Sully-sur-Loire castle
The Château de Sully-sur-Loire is in the French city Sully-sur-Loire on the eastern edge of the Sologne . It is one of the Loire castles and, together with the Loire Valley, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000 .
Its predecessor was built by the Lords of Sully, who had been there since the 9th century. As Guy VI. de La Trémoïlle came into his possession through marriage to the sole heiress, he began from 1395 to extensively change the existing castle . His descendant, Claude de La Trémoïlle, sold the buildings damaged by the Huguenot Wars in 1602 to Maximilien de Béthune , who had the fortifications converted into a representative castle . The minister of Henry IV wrote his well-known memoirs there with four secretaries, which were printed towards the end of 1638 in the Tour de Béthune , which was named after him , although the title indicates that they were published in Amsterdam.
The de Béthune family owned the complex for more than 350 years before it was sold to the Loiret department in 1962 .
After the moated castle was listed as a historical monument in September 1928, its park and moat were added to the list of monuments in April 1944. The facility had previously been opened to the public in July 1934 and had around 30,000 visitors by the start of the Second World War.
description
Basse-Cour
East of the castle is the so-called Basse-Cour (German: outer castle courtyard) on its own island . The low wall surrounding it is the still-preserved foundation of an earlier, much higher circular wall . On the undeveloped area formerly the farm buildings and were Collegiate Church Saint-Ythier including Stiftsgebäude. Today there is a two meter high statue made of white Carrara marble, which represents the first Duke of Sully , Maximilien de Béthune . The figure was originally made in 1642 by Pierre II Biard on behalf of Rachel de Conchefilet for Villebon Castle . It shows the minister of Henry IV wearing a laurel wreath and holding a marshal's baton.
Castle building
The palace complex rises on a trapezoidal floor plan on the southern bank of the Loire . It is surrounded on all sides by wide moats that are fed by the Sange . The architecture still gives a defiant impression and also has some well-fortified architectural elements, but due to numerous renovations since the 17th century, the complex no longer had a military function.
The buildings are grouped around a courtyard , the south side of a narrow military gang-like gallery - the so-called Galérie d'agreement with two storeys and pitched roof of the 17th century and a - curtain wall is bounded on the west. As building material for the masonry blocks made of sand-lime brick were used, while the roofs are covered with shingles made of slate .
Portal tower
A stone arch bridge on the west side of the Basse-Cour leads to the square portal tower of the castle from the 15th century. Its three storeys rise on a square floor plan and are closed by a bent hipped roof. On the inner courtyard side, the building has a narrow, pentagonal stair tower with five floors. The coat of arms of the de Béthune family can be seen above the arched portal on the side facing the Basse-Cour .
Petit Château and Louis XV wing.
To the south of the portal tower is the Petit Château , a three-story building with a pitched roof . Its top floor has a battlement on a cantilevered stone console on the northeast facade. On the ground floor of the building there is a former study by Maximilien de Béthunes, while his bedroom can be visited on the first floor. Both rooms were restored in the second half of the 20th century and show what was built in the 18th century. Their painted beam ceilings, however, date from the 16th century.
To the north of the portal tower is an unfurnished, two-story building with a pitched roof, the wing of Louis XV. is called and borders the donjon at its northern end . It was only rebuilt in 1923 based on historical models, but not true to the original, after its predecessor had burned down in 1918.
Tour d'Artillerie and Tour de Béthune
The Tour d'Artillerie (German: Artillerieturm ), which owes its name to its use as a platform for cannons, stands as a connection between the western curtain wall and the southern gallery at the southern corner of the courtyard . The round tower has walls five meters thick and an outer diameter of 15 meters. Erected in 1606 on the site of a ruined predecessor tower from 1363, it has always had only one floor above ground so that its roof could be used for military purposes.
