Ételan Castle

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Ételan Castle, view from the west

The Ételan Castle ( French Château d'Ételan ) is a palace complex in the northern French municipality of Saint-Maurice-d'Ételan about six kilometers southeast of Lillebonne in the region Normandy . The main building dates from the end of the 15th century and was one of the first buildings in Normandy to be partly built in the Renaissance style.

In the course of its history, many important people have paid a visit to the castle, including Louis XI. , Franz I. , Katharina von Medici with their children Karl IX. , Heinrich III. and Margarete , Michel de L'Hospital , Voltaire and the composer André Caplet .

The plant is since 16 April 1941 as inscribed monument historique ( French Monument historique inscrit ) under monument protection and can be visited in return for payment April to October.

history

In the 14th century there was a fortified castle on the site of today's castle , the first known owner of which was Pierre Picart dʼE (s) telan. In 1383 it belonged to Guillaume Picart dʼE (s) telan. For the year 1475 it is recorded that the lord of the castle at the time, who was also called Guillaume Picart, appointed the French King Louis XI there. received. In the 15th century, he gave the order for an unknown reason to shut down the facility. Guillaume's son Louis was a friend of Cardinal Georges d'Amboise and a councilor and chamberlain to Louis XII. When he was still Duke of Orléans in 1494 , he gave Louis de Picart 700  livres tournois so that he could build a new castle. Work on it lasted until 1514.

Louis bequeathed the new building to his son François, whose daughter Madelaine married Jean dʼEsquetot and left the castle to their daughter Charlotte. This brought the property into the marriage with Marshal Charles I. de Cossé . In August 1563 he received the regent Catherine de Medici and her entourage at his castle , including her son Charles IX, who was still underage at the time. and his brother Heinrich as well as his sister Margarete and Henry of Navarre, who is related to the royal family . In those days there were four future kings and queens of France in the castle.

Charlotte and Charles' marriage resulted in two sons and their daughter Jeanne, who married François d'Espinay de Saint-Luc in February 1578 and brought the castle to his family. For her husband, Ételan was made a county . With the death of François III. dʼEspinay de Saint-Lucs in 1694 inherited the property from his only child from his marriage to Marie de Pompadour, the daughter Marie Anne Henriette. Before her marriage to François Bertrand de Rochechouart, she sold the property in 1714 to Charles-Jean-François Hénault , President of the First Chamber of Investigations ( French président de la Première chambre des Enquêtes ) in the Paris Parliament . It is likely that during his time as lord of the castle, his friend Voltaire lived in the castle in 1723/1724.

Representation of the castle with the additional storey demolished after 1867 on the stair pavilion

In 1770, Ételan Castle passed to François Pierre Charles Bouchard dʼEsparbès de Lusson, Count of Jonzac. He had some repairs carried out on the complex before he sold the property again in 1774. The new owner was Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Belhomme de Glatigny, who added an additional storey to the Logis staircase in 1772. He left the castle to his daughter Marie in 1809, who married Adrien Charles Deshommets , the Marquis of Martainville, and brought the property into their marriage. Their son Charles François Emeric sold it to Adrien Siméon Paul des Champs de Boishébert in 1858. After his death in November 1862, his widow Lépoldine Guy Duval dʼAngoville carried out restoration and repair work in 1867 , because at that time the south-west side of the castle was completely in ruins. The additional storey built in 1772 was also dismantled.

The castle at the beginning of the 20th century.

The next owner of Ételan was the widow of the entrepreneur Auguste Desgenétais, who died in 1882. She hired the Rouen-based architect Simon and had the main building of the complex including the palace chapel extensively restored. After her death, the castle came to her non-Louise Anne Marguerite, who had been married to the Marquis Gaston de Castelbajac since 1906. During their time as lords of the castle, the two hosted the French composer André Caplet , who completed his work on the Mass for three voices a capella there . The property came from the Castelbajac family to the Charbonnières family.

German soldiers were stationed at Ételan Castle during the Second World War . It also served as alternative accommodation for students from the Saint-Michel school in Le Havre , who were evacuated there in June 1943. During the war in 1944 a fire broke out in the logis, which destroyed large parts of the roof. Although this was restored in 1968, this could not stop the progressive decline of the now vacant building. In the 1970s, the walls were in danger of collapsing and there was even thought about demolishing the castle. This did not happen, however, because in 1975 the couple Jacques and Françoise Boudier bought the ailing facility in order to rebuild it. The previous owner was an industrialist from the Nord department . His plans to rebuild the castle and give it a new use had failed at the time.

