The municipality of Molières is one of the 14 component C.C.P.L. (Community of Communes of the Country of Limours), one of the smallest with 702 hectares for a population of a little more than 2000 inhabitants.
The village is located at the edge of the departments of Essonne and Yvelines, in the rich region of Hurepoix.
Many uncertainties concern the origin of the name of the village. Already in the twelfth century, the name of the Molières appears, it is a derivative of the Latin "mollis" which meant "lands that drip poorly". This is the thesis of Marianne Mulon (1997) in her book "Place names of Île-de-France". But the origin of the name would come also from the exploitation of quarries of millstones and sandstone for the manufacture of millstones, for the construction or the size in pavements and curbs of sidewalks. In a very endearing book "The book of my village (1904-1920)" M.P. Boyé recounts the hard work of these carriers: work of force, repetitive, dangerous where silicosis and alcohol make havoc.
After the great war, many Piedmontese workers will come to work in these quarries. Until 1940, the stones of these quarries are transported to Paris by the railway line Boullay Troux - Saint Rémy les Chevreuse. With the discovery of bitumen, the activities of these quarries will gradually decline (exploitation disappears in the middle of the 20th century).
Three characters who have marked history, each in their own domain, lived in Molières:
Guy Jean-Baptiste Target (1733-1806): lawyer, French academician. Deputy of the third-state to the States General in 1789, he took the oath of the Jeu de Paume.
He participated in the elaboration of the first Constitution of 1791 and was one of the principal drafters of the civil Constitution of the clergy. President of the Constituent Assembly from January 18 to February 2, 1790, he organized the ceremony of the feast of the Federation of July 14, 1790. In 1792, he refused to defend Louis XVI before the Convention and stayed away from the Terror. Appointed judge of the Court of Cassation in 1797, a function he will exercise until his death, he collaborated in the drafting of the Civil Code and the Criminal Code. He died September 9, 1806 in Molières on the farm Fay. He is buried in Paris at the Père Lachaise cemetery.
General François Auguste Andry (1850-1911) was an active witness of French colonization. He participated in the campaigns of Cochin China, Tunisia, Tonkin and Madagascar in the late nineteenth century.
Finally Roger Tirand (1891-1949), was mayor of the Molières but also the printer, it was his job, the call of the Resistance launched by Mr. Thorez and J. Duclos July 10, 1940 in the name of the Communist Party French.
General Andry and Roger Tirand rest in the cemetery of the commune.
In the village, near the church, you can see behind a wall, a beautiful mansion: the Pavilion Sully, legend has it that the minister of Henry IV stayed there.
The wood of Paradou was the former property of the De Broca family. Only vestige that remains: the old pool transformed into a sandbox.
The Paradou Hall, built in 1986, won the Departmental Heritage Award in 1991. Most of the sporting, cultural and festive activities take place throughout the year and punctuate the life of the village.