At its southern end, the Petit Château is adjoined by a high round tower with four storeys and a kinked cone helmet at the end. It forms the southeast corner of the palace complex. Its current name, Tour de Béthune , is reminiscent of Maximilien de Béthune, who had part of his memoirs "Mémoires des sages er royalles - Oeconomies royales d'Estat" printed in this tower. In Béthune's time, the tower was still called Tour de la Sange . With a diameter of twelve meters, it has a cantilevered parapet walkway on stone consoles and machicolations (rows of machicolations ) in the attic and dates from 1440.
Donjon
The donjon from the end of the 14th century is the oldest preserved part of the palace complex. It has three floors above ground, which are closed off by a pitched roof. At each of the four corners of the 39 x 16 meter building there is a protruding four-story round tower with a diameter of 11.50 meters. Only the two eastern corner towers still show the shape as they were when they were built. Crowned by a kinked cone helmet, its fourth storeys have a cantilevered battlement with small windows, machicolations and loopholes . The two western corner towers, on the other hand, lack the fourth floor, and while the northwest tower has a flat conical helmet, the southwest tower is completely roofless. What they all have in common, however, is that they have a narrow spiral staircase in the section of the wall facing the donjon and that their storeys do not have vaulted ceilings , but flat wooden ceilings.
The Donjon, also known as the Grand Château , can be entered via a ground-level gate on its south side. In earlier times, the entrance was only accessible via a drawbridge , as the donjon facing the inner courtyard was additionally protected by a moat that has now been filled in. The gateway is flanked on its west and east by two narrow round towers, the east of which connects the three Donjon storeys with a staircase inside, while a chapel is located on the ground floor of the west tower.
The top floor of the donjon has strong stone consoles on all sides with a cantilevered battlement with loopholes, which is only rudimentary on the south-western gable wall. The building's large cross-storey windows , however, do not date from when the building was erected, but are the result of extensive renovations at the beginning of the 17th century. The former vaults in the basement are no longer preserved today.
Inside, all three floors are divided by a partition wall into a large hall with around 300 square meters of floor space and a slightly smaller salon . The garden hall (French: Salle des gardes ), also known as the guard hall, is located on the ground floor and has a coffered wooden ceiling that is partially painted with ducat gold . To the east, there is a room that is now used as a museum ticket office and shop.
The second floor is largely occupied by the Great Hall (French: Grand Salle ), which served as a festival and representation hall and also functioned a few times as a theater. His chimney on the south-east wall dates from the 15th century and has a wall painting in the upper chimney surround that shows Rosny Castle . To the east of the Great Hall is the so-called State Room , the bedroom of the Dukes of Sully with Flemish tapestry and wood-beamed ceiling in the Italian style and wallpaper made of blue damask .
In the wall to the inner courtyard is a heavy iron door from the 16th century, hidden behind wood paneling, which leads to a small cabinet. This occupies the first floor of the western flanking tower in the portal building. While the drawbridge of the portal was operated from there in the early days of the castle, the room later served first as a study and then as the lords' treasury. Today there is an oratory with a copy of the tomb of Maximilien de Béthunes and his second wife Rachel de Conchefilet, which houses the couple's remains.
The third floor of the donjon, more than 16 meters high, is primarily known for its extraordinary roof structure, which is called Grand Galetas . The high beam made of chestnut wood has the shape of an upside-down ship's keel and is still free of woodworms and other wood pests without the use of chemical agents. It is considered a great masterpiece of medieval carpentry and is one of the few examples that have been completely preserved from that time. The good condition of the roof structure results in part from a special processing method of the wood used, which came from shipbuilding. After the wood was placed in salt water, it was dried for years and treated with alum . In addition, the unusual construction of the roof structure ensured that the beams were permanently and well ventilated so that they do not have any other normal environmental influences to this day.
From an art historical point of view, in addition to the entablature, a tapestry series from the 17th century is also worth mentioning. The six wall hangings from a Paris workshop with the name Tenture de Psyché show the myth of Psyche and were kept in Rosny-sur-Seine Castle until March 1994.
Gardens and parks
The 25 hectare garden area is located east of the Basse-Cour and can be reached from there via a stone bridge. The symmetrically laid out beds of the former baroque garden are no longer preserved. Instead, the area is now almost completely taken up by forest. Only the existing paths are reminiscent of the design as a pleasure garden due to their location to one another.
