Dreux lies on the small river Blaise, a tributary of the Eure, about 35 km north of Chartres.

The first large battle of the French Wars of Religion occurred at Dreux, on 19 December 1562, resulting in a hard-fought victory for the Catholic forces of the duc de Montmorency.

In October 1983, the Front National won 55% of the vote in the second round of elections for the city council of Dreux, in one of its first significant electoral victories.

[9] The duc de Penthièvre died in March 1793 and his body was laid to rest in the crypt beside his parents.

On 21 November of that same year, in the midst of the French Revolution, a mob desecrated the crypt and threw the ten bodies in a mass grave in the Chanoines cemetery of the Collégiale Saint-Étienne.