Balleroy Castle

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Balleroy Castle from the northeast

The Balleroy castle is located in the same French city Balleroy in the region Normandy about 15 kilometers southwest of Bayeux . The classicist complex is the earliest surviving work by the architect François Mansart and one of the first examples of an urban project in France. It served as a model for the planning of the Palace of Versailles . The facility has been a listed building since January 1951 .

description

The outer

Ground plan of the main building with its courtyard

The castle complex is surrounded all around by deep dry trenches and is located on the southwestern edge of the village, whose main road leads axially to the castle building. In addition to a landscape garden from the mid-19th century and the main building, the area includes a garden terrace to the east, which was originally designed by the French landscape architect André Le Nôtre . It has two broderie parterres with boxwood plantings in the style of French baroque gardens , which go back to changes under Henri Duchêne in the 19th century. On both of its long sides, the terrace is bordered by two one-story farm buildings, which formerly housed stables.

At the corners of the eastern entrance side of the area are two large round corner towers, which are closed off by a conical roof. The northern corner tower has two storeys and has hatches in the attic. It used to be used as a pigeon tower .

Back of the lock

Brick , mica slate and limestone from Caen were used as materials for the walls of the main house in the Louis Treize style . The building consists of a three-storey central pavilion on a rectangular floor plan and two lower side pavilions, each with two storeys, connected to the north and south. All three parts of the building have hipped roofs covered with slate shingles with hatches, the lower end of which is directly connected to the eaves cornice . The middle pavilion is divided into three axes by windows and is closed off by a small roof terrace and a roof turret with a bell, the shape of which is reminiscent of a lantern .

To the east of the main building there is an unusual courtyard because when the palace was built, Mansart deviated from the classic French three-wing complex and had the long sides of the courtyard flanked by two small, rectangular pavilions instead of two side wings. The eastern part of the main courtyard can be reached from the garden terrace via an arched bridge. A Servian staircase leads to the higher western part of the courtyard, from which a semi-oval staircase on its west side leads to the main portal in the central pavilion. On the north and south sides, this part of the main courtyard is surrounded by two higher terraces, which can also be reached by semi-oval stairs, and at the eastern corners of which the two small pavilions stand to replace the side wings.

Interior

The floor plan of the main building clearly shows that this early work by François Mansart was a forerunner for his later design for the Maisons-Laffitte castle . Inside, the castle has considerably more rooms than its outer facade suggests at first glance, as false ceilings have been inserted in many rooms. On the ground floor only two rooms are full height, all others are divided by mezzanine floors . A very similar situation arises on the second floor of the building.

In terms of design, some decorative concessions were made inside at the expense of the strict symmetry that is actually characteristic of classicism. For example, the stately bedroom has different types of doors or some of the twelve wooden pilasters in the drawing room of Louis XIII. , which has a richly stuccoed ceiling, is not arranged perfectly symmetrically.

On the second floor, the Honor Salon (also known as the Grand Salon ) forms the heart of the floor. He owns an oval ceiling painting in trompe-l'oeil technique by Pierre Mignard from 1670 with Apollo and Aurora as motifs. There are also numerous portraits of the royal family painted by Charles de La Fosse and Juste d'Egmont , a pupil of Peter Paul Rubens . In addition to the image of Louis XIII. Portraits of the Grande Mademoiselle Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans and Gaston d'Orléans are also on display.

Another special feature of the castle is its open staircase in the central pavilion. The steps do not wind around a central column, but run in three ways along the outer walls of the room and therefore also come up against the window due to the construction. The construction is the oldest self-supporting staircase in France.

history

Jean I. de Choisy , the son of a simple wine merchant who had worked his way up to royal adviser and later became Chancellor Gaston d'Orléans' , bought the domain Balleroy on April 1, 1600 for 5500  Écu from the Marquis d'O . After the land had been in the family's possession for several years, Jean II and his wife Olympe de Bellesbat commissioned the young architect François Mansart to design a palace in 1626 . In contrast to many neo-classical castles in France, Balleroy did not have any older predecessor buildings, but was completely rebuilt from July 1631. Since the building should not only serve as a temporary residence, but also as the main residence, Mansart also planned a corresponding settlement to supply the castle residents and included them in the architectural ensemble. Balleroy was thus one of the first urbanism projects in France. In 1637 the construction work on the palace complex was finished. The office of Chancellor of the King's brother meant that the client and his wife mostly lived in Paris in the Palais du Luxembourg . After the death of Jean II. De Choisy , his widow was removed from the court and sent to Balleroy. She took the valuable interiors of her Parisian apartments with her and had them installed in Balleroy Castle.