Building history
Previous buildings until the end of the 14th century
Already in Roman times there was a simple watchtower to protect and control the nearby 400-meter-long stone bridge over the Loire. A previous building of today's castle was built on its foundation walls, which was first mentioned in 1102 as "castrum soliacense". Its owner at the time was a Herr von Sully. His descendant, Henri I. de Sully, was in a dispute with his liege lord , the Bishop of Orléans, Manassé de Seignelai , because he had collected taxes from traveling merchants in his seigneurie or had them killed and himself at the beginning of the 13th century refused to redress this injustice. The bishop therefore confiscated Henri's property and placed it under the protection of the French king Philip Augustus . As a sign of his claim to power over this area, he had a mighty and well-fortified round tower built on the site of today's Basse-Cour before 1218 , the remains of which were visible until the 1990s.
During a strong storm with accompanying Loire floods in 1363, both the bridge and the associated watchtower were destroyed. At that time, however, in addition to the round tower of Philippe Augustes, there was already another building by the Lords of Sully, which was not only repaired with the stones of the ruined bridge and the watchtower, but also expanded after the floods in Louis de Sully. The stones required for this came from the Bièvre and Briare . The repair work on the roof structure of this building at that time is well documented by an invoice from 1363. The Loire Bridge was not rebuilt until 1836, but replaced by a ferry.
The castle of the de Sully and de La Trémoïlle families
The basis of today's castle in Sully-sur-Loire was created with the construction of a Gothic style castle between 1218 and the end of the 14th century by the Lords of Sully. Since, with the exception of only one document, no documents have been preserved about this period, neither the start of construction nor the appearance of the building at that time has been recorded.
At the end of the 14th century, the plant came through marriage to Guy VI. de La Trémoïlle, who had the building completely changed. He commissioned Raymond du Temple , the architect of the Louvre and the Vincennes Castle , to make plans for a donjon, which were carried out between 1395 and 1406. After Guy VI. de La Trémoïlle died in 1398 on his return from the Seventh Crusade , his widow Marie de Sully continued the project - possibly including an old building. The work was interrupted and delayed by the Hundred Years War .
In 1403, Guy's son, Georges de La Trémoïlle, laid out a first palace garden. This was followed in 1440 by the new construction of the so-called Tour de la Sange , a five-storey tower at the southeast corner of the castle complex, which was rebuilt on the foundations of an older predecessor. The existing old building fabric was integrated into the new one. Before 1460, a new residential building, the Petit Château, was built south of the portal tower to provide more comfort .
During the Huguenot Wars, the facility was damaged during sieges . After it was first taken by Huguenots , it was subsequently recaptured by Catholic troops. In 1586, the Saint-Ythier church on the Basse-Cour was destroyed, so that masses had to be celebrated in the Notre-Dame-de-Pitié church.
The castle of the "great Sully"
In the period from 1602 to 1609 Maximilien de Béthune - also known as the great Sully - and his second wife Rachel de Conchefilet had the complex completely rebuilt in the Renaissance style, transforming it from a well-fortified castle into a representative palace.
The entire palace area was surrounded by moats that were fed by the Sange. For this purpose, the small tributary of the Loire was specially diverted. One of the first architectural renovations was the relocation of the previous main portal in the south to the north side of the castle. A new portal was built there and a bridge built over the outer moat. This was followed by the reconstruction and redesign of the donjon from 1603. Among other things, Béthune had the cross-frame windows that have survived to this day broken out and the garden room on the ground floor was divided into several small rooms by partition walls.
As early as 1602, he had also initiated work to greatly expand the existing small garden to the east and to create a large baroque park there. Before this work could be completed in 1605, the remains of the destroyed church and the monastery building were demolished in 1604 so that the Basse-Cour could be integrated into the new garden concept. After the canons had stayed in the village for a long time due to the poor condition of their monastery building, the official relocation of the monastery from the castle to Sully-sur-Loire took place.
