Cirey Castle

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Cirey Castle from the southwest

The castle Cirey ( French Château de Cirey ) is a castle in Cirey-sur-Blaise in the French department of Haute-Marne . It should not be confused with the Cirey Castle (also known as Cirey-lès-Bellevaux or Bellevaux Castle), which is also known as the Bellevaux Monastery in the Haute-Saône department . The castle is known because for 15 years from 1734 to 1749 it was the common center of life of Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil , marquise de Châtelet, and Voltaire for sometimes shorter and sometimes longer periods .

Today the complex is owned by the Counts of Salignac-Fénelon. Various parts of the building and rooms of the palace have been under monument protection as Monument historique since September 21, 1981 . Some of the interiors, including the dining room, drawing rooms, library and kitchen from the 17th century, can be viewed on a guided tour.

history

In the 17th century, the Seigneurie Cirey was owned by Louis-Jules du Châtelet, who came from an influential Lorraine family. He held an office at the royal court ( officier du roi ) and was governor of Aigues-Mortes . When he was in the power struggle between the French King Louis XIII. and his brother Gaston d'Orléans decided in favor of the scheming king brother, he fell from grace and was sentenced to death by quarters for treason. At the same time, all of his possessions were confiscated . Louis-Jules fled to avoid death. His wife Christine de Gleiseneuve successfully opposed the seigneurie and got it back, but she could not prevent the 11th century castle in Cirey from being razed in 1633 .

When Louis XIII. and his brother reconciled in 1634, Louis-Jules also benefited and was set free as a result of an amnesty . In 1642 he began building a new palace in the Baroque style on the foundations of the old castle . However, of the planned three-wing complex with four pavilion towers at the corners, only one tower with an extension was built before the client died in 1671.

Cirey Castle on a lithograph from around 1830

The castle became famous in the second quarter of the 18th century when it was owned by the Marquis Florent-Claude du Châtelet, Count of Lemout, Seigneur von Cirey. He was lieutenant general in the royal army of Louis XV. and in 1724 had married the then 18-year-old Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil. The couple had three children together before Émilie met 39-year-old Voltaire in Paris in 1733 and began a relationship with him. This was considered to be one of the great intellectual and romantic relationships of the 18th century. It was fine with the marquis, as he could share the maintenance costs for his discerning wife with the wealthy Voltaire. When he had to flee Paris in 1734 and came to Cirey, he found the pavilion, made of red brick and light stone ( French brique-et-pierre ) in the Louis Treize style, completely shabby. He had it renovated with the approval of the Marquis and added a low gallery wing from 1734 to 1735 , in which the couple set up a physics laboratory and built a library with 21,000 works. In the years that followed, until Madame du Châtelet's sudden death in 1749, Cirey Castle became a meeting place for writers and philosophers from all over France.

Via Emilie's son Louis Marie Florent du Châtelet , later Duke of Châtelet, the castle passed to his niece, later Madame de Simiane, Diane-Adélaïde de Damas, who received La Fayette there several times . Her heirs from the Damas d'Antigny family sold the property to a merchant, who in 1890 sold it to a Mr. Armand-Viellard. He was an ancestor of the current owner family.

After extensive restoration , numerous rooms can be viewed again.

description

Part of the richly decorated portal in the gallery wing

The castle area is located on the banks of Blaise and consists of the main castle and a large, south-west of it situated outer bailey . Together with a few other buildings, they are located in the middle of an English landscape garden .

The main castle consists of a large pavilion tower with a square floor plan and a tent roof . It is joined to the south by an extension that was built at the same time as the pavilion in the 17th century. The L-shaped gallery wing, which adjoins the pavilion on its west side, dates from the 18th century. It has an elaborately designed honorary portal , which was designed according to Voltaire's designs and with its numerous reliefs documents his preference for science, philosophy and art. One of the oldest private theaters in France is located on the top floor of the facility, which Voltaire had set up there in 1735 and where he rehearsed the pieces he wrote during those years. A short northern extension to the pavilion dates from the 19th century, as does the castle chapel , whose wall paintings date from 1851 and by Constant Ménissier . Inside, much of the valuable furnishings from the 17th and 18th centuries has been preserved, for example the boiseries in the billiard room and the lambris and an oven in the dining room.

Almost all of the castle's farm buildings date from the second half of the 19th century and are located around a rectangular inner courtyard, the entrance to which the castle grounds can be accessed in the south-western corner. Access to the main castle is via a pavilion-like gatehouse with a round arched archway on the east side of the service yard. However, the building is not part of the original Baroque development, but was only erected in 1915. The various buildings used to be used as horse and hen houses, granaries, pigeon houses , barns, shepherds' houses and cattle sheds. An ice cellar has also been preserved.

The palace complex includes a large landscaped garden , the origins of which go back to the mid-15th century. It has been under protection since December 26, 2001 as a registered Monument historique. The castle park has an approximately 566-meter-long canal that is fed by the Blaise. A metal bridge from 1880 leads over it. In addition to an orangery building, there is also a chalet in the park , the style of which represents the typical taste of the 19th century.

literature

  • Claude Fregnac: Merveilles des châteaux d'Alsace, de Lorraine, de Champagne, des provinces de Liège, de Limbourg et de Luxembourg . Hachette, Paris 1974, ISBN 2-01-000465-5 , pp. 192-195.
  • Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos (ed.): Le guide du patrimoine Champagne Ardenne . Hachette, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-01-020987-7 .

Web links

Commons : Schloss Cirey  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c website of the castle , accessed on January 12, 2020.
  2. a b c d Information on the castle and its park as PDF; 102 kB ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  3. a b c d e f g Entry of the castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  4. Information about the castle on culture.fr ( Memento from April 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  5. a b Claude Fregnac: Merveilles the châteaux d'Alsace, of Lorraine, of Champagne, the provinces of Liège, de Limbourg et de Luxembourg. 1974, p. 194.
  6. Information about the theater on visitvoltaire.com , accessed on January 12, 2020.
  7. Information on the ensemble of buildings and the palace gardens (page no longer available) , accessed on March 26, 2014.
  8. Information according to the cadastral map of Cirey-sur-Blaise available online at geoportail.gouv.fr
  9. position of the parking cabins: 48 ° 19 '35.4 "  N , 4 ° 56' 19.4"  O

Coordinates: 48 ° 19 ′ 47 ″  N , 4 ° 56 ′ 22 ″  E