Saché Castle
The Saché Castle is located near the town of Saché in Indre-et-Loire southeast of Tours in France. The building was listed as a historical monument in 1932 and has been home to a Balzac Museum since 1951 . It is one of the Loire castles .
history
A previous building already existed on the same site in the 14th century, of which only a remnant of the former curtain wall is left today. The building was rebuilt in the 15th century and expanded at the end of the 16th century. Jean de Margonne had it adapted to the tastes of the time in the early 19th century .
Jean de Margonne was Honoré de Balzac's paternal friend and patron . The writer, who was born in Tours and lives in Paris , had the opportunity to move back here for long periods of time between 1824 and 1837. Some of his novels were written in this castle in the heart of his beloved Touraine .
The plant is now owned by the Indre-et-Loire department.
description
The building has an irregular floor plan and is kept very simple on the outside. Its limestone walls are plastered and closed by a slate roof.
The castle has retained the character it had in the poet's time in the first half of the 19th century. A straight staircase leads to the de Margonne family's apartments on the first floor. The dining room and the large salon with the curtain wallpaper present themselves as intact living spaces of that time. Balzac's modest living room, study and bedroom on the upper floor was also restored in 1970 and looks like it did back then. Even the poet's desk and writing utensils as well as the bed are still there.
The remaining rooms on the upper floor are furnished like museums. The exhibition contains, for example, contemporary caricatures about Balzac and his fellow writers, as well as memories of Balzac's stay in Russia with the Countess von Hanska, whom he married shortly before his death. The manuscripts and proof sheets on display show the great effort that Balzac underwent shortly before a work was printed.
A few engravings on the walls give an impression of the Paris of “ human comedy ” that Balzac immortalized in his novels. These included, for example, the Baltard pavilion , which had just opened and which Balzac greatly admired. During this time of upheaval, the first steamers sailed on the Seine . Furthermore, the theaters, the dark streets and the first boulevards of Paris are shown. Not to forget the stagecoach that took two and a half days from Paris to Tours. In the 1840s, the railroad cut travel time to six hours.
literature
- Wilfried Hansmann : The Loire Valley. Castles, churches and cities in the «Garden of France» . 2nd Edition. DuMont, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-7701-3555-5 , pp. 152-154 ( excerpts online ).
- Bernhard Schneidewind: The Loire Castles. The signpost through the garden of France . Ullstein, Frankfurt / M., Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-550-06850-6 , pp. 180/181.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Base Mérimée as of June 24, 2007
Coordinates: 47 ° 14 ′ 45 ″ N , 0 ° 32 ′ 40 ″ E