In the years from 1606 to 1608 work was carried out to renovate and renovate the Petit Château . Like the previous owners, Maximilien de Béthune wanted to use the donjon exclusively for representation, while he stayed in the more homely building south of the portal tower. For this purpose, he had partition walls with chimneys built in over the entire height of the building in order to be able to heat all the new rooms. Also in 1606 he had the ruins of the badly damaged corner tower in the southwest of the castle courtyard completely laid down and then rebuilt down to the ground floor so that cannons could be set up on the platform that was created.
Around 1611 a high dam was built in the northwest of the complex to protect the castle from the regular floods of the Loire. The concrete reason for this far-reaching construction project was a flood in 1608, which not only destroyed large parts of the recently created park, but almost killed Béthune. Surprisingly enclosed by the floods, he was only rescued from his study at the last moment by river boats.
The last significant remodeling work took place in the 1620s, when the old wooden structures between the donjon and the portal tower were torn down and replaced by a covered stone gallery. Throughout his life, however, Béthune had to repeatedly have repairs carried out on his castle in order to repair the damage that had occurred during the religious wars that flared up again.
18th century
After the old round tower by Philippe Augustes in the Basse-Cour had been demolished in 1717 in order to have a better view of the castle gardens from the Petit Château , construction measures to redesign the gallery between Donjon and the portal tower, which was renewed in 1702, followed in the middle of the 18th century. It was replaced by a three-story building. The renovation of the entire palace facade, the installation of new doors and windows and the filling of the moats in the palace courtyard also fall in the 18th century. With the demolition of the old horse stables in the Basse-Cour , from 1767, it presented itself as an undeveloped, flat area, and in 1779 the wooden drawbridge leading to the portal tower was replaced by a stone arch bridge.
During the French Revolution , the castle was badly damaged, especially the four corner towers of the donjon were badly affected. The damage did not result from fighting, but rather from a government decision that forced the then owner and last Duke of Sully, Maximilien Gabriel Louis de Béthune, to demolish his property. The lord of the castle had to tear down several defensive walls and make the defensive towers unusable with his own hand. After that, the outer walls on the northeast side of the Tour de Verrines were only at the level of the ground floor. The roofs and battlements of the three other corner towers of the donjon were completely destroyed. The castle's two cannons were transported to Orléans and the castle's own weapons collection was confiscated.
From the 19th century
A marble statue of the former minister, commissioned by his wife after Maximiliens de Béthune's death, was brought to Sully-sur-Loire in 1841 after it had moved from Villebon Castle to the “Musée des monuments francais” in 1793 and placed in the courtyard of the castle .
From 1869, the then castle owner Eugène de Béthune began to rebuild and modernize the ailing castle in order to equip it according to the zeitgeist. For example, he had walls moved inside the building and new wall cladding installed over a large area. From 1902 he devoted himself to the reconstruction of the damaged donjon together with his son Maximilien. After his son was killed in a tragic hunting accident, all restoration work was stopped.
After the burial site of Béthunes and his wife in Nogent-le-Rotrous was destroyed during the French Revolution in 1793 and the contents of their coffins were placed in an anonymous grave in the communal cemetery, it was rediscovered by historical researchers in 1883 and moved to the palace chapel in Sully- sur-Loire convicted. Since this was consecrated Catholic in 1934 and Béthune belonged to the Reformed faith, his remains and those of his wife had to be reburied on October 23, 1999 in the specially set up oratory in the western flanking tower of the castle portal.
On the night of January 10th to 11th 1918, the wing of Louis XV burned down. completely fell, and its valuable interior was destroyed. The building was rebuilt in 1923, but not furnished again.
In addition to the damage from the time of the French Revolution, which had not been completely repaired, there was further damage from fighting during the Second World War : the castle was hit by bombs in June 1940 and August 1944.
After the complex was bought by the Loiret department, it was continuously restored and partially furnished again to use it as a castle museum. In addition, the department has held an international classical music festival there every year since 1973. In January 2006, further restoration work for four million euros was started, which is expected to last until around July 2007 and will therefore severely limit the museum's exhibition space during the measures.
