La Ferté Macé

During the First World War, the village housed a military detention camp, the Dépôt de Triage. Among others, the American poet E. E. Cummings and his friend William Slater Brown, then volunteers in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps in France, were held there between September 21, 1917 and December 19 of the same year, on charges of "espionage". This was based on their having expressed anti war opinions. Cummings' experiences in the camp at La Ferté-Mace were the basis for his novel, The Enormous Room. The three-building complex, with a church and two classroom buildings, had previously served as a seminary and lycée. The prisoners were kept on the top floor of the largest building, which was open and spanned most of the floor.

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