The edges of the Marne and Charles Trenet's house

Tunnel of Saint-Maur on 1809-1825: drilling of the canal. Charles Nodier, historian, member of the Académie française, describes the drilling of the canal in his New History of Paris. The purpose is there to abbreviate of three leagues the navigation on the Marne. The canal has two parts: a subterranean section of 600 meters, and open-air 500 meters. Louis Bruyère is in charge of his execution. Having cost 1 760 000 francs, it is opened to the navigation on October 10th, 1825.

The first bridge inaugurated in 1841 emplace ancestral system of tub is a suspension bridge of a single span of uncertain reliability. To finance this work, a toll is set up until 1870. By that time, the bridge is destroyed during the French-Prussian war. A second bridge is built between 1872 and 1874 on the plans of the architect Joret. This second bridge is demolished and replaced by the current in 1962.

Bridge of Petit Parc called also Bridge of Saint-Maur is a road bridge which crosses the Marne and connects the municipality of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés (on the right bank) with the left bank in the limits of the municipalities of Joinville-le-Pont and Champigny-sur-Marne. It is a metallic work of two symmetric spans of 46 meters trained each of five parallel bows.

The bridge of Chennevières is a road bridge which allows to cross the Marne between Saint-Maur-des-Fossés and Chennevières-sur-Marne.

The bridge of Champigny is a road bridge which crosses the Marne in the location of the Island of the Drinking trough and connects the municipalities of Champigny-sur-Marne and Saint-Maur-des-Fossés. The current work is built between 1930 and 1934. It is trained by two beton bridges armed established each of two bows articulated in the 35 and 60 meter births. They are connected by an intermediate viaduct of 32 meters, also concrete, situated on the island of the island of l'Abreuvoir..

The island Fanac counted, in 1999, 98 inhabitants on 3,9 hectares (119 in 1990). She was partially urbanized from the end of the xixe century and shelters about forty buildings. Having been reserved for a long time for the agriculture, she keeps another natural character. Indeed, although the bridge of Joinville the crossbar, it harms her only by a staircase accessible to the pedestrians, completed by an elevator installed in 2010. Situated in flood-risk area, the island Fanac may be covered by waters during the floods of the Marne. The island Fanac is a site protected by an order of the prefect of September 3rd, 1965 on the basis of the law of May 2nd, 1930 in conformance with places of interest. Artists' important proportion lives there.
 The island welcomes cultural activities (municipal Hector Berlioz music school, school of plastic arts) and sportswomen (club of canoeing Joinville Eau vive, Rowing club the Marne and Joinville). The building of the Rowing the Marne and Joinville, built in 1883, was a victim of a fire in October, 2005. Its reconstruction as before was realized in 2007. The music school is installed in the old open-air dance hall " Guinguette chez Jullien " described by the writer Émile Zola.

This district is completely situated on the old Park of the castle of Polangis, provided gradually with the end of 19 ° century until 1929.
 In 2012, the inhabitants of this part(party) trained an association " Réunissons Polangis ", to ask for their fastening with the municipality of Joinville-le-Pont, historic and unique cradle of the district of Polangis, and so reunite the whole district on the location of the old park of the castle of Polangis. A petition collecting 411 inhabitants on 700 asked expressly for this fastening: the association put down as such, in April, 2013, a file in the Prefecture of Val-de-Marne. After the municipal elections of March, 2014, the Prefect will engage the procedure of fastening. This site possesses the famous open-air dance hall " Chez Gégène ", the "Petit Robinson" (neglected for several years, in the course of rehabilitation and of enlargement since April, 2013) and the old open-air dance hall become "Pomme d'Api" restoring of the ANAS (association of the national police force). This place is steeped in history. The linen produced on the lands of the Brie was of use to the Middle Ages to make fibers for clothes and to produce some oil for the food and the lighting. In the xiie century, a tub allows the passage of the Marne, in the current location of the bridge of Joinville. In 1205, the monks of the abbey of Saint-Maur build the first bridge on the Marne to connect their lands of Portus Longini, who will become Poulangis (xixe century) then Polangis. A tub is created to connect the district in Nogent-sur-Marne: it existed to 1970s. The small arm of Polangis, also called river or canal of Polangis or the same brook of Polangis, is an artificial channel dug in 1886 and 1.500 meters long, to sell better the surrounding plots of land to the Parisians followers of the boating. Then the flood of 1910, considered since as a centennial floods, the Marne reinstalls in its old alluvial plain and both thirds of the district of Polangis are covered with water. The floods of 1924 flood again the district.

We nickname it the house of the Pump. Why? Because the architect Emile Locqueville integrated into this construction of 1913 the disused constructed reservoir there half a century earlier by Caffin to feed with water his lot of Varenne. Flooded in the middle of machicolation and of turrets, the monster is above suspicion. Cunning and esthetic.

" I like the Marne, it rests me of the stage ", said funnily Charles Trenet. Keen on houses - besides his family property of Narbonne, he will possess two others in Antibes and in Perpignan, as well as a castle in Aix-en-Provence, an apartment to Nogent-on the Marne and a duplex in Canet-en-Roussillon - the " melodious madman " also lived in Varenne, in front of the island of Amour. Encouraged by its friend Cocteau, Trenet acquired, in the 1930s, this "concrete cube" which he occupied (partially with her mother) during fifty years. He found the inspiration of numerous melodies there and sang the lifestyle to Saint-Maur all over the world, as shown by the text " to See again Paris ". Not far from the property, a sculpture pays tribute to the artist. At the foot of the work, the bronze hat is a molding of one of its felt-tips.