Argenteuil
[key], city, Val-d'Oise dept., N France, on the Seine, a suburb of Paris. It has important
metalworks and factories making furniture, railroad and airplane parts, and chemicals. Once
famous for its asparagus and grapes, industry and suburban housing have taken over the fields.
It grew around a convent founded in the 7th cent.; there Heloise was educated and, after her
misfortune, became prioress (see Abelard, Peter). The convent (later a
monastery) was destroyed in the French Revolution; the famous relic, the Seamless Tunic, said
to have been worn by Jesus, was given by Charlemagne to the convent and is now enshrined in
Saint-Denis Basilica (1866).
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