L'Aigle

The apostrophe is new; this commune used to be known as Laigle. According to Orderic Vitalis, an English chronicler and Benedictine monk who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles 
of 11th- and 12th-century Normandy and Anglo-Norman England, the nest of an eagle (aigle)was discovered during the construction of the castle.

In 1803 a meteorite landed in a field here and shattered into 3000 fragments, some the size of a cannon-ball. This was the start of the modern study of meteorites as extra-terrestrial objects. It also scared the inhabitants half to death.

There were louder bangs on 7 June 1944 when L'Aigle, an important road junction, was bombed by the invading Allies, causing 150 deaths to be added to the 200 lost in the First World War.

Astonishingly, though, quite a number of ancielnt buildings have survived, including this one.