Balleroy Castle in 1715, drawing by Louis Boudan

After Jean Paul de Choisy died in 1697 without male heirs, Balleroy was sold to Françoise de Barancas, Princesse d'Harcourt , in 1700 , but the princess did not remain the owner for long. On December 17, 1701, the Chancellor Jacques de la Cour acquired the castle and the associated lands, which in 1704 were made a marquisate . The property was confiscated during the French Revolution , but the last owner's sister, the Countess d'Hervilly, bought Balleroy back for the family in 1795 and shared the property with her brother, the fourth Marquis of Balleroy, in 1806. He had to sell the castle in 1816, but reserved a buyback option for his son. The new owner was the Marquis de La Loude, Mayor of Versailles , who returned the property to the de La Cour family in 1827, because they made use of the buyback option.

During the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the facility was damaged, but the extent of the damage was not too great. The granddaughter Jacques' de La Cour, Myriam, married Bénédic, sold the now rather shabby building in 1970 to the American press magnate Malcolm Forbes . He had the complex restored and some rooms furnished in the style of the 19th century. Sun received as the dining room, a Regency - paneling from a Paris mansion .

Balloon Museum

Balloon Museum

Forbes, an avid balloonist , set up a balloon museum ( Le Musée des ballons ) in one of the former farm buildings , which opened its doors to visitors in 1975. You can see photographs, models, rare individual items and documents on the history of the balloon flight. The castle grounds were also the venue for an international balloon festival every year until 1990.

After Malcom Forbes 'death, the castle became the property of a foundation that is now managed by Forbes' heirs. An inside tour of the main building, which also houses paintings by the animal painter Albert de Balleroy , is possible during the opening hours as part of a guided tour.

literature

  • Étienne Faisant: Calvados. Balleroy. Nouveaux documents sur la construction du château (1631–1637). In: Bulletin monumental. Vol. 165, No. 4, 2007, ISSN  0007-473X , pp. 377-378, doi: 10.3406 / bulmo.2007.1493 .
  • Claude Frégnac (Ed.): Merveilles des châteaux de Normandie. Hachette, Paris 1966, pp. 220-227.
  • Cecil Gould, Anthony Blunt : The Chateau de Balleroy. In: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs. Vol. 87, No. 511, 1945, ISSN  0951-0788 , pp. 248-252 ( digitized from JSTOR (subject to charge) ).
  • Bertrand Jestaz: Le château de Balleroy. In: Société française d'Archéologie (ed.): Congrès archéologique de France. 132e Session, 1974, Bessin et Pays d'Auge. Self-published, Paris 1978, ISSN  0069-8881 , pp. 228-229.
  • Robert Schezen, Laure Murat: Castles and country manors in France. Heyne, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-453-05185-8 , pp. 74-77.
  • Philippe Seydoux: Châteaux du Pays d'Auge et du Bessin. Éditions de la Morande, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-902091-14-1 , pp. 11-13.
  • Le château de Balleroy. In: La Demeure Historique. No. 21, 1971, ISSN  0998-5956 .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Balleroy Castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  2. ↑ Cecil Gould, Anthony Blunt: The Chateau de Balleroy. 1945, p. 251.
  3. ↑ structurae.de , accessed on January 4, 2020.
  4. ^ A b Philippe Seydoux: Châteaux du Pays d'Auge et du Bessin. 1992, p. 11.
  5. ↑ Werner Meyer : Castle trip of the German Castle Association in Normandy 16. – 21. June 1975. In: Castles and Palaces . Volume 16, No. 2, 1975, ISSN  0007-6201 , p. 118, doi: 10.11588 / bus.1975.2.40371 .
  6. ↑ Etienne Faisant: Calvados. Balleroy. Nouveaux documents sur la construction du château (1631–1637). 2007, p. 377.
  7. ↑ Etienne Faisant: Calvados. Balleroy. Nouveaux documents sur la construction du château (1631–1637). 2007, p. 378.
  8. ^ Claude Frégnac: Merveilles des châteaux de Normandie. 1966, p. 226.
  9. ↑ fodors.com (page no longer available) , accessed October 22, 2007.

Coordinates: 49 ° 10 ′ 45 "  N , 0 ° 50 ′ 33"  W.