The Boudiers and their family first moved into the former house of the guards ( French maison des gardes ) at the entrance to the castle area, because the main building was not habitable at the time. The new lords of the castle founded the Association des Amis du Parc et du Château dʼÉtelan , an association to support the reconstruction of the castle, on December 8, 1975 together with the then mayor of Saint-Maurice-dʼÉtelan, André Bettencourt . This has lasted for more than 30 years. The first phase of restoration and reconstruction was completed in 1994. With the help of the association, the French state and the département , the work on the main building and the castle chapel has now been completely completed, but the farm buildings are not yet finished. After Jacques Boudier's death in 1999, his widow continued the reconstruction on her own and organized cultural events such as exhibitions and concerts in the castle. In the meantime she has transferred responsibility to her two sons Marc and Alain. They carry on the business in the interests of their parents.

description

Ételan Castle stands on a wooded hill on the right bank of the Seine in the heart of the Pays de Caux region . The area belonging to the castle is part of the Boucles de la Seine Normande Regional Nature Park . The complex consists of a main building with an adjoining castle chapel and a farm yard, which are surrounded by a castle park . A crenellated portal made of limestone grants access to the castle area. It was built in the 17th century but modified for the widow Auguste Desgenétaisʼ in the last quarter of the 19th century. A stone depiction of the coat of arms hangs over its arched passage. Directly to the west of the portal building is the Guard House , the oldest preserved building in the complex. Its walls consist - like almost all other buildings in the castle - of red bricks and light colored stone , which is known in French as brique-et-pierre . At its core, it dates back to around 1350 and is a remnant of the medieval castle that was the predecessor of today's castle. Besides the house of the guards , only a piece of the curtain wall and a cellar from the 12th century have survived.

The oldest buildings in the farm yard were built in the 17th century, some others date from the 18th century. In contrast to all other buildings on the property, the upper floor of the residential building in the farm yard consists of half-timbered houses .

main building

South view of the Logis

The two-storey main building in the style of the flamboyant consists of a late Gothic logis and an adjoining, narrower wing that extends the logis in a north-easterly direction. Both buildings date from before 1500 and were connected by a pavilion at the turn of the century . This pavilion stands in the corner of the logis and extension wing and takes up the stairwell. Its two outer sides have nine large arched openings (a main entrance door on the ground floor and eight glazed windows). From 1772 the stair pavilion had one storey more than today. Legend has it that a room was set up there in which the young daughter of the house, Marie de Caligny, was hidden. This additional storey was removed about a century later and replaced by today's high hipped roof with slate roofing . Its appearance was thus adapted to the remaining slate roofs of the main building.

The large salon on the ground floor

The ground floor of the logis and extension wing was built from hewn limestone blocks, while the masonry on the upper floor consists of alternating layers of light limestone and red brick. Both floors have cross-frame windows . At the end of the 19th century, there was a single-storey extension with a winter garden on the south-western end of the main building . The top floor has lucarnen with a sculptural decoration in the style of the flamboyant, for example coats of arms, pinnacles and gargoyles . However, it is not historical, it was only added in the 19th century.

Inside, some old chimneys and historic wooden beam ceilings have been preserved. Concerts are held today in the large salon on the ground floor. Old tapestries hang on the walls and its historic fireplace has an ornately carved hood. In the adjacent dining room, there is an extraordinary wood fireplace. The first floor can be reached via a stone staircase. The large salon there is used for temporary exhibitions. In the south-west corner of that floor is the queen's bedroom ( French chambre de la Reine ), whose name reminds us that Catherine de Medici stayed in Ételan Castle for several days in the 16th century.

Castle chapel

Castle chapel, interior view

To the northeast of the main building is the castle chapel, consecrated to Maria Magdalena , which the German occupation repurposed as a forge during the Second World War. To the right and left of her portal are stone dog sculptures. The interior is illuminated by pointed arched windows with tracery . Its glazing survived the war completely unscathed because it had previously been dismantled. It was only by chance that the stained glass panes were found in a hidden corner of the castle after the end of the war.

In the interior there is still some of the original interior from the 16th century. The flooring of the interior is made of terracotta - tiles that show the coat of arms Picart d'Ételan family while the walls with a neo-Gothic wainscoting are covered in oak. The chapel is three-bay and has a brightly painted cross-ribbed vault , the keystones of which have sculpted coats of arms. The vaults are also brightly painted and show golden fleur-de-lys on a blue background. The wall painting from the 15th century behind the altar , which was extensively restored in 1987, is particularly valuable in terms of art history . It only emerged after the dry season in 1976, when mold came off the wall in some places. The fresco shows the Last Judgment and St. Gregory's mass . On the right and left above the altar are brightly painted sculptures: on the right the Holy Virgin with the child , on the left Mary Magdalene kneeling before the resurrected Jesus.

