La Chesnaie Castle

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La Chesnaie Castle, view from the garden

The castle La Chesnaie ( French Château de la Chesnaie ), formerly called Castle Meaux ( French Château de Meaux ), is located in the center of Eaubonne , a municipality in the Val-d'Oise department in the French region of Île-de-France . Since 1979, the castle at No. 1 rue Voltaire has been listed as a classified Monument historique on the list of French cultural monuments . The current owners use it as a residence and rent the historic rooms on the ground floor and basement for events. In the summer the property can be visited for a fee.

history

The castle formerly belonged to the Meaux lordship, which in the 15th century was owned by Jean de Meaux, a vassal of the House of Montmorency . Augustin de Thou, President of the Paris Parlement , has been handed down as the owner for the 16th century . In the 17th century Meaux belonged to François-Marie Perrot, through whose daughter it came to Perrot's granddaughter Marie-Madeleine de Lubert in the 18th century.

Before the middle of that century, the property had changed from aristocratic to bourgeois ownership, because the brothers Jean-Pierre and Jean Tricher, both citizens of Paris , had a new castle built between 1749 and 1769 or the manoir that had existed up to then extensively repaired. The plans for this possibly came from Claude-Nicolas Ledoux , who also erected various buildings in the neighborhood.

Sophie Lalive de Bellegarde , Countess von Houdetot, lived in the gardener's house from 1757 to 1762 . In June 1757 took place in the park of the castle On one of his frequent visits admitted: an event that was once gain literary fame Jean-Jacques Rousseau Countess his love, as he later in his Confessions ( French Confessions ) wrote.

In 1769, Jean-Pierre Tricher sold the castle and manor to Jean-Baptiste Lazare Lendormy de Mézières, who bought it for the architect Claude-Martin Goupy . He probably had further changes made to the building. On his death in March 1793, Claude-Martin's widow Marie Anne Charlotte inherited the property and kept it until she died in 1822.

The following year Jeanne Bénard-Fontaine, widow of François Perignon, bought the property. Her son-in-law, Marshal Guillaume Dode de la Brunerie , stayed at the castle regularly. Her heirs sold the castle to the banker Félix Gabriel Dehaynin on August 17, 1864. He had the gardener's apartment where Rousseau had met the Countess of Houdetot about a century earlier. After Dehaynin's death in 1898, the heirs sold the palace and park in 1902 to the real estate company Bernheim-frères, which divided the property into 209 parcels and sold it piece by piece from May 1903. Bernheim-frères named the area after the border that once surrounded the castle park, La grille dorée ( German for  the golden grid ).

The parcel with the castle building was acquired in 1905 by Charles Petit-Midy, who also owned the neighboring Croix-Sanson castle. Only since then has the building been called La Chesnaie Castle. Petit-Midy transferred the property to his niece Valentine and her husband Jacques Dupont, who was inspector general of the State Monument Preservation Office ( French inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques ). From 1939 to 1940, the couple made the castle available to the non-profit organization Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE), which operated a home for Jewish children in it. In the period from 1941 to 1945, Dupont had the palace building restored by the architect Jean-Charles Moreux . In the process, extensions that were added during the 19th century were dismantled. Dupont had the park and garden repaired by Henri Gouse. He also advocated the protection status one of the castle and finally maintained its classification as a monument historique on 21 March 1979 reached.

The descendants Dupont gave the 1.5  hectares large Potager (vegetable garden) of the estate of the community before they sold the castle in 1997 to Liv and Marie-Caroline Soavina. The potager that was given away is now a public garden. When the Soavinas became the owners, the building was in a shabby state, and so the pair began its gradual repairs. Since then, between 100,000 and 130,000 euros have gone into maintenance and restoration every year. For their efforts, the couple was awarded the “Prix VMF - De Clarens” in 2015 by the association “Vieilles Maisons de France” ( German  old houses in France ) . The prize is endowed with 5000 euros, which are to be invested in the repair of the music salon. Other major restoration measures , such as the renovation of the roof and facades as well as the restoration of the other historic interiors, are still pending.

description

La Chesnaie Castle is around 14 kilometers northwest of Paris in its banlieue . A small park is part of the complex next to the castle building.

Castle building

The two-storey Louis-quinze-style building is very similar to the Hôtel de Mézières, the former town hall of Eaubonne, which is why it is believed that La Chesnaie Castle was designed by the same architect, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. The white, three-wing building has a seven-axis central wing , which is followed by two short side wings in a westerly direction and at right angles. The three central axes are emphasized both on the front and on the rear garden facade by a central risalit with a triangular gable . There is an ox eye in each of the gables . On the entrance side, a wide staircase leads to the entrance door in the central axis of the risalit. Together with the two windows next to it, it is the only arched opening on this western side of the building; the other windows and doors are rectangular in shape. On the garden side, only the door to the terrace in the central axis is arched. From here, a wide staircase lined with vases leads to the slightly lower terrace.

