Bizy Castle

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Aerial view of the Bizy Castle

The Bizy Castle ( French Château de Bizy ) is a palace complex on the southern outskirts of the French city of Vernon in the region Normandy . Because of its similarity to the royal palace in Versailles , it was called Little Versailles ( French Petit Versailles ) in the 18th century .

The complex goes back to a renaissance castle , which the French Marshal Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet had replaced by a spacious new building in the Baroque style in the first half of the 18th century . Confiscated and partially demolished during the French Revolution , it came into the possession of General Wilhelm von Le Suire at the beginning of the 19th century , who had the demolished main castle replaced with a simple country house. This was laid down again in 1860 to make way for a neoclassical corps de logis . The client, Fernand de Schickler, bequeathed the castle to his nephew from the house of the Dukes of Albufera in 1909. This family is still the owner of the facility today.

The Corps de Logis is one of the most important works of the Second Empire . Together with the horse stables and part of the castle park , it was placed under monument protection on July 1, 1974 as a classified Monument historique . On March 4, 1996, the rest of the park was added to the French list of monuments . The castle is open to visitors from April to October every day except Mondays. The interiors can only be seen as part of a guided tour, but the castle park can be explored independently. There is also the possibility of renting some rooms for events, including the orangery in the park.

history

In the Middle Ages , Bizy belonged to the Lords of Blaru , from the 14th century it was owned by the Jubert family. In 1675 he was made marquisate for Michel-André Jubert de Bouville . At that time, a small castle was the focus of the domain. The elongated, low building had a slate roof and two slightly higher pavilions at both ends . Nicolas André Jubert de Bouville sold it together with the associated lands in 1718/1721 to Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, the Count and later Duke of Belle-Isle. He was a grandson of Nicolas Fouquet and held lavish  parties in Bizy - like his grandfather a century earlier at Vaux-le-Vicomte Castle . On one of these occasions on September 21, 1749, King Louis XV. and his maitresse en tître , Madame de Pompadour , visited Bizy. Fouquet had the property fundamentally changed. From 1728 he replaced the previous palace with a magnificent and larger new building and in 1742 added a generous stables to it. The designs for the new buildings were provided by Pierre Contant d'Ivry, architect of the king and later of the regent Philippe II. De Bourbon, duc d'Orléans . As early as 1723 the new lord of the castle had the existing castle park enlarged and changed. In the period from 1723 to 1724 the Avenue des Capucins , a straight elm avenue over 1.5 kilometers long, was laid out, which connected the castle with the town of Vernon and reached as far as the Seine . The garden and park were redesigned according to plans by Jean Charles Garnier d'Isle and Claude Desgots , André Le Nôtres' nephew . They had designed a splendid French garden with statuary parterres , fountains, fountains, and water features and cascades .

Illustration of the Bizy Castle in 1793

When he died in 1761, Fouquet, who had just been appointed Minister of War, left Bizy Castle, like all other properties, to the royal family, although the property was heavily indebted. The king exchanged Bizy in 1767 with Louis Charles de Bourbon , the Count of Eu , for his principality of Dombes . The count did not make any changes to the castle, but replaced the elms on Avenue des Capucins with linden trees and bequeathed the property to his cousin Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon , Duke of Penthièvre and last legitimate grandson of the Sun King Louis XIV, in 1775.Bizy and Anet belonged to him one of his most popular residences, and from 1783 he used the property very regularly for longer stays. The Duke died there in 1793. Bizy inherited from his daughter Louise Marie Adélaïde , who had become Duchess of Orléans through her marriage to Louis Philippe II Joseph de Bourbon . Because two of their sons had fled France during the French Revolution, all of the family's property, including Bizy Castle, was confiscated in the Prairial in the year VI (1797) and sold for demolition. It came to property speculators who had the main castle laid down to sell the demolition material. The other buildings and the park with its water systems fell into disrepair.

