VINCENNES, a suburb 7 kilometres east of Notre Dame, de Paris, in the department of Seine, on a wooded plateau. Pop. (1931), 46,563. Its celebrated castle, situated to the south of the town and on the northern border of the Bois de Vincennes, was formerly a royal residence, begun by Louis VII. in and more than once rebuilt. It was frequently visited by Louis IX. The chapel, an imitation of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris, was begun by Charles V. in 1379, continued by Charles VI. and Francis I., consecrated in 1552 and restored in modern times. In the sacristy is the monument erected in 1816 to the memory of the duke of Enghien, who was shot in the castle moat in 1804.
Louis XI. made the castle a state prison in which Henry of Navarre, the great Conde, Mirabeau and other distinguished per sons were afterwards confined. Louis XVIII. added an armoury, and under Louis Philippe numerous casemates and a new fort to the east of the donjon were constructed. Vincennes has a school of military administration and carries on horticulture and the manufacture of ironware, rubber goods, chemicals, etc.