Guise (; nl, Wieze) is a commune in the Aisne department in

Hauts-de-France Hauts-de-France (; pcd, Heuts-d'Franche; , also ''Upper France'') is the northernmost region of France, created by the territorial reform of French regions in 2014, from a merger of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy. Its prefecture is Lille. The ...

in northern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

. The city was the birthplace of the noble family of Guise, Dukes of Guise, who later became Princes of Joinville.

Population

Sights

The remains of the medieval castle of Guise, the seat of the

Dukes of Guise Count of Guise and Duke of Guise (pronounced �ɥiz were titles in the French nobility. Originally a seigneurie, in 1417 Guise was erected into a county for René, a younger son of Louis II of Anjou. While disputed by the House of Luxembo ...

, is within the commune.

Economy

Guise is the agricultural centre of the northern area of Aisne.

Miscellaneous

Guise was the birthplace of

Camille Desmoulins Lucie-Simplice-Camille-Benoît Desmoulins (; 2 March 17605 April 1794) was a French journalist and politician who played an important role in the French Revolution. Desmoulins was tried and executed alongside Georges Danton when the Committee o ...

(1760–1794), a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

who played an important part in the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

, and that of Jeanne Macherez who was a heroine during the World War I. Familistère Central Guise Intérieur

Over a period of 20 years, beginning about 1856, Jean-Baptiste Godin built the (the Social Palace), an industrial and communal residential complex that was a separate community within Guise. It expressed many of his ideas about developing social sympathy through improved housing and services for workers and their families, influenced by the ideas of the philosopher

Charles Fourier François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical i ...

. In 1880 Godin created a cooperative association by which the workers owned and managed the complex. This continued until 1968. On the 29th of August 1914 the Battle of St. Quentin (1914) was fought in and around the town. A memorial in Guise celebrates this event.

Population

Sights

Economy

Miscellaneous

See also