The Corps de Logis, built in 1860, is the youngest part of the castle

In 1805 the General Wilhelm von Le Suire bought the property and in 1808 was made Baron von Bizy. Instead of the demolished central castle, he had a simple country house built. In 1817 the Duchess of Penthièvre bought the castle back and bequeathed it to her son Louis-Philippe when she died in 1821 . He often stayed in Bizy and had the castle buildings repaired and various changes made to the complex. This included, for example, the enlargement of the country house by adding two low side wings to it around 1822. He also had the run-down French garden converted into an English landscape garden . The linden avenues planted by Louis Charles de Bourbon were retained during the redesign.

In 1858 the castle - like all the property of the Orléans family  - was acquired by Napoleon III. again confiscated and auctioned as a national property on February 15, 1858. The new owner was Baron Fernand de Schickler, the then mayor of Vernon. He had the building erected by Le Suir demolished in order to have it replaced in 1860 by a neoclassical corps de logis. The structure of the new building was based heavily on the Villa Albani in Rome , while the decor was in the Louis-seize style. The plans for this came from the architect William Henry White. Schickler bequeathed the property to his nephew Louis Joseph Suchet, who later became the fourth Duke of Albufera, and his wife when he died in 1909. The couple had the buildings of the 18th century repaired and restored the palace gardens. It also closed the main courtyard by adding two side wings to the horse stables. Bizy Castle is still owned by the ducal family and is used as their residence.

description

The palace complex consists of a neoclassical corps de logis from the second half of the 19th century and a horseshoe-shaped outer bailey that adjoins the logis in a south-westerly direction. The buildings enclose a courtyard of honor with an 18th century horse bath in the center. Since the individual wings of the castle come from different epochs, the structure makes an inconsistent impression. It is located in the middle of a landscape park .

Outer bailey

Entrance wing of the horse stables, view from the outside

The wings of the three-winged outer bailey are grouped roughly in a semicircle around the main courtyard. They date from the 18th and early 20th centuries and were made of limestone . All the wings have roofs that are covered with slate shingles. A large part of the interior is occupied by the former horse stables of the castle, in which today a collection of carriages and carriages is presented. A relief in the arched gable of the gate building in the middle of the south-western wing of the outer bailey indicates the former use of the Marstall . It shows rearing horses. The horse stables, together with some fountain figures and the horse bath in the courtyard, are the only components from the early days of the castle and thus the oldest preserved structure of the complex.

Lodging

Big salon

The logis consists of a corps de logis built under Baron Fernand de Schickler from 1860 and two low side wings with connecting corner pavilions, which were built earlier under Louis-Philippe I, on the narrow sides in the same direction. The two and a half floors of the central building are covered by a flat hipped roof hidden behind a stone balustrade . The first floor served as a bel étage , above it is a low mezzanine , the ox eyes of which are half surrounded by festoons and foliage . The facade facing the courtyard is rustified on the ground floor and has an open gallery . The area of ​​the upper floors is divided vertically by Ionic pilasters . On the south-eastern side of the garden, a balcony is in front of the bel étage, supported by Doric columns on the ground floor. In the two upper floors there are Ionic columns on the facade as a vertical structure.

Art historical significance is Great Salon ( French Grand salon ) in the center of the main floor. Even the construction of the building was paid special attention to the design of this space so valuable Regency - boiseries could be attached to the 18th century there. The oak paneling originally came from Bercy Castle, which was demolished in 1840 on the outskirts of Paris . Other valuable items in the room are two tapestries from the tapestry manufactory . One of the wall hangings belongs to the series Royal Houses ( French Maisons royales ), which was made from cardboard by Charles Le Brun . It shows the royal castle of Chambord . The furniture of the salon includes a lacquer chest of drawers with gilded bronze fittings from the time of Louis XV. , a harp owned by the Dutch Queen Hortense de Beauharnais and a large gueridon with marquetry that was a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to Louis Gabriel Suchet , the first Duke of Albufera. In the neighboring Blue Salon ( French Salon Bleu ) there are numerous family portraits from the imperial era .