The main floor of the house on the ground floor, which is reflected from the outside through the floor height noticeable. The upper floor is lower. The building is closed off by a slate roof with differently shaped dormers . Its exterior is kept simple. Apart from the rustication of the central projectile and the corners of the building, there is no architectural ornament.

Much of the old, original furnishings have been preserved inside the castle. Behind the entrance is a vestibule that exudes a certain severity due to its simplicity. As in many other rooms on the ground floor, the flooring consists of white tiles that form a regular pattern with smaller, black marble tiles. The wide spiral staircase to the upper floor can be reached from the vestibule . It has a very simple metal railing from the 18th century.

The former dining room located in the central axis can also be reached from the vestibule. It has an oval floor plan and is now called the music salon ( French Salon de musique ). The painting of its stucco-decorated walls imitates marble cladding . The wall panels in light green are framed by a brown border; a design that is typical for the end of the 18th century. In the niches of the space of the Dupont family were still at the time candelabrum of bronze in the style of Louis XVI , which from the workshop Pierre Gouthières came.

The music salon is adjoined to the south by the mirror salon ( French salon des miroirs ). This room, which is now used as a ballroom, got its name from the large mirrors above the two chimneys at the front. It has a parquet floor and its walls are covered with stucco paneling . In addition to the Spiegelsalon lies Salon Jean-Jacques Rousseau .

The cellar of the house with its barrel vault was prepared by the current owners so that events can take place there.

Castle Park

The castle stands in the middle of a 1.5 hectare park with trees over 100 years old. It is surrounded all around by a man-high wall. Admission is granted through a gate on the west side of the park. This is followed by an avenue , which, however, atypically does not run along the central axis of the palace. To the east of the castle is a small, symmetrically designed garden area. A wide staircase in the central axis of the complex leads down to it from the terrace of the castle.

literature

  • Hervé Collet: Les belles heures du Château de la Chesnaie à Eaubonne. Sur les pas de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Cercle historique et archéologique dʼEaubonne et de la Vallée de Montmorency, Eaubonne 2014.
  • Sophie-Dorothée Delesalle (Ed.): Le Patrimoine des Communes du Val-d'Oise. Volume 1. Flohic, Paris 1999, ISBN 2-84234-056-6 , p. 195 ( online ).
  • Claude Frégnac: Merveilles des châteaux de lʼÎle-de-France. Hachette, Paris 1963, pp. 134-137, 299.
  • Henri Soulange-Bodin: Le guide des châteaux dʼÎle de France. La Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris 1971, pp. 34-37.

Web links

Commons : La Chesnaie Castle  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ^ H. Collet: Les belles heures du Château de la Chesnaie à Eaubonne. 2014, blurb.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Information about the castle on the website of the Eaubonner Geschichtskreis , accessed on September 5, 2016.
  3. ↑ Information based on the information about the castle on the website of the Eaubonner Geschichtskreis . In his book, Hervé Collet says that the construction work took place between 1756 and 1767. See H. Collet: Les belles heures du Château de la Chesnaie à Eaubonne. 2014, blurb.
  4. ↑ a b c d e C. Frégnac: Merveilles des châteaux de lʼÎle-de-France. 1963, p. 134.
  5. ^ Hervé Collet: Claude Goupy, architecte et seigneur du fief de Meaux (Château de la Chesnaie) à Eaubonne , accessed on September 5, 2016.
  6. ↑ a b S.-D. Delesalle: Le Patrimoine des Communes du Val-d'Oise. 1999, p. 195 ( online ( memento of the original from September 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / fr.topic-topos.com
  7. ↑ a b c d e History of Eaubonnes on the website of the Association pour la promotion de l'histoire et du patrimoine de la vallée de Montmorency , accessed on September 5, 2016.
  8. ↑ Information on the castle as a children's home , accessed on September 6, 2016.
  9. ^ Fund Jean-Charles Moreux on the website of the Center dʼarchives d'architecture de la Cité , accessed on September 6, 2016.
  10. ↑ Entry of the castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  11. ^ A b France 3 report by Geneviève Faure and Nedim Loncarevic about the most recent restoration work on the castle , accessed on September 6, 2016.
  12. ↑ a b Eaubonne: le château de la Chesnaie primé pour la quality de sa restauration. In: Le Parisien . Edition of July 30, 2015 ( online ).
  13. ↑ Size information according to the online cadastral map for Eaubonne on geoportail.gouv fr.
  14. ↑ Information on the system on the castle website , accessed on September 6, 2016.

Coordinates: 48 ° 59 ′ 42.4 "  N , 2 ° 16 ′ 38.3"  E