Plessis was first mentioned in 839 as
Plessiacus apud Castanetum, meaning
plessis near
Castanetum. A
plessis was a village surrounded by a fence made of branches. In 1112 the village church was founded, of which the romanesque tower still survives as the oldest monument of Le Plessis. At the end of the 12th the village was renamed Le Plessis-Raoul, after the local lord Raoul, chamberlain of king
Philip II of France. In 1407 it came into the hands of Jean Piquet de La Haye, who built the
Château du Plessis-Robinson in the village, now called Le Plessis-Piquet in around 1412. In 1614 a monastery of the
Congregation of the Feuillants was built in the village. In 1682
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Minister of Finances under
Louis XIV had a pond dug which fed the fountains of the nearby
Château de Sceaux.
Pierre de Montesquiou d'Artagnan purchased the Château du Plessis-Robinson in 1699, and expanded the gardens. In 1790, as a result of the
French Revolution, Antoine Moullé was elected the first mayor of Le Plessis. The commune was renamed Le Plessis-Liberté. The monastery was nationalised and demolished. The commune was renamed back to Le Plessis-Piquet in 1801. In 1848, a
guinguette (
cabaret) was established in the area as a suite of interconnected
tree houses. It was named
Le grand Robinson after the tree house described in
Swiss Family Robinson, a novel itself named after
Robinson Crusoe. Several other popular establishments arose in the area and remained popular until the 1960s. In 1909, the commune of Le Plessis-Piquet was officially renamed Le Plessis-Robinson, after
Le grand Robinson. In 1854,
Louis Hachette bought the Château du Plessis-Robinson and the grounds. He later became the mayor of Le Plessis-Piquet and a city councillor. The village and the Château du Plessis-Robinson were ruined in the
Franco-Prussian War, but the château was rebuilt by the Hachette family. ==Population==