Castle Park

Bizy Castle is located in the middle of a large park, which consists of two parts: the so-called Great Park ( French Grand Parc ) and the Small Park ( French Petit Parc ). The Great Park is an approximately 10 km² wooded area, which is criss-crossed by numerous straight and partly radial paths and was laid out in the 18th century by Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet de Belle-Isle. At that time it was mainly used as a hunting area. The small park , on the other hand, was the actual palace garden, which is now designed as an English landscape garden. It emerged from a baroque garden from the 18th century, which in turn was based on a small castle park from the 16th century with an orangery, a small forest, a vegetable garden, garden parterres, water systems and an ice cellar . The baroque origins of today's landscape garden can still be clearly seen from the preserved water features, fountains with fountains and straight paths. This is particularly evident in the Avenue des Capucins , lined with around 560 linden trees, with double rows of trees over 200 years old at the edges.

  • Lot in the landscaped garden

  • cascade

  • Baroque fountain with sculptures attributed to the Slodtz brothers

  • Baroque water basin in the landscaped garden

literature

  • Thomas Christ: The castles of the Ile-de-France. Wiese, Basel 1994, ISBN 3-909164-18-8 , pp. 19-20.
  • Michel de Decker: Le chateau de Bizy. In: Nouvelles de l'Eure. No. 62, 1977, ISSN  0996-2964 , pp. 50-55.
  • Claude Frégnac: Merveilles des châteaux de Normandie. Hachette, Paris 1966, pp. 200-207.
  • Karine Lebert: Un château ressuscité. In: Maisons normandes. No. 134, December 2012 / January 2013, ISSN  1152-877X , pp. 58-67.
  • Bernard de Montgolfier: Dictionnaire des châteaux de France. Larousse, Paris 1969, p. 51.
  • Philippe Seydoux: Châteaux des Pays de l'Eure. Éditions de la Morande, Paris 1987, ISBN 2-902091-13-3 , pp. 10-13.
  • 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. 12-13.
  • Louis Suchet, duc d'Albufera: Le château de Bizy. In: Nouvelles de l'Eure. No. 44, 1972, ISSN  0996-2964 , pp. 49-64.
  • Bizy. Un château royal. In: Nouvelles de l'Eure. No. 72, 1979, ISSN  0996-2964 , pp. 3-24.

Web links

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

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b c T. Christ: The castles of the Ile-de-France. 1994, p. 19.
  2. ↑ a b B. de Montgolfier: Dictionnaire des châteaux de France. 1969, p. 51.
  3. ↑ a b c d First entry of the castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on September 17, 2015.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Second entry of the castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on September 17, 2015.
  5. ^ A b C. Claude Frégnac: Merveilles des châteaux de Normandie. 1966, p. 201.
  6. ^ T. Christ: The castles of the Ile-de-France. 1994, p. 20.
  7. ↑ History on the castle website , accessed on September 16, 2015.
  8. ↑ P. Seydoux: Châteaux des Pays de l'Eure. 1987, p. 12.
  9. ↑ Entry on Avenue des Capucins in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on September 17, 2015.
  10. ^ C. Claude Frégnac: Merveilles des châteaux de Normandie. 1966, p. 301.
  11. ↑ a b P. Seydoux: Châteaux des Pays de l'Eure. 1987, p. 13.
  12. ^ A b C. Claude Frégnac: Merveilles des châteaux de Normandie. 1966, p. 206.
  13. ↑ Information according to the map available online at geoportail.gouv.fr.
  14. ↑ Entry of the Great Park in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on September 17, 2015.
  15. ^ Entry of the Small Park in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on September 17, 2015.
  16. ↑ Information about the castle on the website of the organization Demeure historique ( Memento from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ P. Seydoux: Châteaux et Jardins de Normandie. Volume 1, 1989, p. 13.

Coordinates: 49 ° 5 ′ 1.1 ″  N , 1 ° 27 ′ 56.8 ″  E