Castle Park

The castle is one of more than 20  hectares large park surrounded. On the south-east side of the main building, the area is terraced . Where the terraces end, around 1000 years ago the Seine flowed very close to the castle. The park has very old trees, such as an evergreen magnolia around 200 years old and a large chestnut and two linden trees that survived Hurricane Lothar in December 1999. These are classified as a "remarkable tree" ( French arbre remarquable ). Until June 2019 there were three linden trees, but one of these 450-year-old trees buckled in Storm Miguel . Something similar happened to the trees on the approximately 230-meter-long access avenue of the castle 20 years earlier: They did not survive Hurricane Lothar and were replaced by two rows of new plants by the castle owners.

literature

  • Léon Braquehais: Le château de Saint-Maurice d'Ételan. In: Jules Adeline, et al .: La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque, Seine-Inferieure. Lemale & Cie., Havre 1893, pp. 419-422 ( digitized ).
  • Noël Broëlec: La Normandie. Châteaux et Demeures. Minerva, Geneva 1995, ISBN 2-8307-0306-6 , p. 27.
  • Sophie-Dorothée Delesalle, Christian Olles, Muriel Vandeventer (eds.): Le Patrimoine des Communes de la Seine-Maritime. Volume 2. Flohic, Paris 1997, ISBN 2-84234-017-5 , p. 856.
  • Jean de Foville, Auguste Le Sourd: Les châteaux de France. Hachette, Paris 1913, pp. 359-360.
  • Philippe Seydoux: Châteaux du Pays de Caux et du Pays de Bray. 2nd Edition. Éditions de la Morande, Paris 1987, ISBN 2-902091-17-6 , pp. 62-63.
  • Philippe Seydoux: Châteaux et Jardins de Nomandie. Volume 1: Pays de Caux et de l'Eure. Éditions de la Morande, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-902091-20-6 , pp. 28-29.
  • Alexandre Vernon: Le château d'Etelan. Un joyau du pays de Caux. In: Patrimoine Normand. No. 76, 2010, ISSN  1271-6006 ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Ételan Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b Information about the castle on the website of the Seine-Maritime department , accessed on October 7, 2019.
  2. ^ First entry of the castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on October 7, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Second entry of the castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on October 7, 2019.
  4. ^ Léon Braquehais: Le château de Saint-Maurice d'Ételan. 1893, p. 420.
  5. ↑ a b c d e History of the complex on the castle website , accessed on October 2, 2019.
  6. ^ Jean de Foville, Auguste Le Sourd: Les châteaux de France. 1913, p. 359.
  7. ^ Philippe Seydoux: Châteaux du Pays de Caux et du Pays de Bray. 1987, p. 62.
  8. ^ Léon Braquehais: Le château de Saint-Maurice d'Ételan. 1893, p. 421.
  9. ↑ É. de Magny (Ed.): Nobiliaire de Normandie. Volume 2. Librairie héraldique dʼAuguste Aubry, Paris 1863–1864, p. 658 ( digital copy ).
  10. ^ According to Braquehais, the chapel was restored in 1880. Compare Léon Braquehais: Le château de Saint-Maurice d'Ételan. 1893, p. 420.
  11. ↑ a b Information about the castle on journees-du-patrimoine.com , accessed on October 7, 2019.
  12. ↑ a b c d e f Alexandre Vernon: Le château d'Etelan. Un joyau du pays de Caux. 2010 ( online ).
  13. ^ The Association des Amis du Parc et du Château dʼÉtelan on the castle website , accessed October 7, 2019.
  14. ^ Sophie-Dorothée Delesalle, Christian Olles, Muriel Vandeventer (eds.): Le Patrimoine des Communes de la Seine-Maritime. Volume 2. 1997, p. 856.
  15. ^ Ételan, à Saint-Maurice-dʼÉtelan. Un château gothique dominant the Seine. In: Anne-Sophie Pérès (Red.): Châteaux Passion. Au cœur des plus beaux château de France. Atlas, Paris 2001, no p.
  16. ^ Philippe Seydoux: Châteaux du Pays de Caux et du Pays de Bray. 1987, p. 63.

Coordinates: 49 ° 27 ′ 58.8 ″  N , 0 ° 37 ′ 40.5 ″  E