Brézé Castle
Castle Brézé is a small castle near the municipality of Brézé in the French department of Maine-et-Loire .
Building history
Written references to Brézé Castle appear in the literature for the first time in 1060. The structure of today's complex, which is surrounded by a dry moat, mainly dates from the 16th and 19th centuries. It shows the style of the Renaissance , but also has medieval elements such as the drawbridge and the basement from old caves, which have been in use since the 12th century, some of which were created by the mining of the local tufa . The extraction and export of tufa began in the 11th century and was finally stopped in the 19th century. The current owners operate Castle Brézé mainly as a winery with around 30 hectares of cultivation area; Part of the cave basement has been open to visitors since 2000.
The oldest parts of today's building are the towers of the outer main wing and part of the tower that was built in the 13th century and later rebuilt to match the Renaissance wing. In their current state, these parts are said to go back to the reconstruction of the fortifications by Gilles de Maillé-Brézé in 1448. The castle was heavily changed around 1515. Additional renovations, carried out by Arthur de Maillé-Brézé around 1560, included the construction of the east side of the Renaissance wing.
From the dry trenches, the visitor arrives at an astonishing cave system created by the quarrying of the tuff, which has been used for economic areas since the 16th century. There is, for example, a bakery, a room for silkworm breeding , a press house and a wine cellar .
Family history
Brézé Castle has been home to several families over the centuries, but there was no connection to the Brézé family . Rather, it belonged - like the rule of Brézé and the title of Marquis de Brézé in the 17th century - to the Maillé house , which the village of Brézé had acquired in the 14th century and was not related to the Brézé house.
The Maillé-Brézé family : the first extensive renovations took place during this family's time. In 1448, Gilles de Maillé-Brézé received permission from King René to fortify the castle. Then he had the ten to twelve meter deep trenches dug around the castle. Arthur de Maillé-Brézé built the Renaissance wing in 1558. In 1615 the property of King Ludwig XIII. raised to marquisate, and Urbain de Maillé-Brézé was the first marquis. He married Nicole du Plessis, sister of Cardinal Richelieu . His son Armand became an admiral of France .
Condé family : Claire-Clémence de Maillé-Brézé , sole heiress, married Louis II. De Bourbon , Prince of Condé , and transferred the estate to his family in 1650. In the same year, the "Great Condé" joined the Fronde . This alliance of the French nobility , the high judiciary of the parliaments , especially the parlement of Paris, and parts of the people, also especially in Paris , was directed against the increasing absolutism in France in the 17th century. During this period, around 1653, Brézé Castle was occupied by royal troops for a year. In 1682, Louis II. De Bourbon exchanged Brézé for the Galissonière estate near Nantes .
Dreux-Brézé family : The new owner of Brézé, Thomas de Dreux, advisor in the Paris Parliament, not only acquired the estate, but also receivedthe title of Marquisunder King Louis XIV . In 1701, the family also acquired the title of chief master of ceremonies, which they held until 1830. Henrio Evrard de Dreux-Brézé, chief master of ceremonies of King Louis XVI. , expanded the renaissance part of the castle. His son Pierre, Bishop of Moulins, and his grandson Heinrich Simon began under the leadership of the architect René Hodé with the renovation of the castle and gave it the neo-Gothic style elementsthat still exist today.
Colbert family : When Charlotte de Dreux-Brézé married Count Bernard de Colbert in 1959, the estate came into the possession of the Colbert family, who still live there today.
literature
- Josyane Cassaigne, Alain Cassaigne: Guide des châteaux de France. Ponts, Paris 2011, ISBN 978-2-36394-045-2 , pp. 176-179.
- Werner Rau: Loire Valley. On the most beautiful routes to castles and sights on the Loire, Indre, Cher, Vienne, Sarthe and Loir. 1st edition. Werner Rau, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-926145-27-7 , pp. 160-161.
- Georges Touchard-Lafosse: La Loire historique, pittoresque et biographique. Volume 4. Adolphe Delahaye, Paris 1858, pp. 700-702 ( digitized version ).
- The green travel guide. Castles on the Loire. Michelin, Landau-Mörlheim 1997, ISBN 2-06-711591-X , p. 136.
- France's most beautiful palaces and castles. 1st edition. Travel House Media, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-8342-8944-5 , pp. 194-197.
Web links
- Brézé Castle website (French, English)
Coordinates: 47 ° 10 '28.2 " N , 0 ° 3' 26.8" W.