Larchant
Larchant is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region.Demographics
The inhabitants are called Liricantois from the Latin name of the town, Liricantus.Features
Larchant has a large, partly ruined church, built in several stages between the 12th and the 16th century, listed since 1846 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. It has served as the center of the cult of Saint Mathurin.
A landscape oil painting by Balthus dating from 1939 is a panoramic view of the village centered on the basilica.
In her 1980 novel The Boy Who Followed Ripley, Patricia Highsmith described the town. as a "quiet village" where "he little private houses, all close together in cobble-stoned lanes, looked like illustrations from children's books, cottages almost too small for man and wife to live in".
Larchant is renowned for its first-class boulder climbing sites, l'Éléphant and la Dame Jouanne, in the Forêt de la Commanderie that surrounds it.