Residents and owners
The castle and town of Sully-sur-Loire had been owned by the barons and later barons of Sully since the 9th century . With Gilon I. de Sully (also called Gile de Sully) the last male member of the family died at the beginning of the 12th century. His daughter Agnès secretly married Wilhelm von Blois (French: Guillaume de Blois), Count of Chartres , who was therefore disinherited from his father Stephan II , but through this connection came into the possession of Sully-sur-Loire. Wilhelm's descendants no longer called themselves "de Blois", but "de Sully", thus ensuring that the name did not become extinct.
After a dispute between Henri I de Sully and the Bishop of Orléans, the latter confiscated the property before 1218 and placed it under the administration of the French royal family. After the two parties to the dispute had come to an amicable agreement and Henri was ready in March 1218 to reimburse the costs incurred, the French King Philippe Auguste had to return the castle and site to its legitimate owner.
Louis de Sully left no male heirs after his death. The heiress of the locksmith, his daughter Marie, married Charles de Berry, comte de Montpensier, who died shortly afterwards, so that in December 1382 the seigneurie was withdrawn as a settled fief from the Orléan bishop Jean V. Nicot due to the lack of male heirs . Marie married Duke Guy VI just a few months later in her second marriage. de La Trémoïlle, who bought back the land from the diocese in 1383 for 330,000 livres . His son Georges de La Trémoïlle , chamberlain and favorite of Charles VII , gave various festivals in the castle at that time in honor of his king and Joan of Arc in June 1429 and held Jeanne prisoner there in March 1430 to prevent her from further fighting to lead English troops. However, she managed to escape.
Georges' descendant Claude de La Trémoïlle converted to the Reformed faith and fought in the army of Henry of Navarre. On July 15, 1602 he sold Sully-sur-Loire for 126,000 livres / 42,000 écus to the minister of Henry IV, Maximilien de Béthune, marquis de Rosny. He had fought with him before in the Protestant troops. In gratitude for Béthune's services, Henry IV raised the property to a duchy with peerage on February 12, 1606 (French: duché-pairie ). However, the lord of the castle only stayed there in spring and autumn. He spent the rest of the year in the Villebon castle while his wife Rachel de Conchefilet managed the estate of the castle in Sully-sur-Loire.
After Maximilia's death, he was succeeded in December 1641 by his grandson Maximilien François as duke and owner. During his reign, in March 1652, 14-year-old Louis XIV found refuge from the Fronde in Paris with his mother Anne d'Autriche , accompanied by Cardinal Jules Mazarin and Marshal Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount de Turenne .
The complex remained in the possession of various branches of the de Béthune family until the 20th century. During this time the dukes received numerous illustrious guests there, for example Lafayette after his return from America and Voltaire , who went into exile in Sully-sur-Loire from 1716 and 1729 after being banished from Paris. Voltaire had his tragedies Artémise and Oedipus performed for the first time in the Grande Salle des Donjons.
The last noble owner was Mahaut Marie Jeanne de Béthune. After the castle was destroyed in the Second World War, during which a German general staff had taken up quarters there, she sold a large part of the castle furniture, but was no longer able to maintain the large complex for financial reasons. In 1962 she sold the castle for 85 million ancien francs to the Loiret department, which is still the owner today.
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literature
- Susanne Girndt (Red.): Castles of the Loire . Bassermann, Niedernhausen 1996, ISBN 3-8094-0290-7 , pages 36-37.
- 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. 40-43 ( online ).
- Wiebke Krabbe (transl.): The castles of the Loire . Komet, Frechen 2001, ISBN 3-89836-200-0 , pages 96-97.
- Jules Loiseleur: Sully-sur-Loire.Monographie du château. Reprint of the original edition from 1868. Res Universis, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-7428-0026-3 .
- Louis Martin: Le château de Sully-sur-Loire . Ed. du Chateau de Sully, Sully-sur-Loire 1970.
- Louis Martin: Le tombeau de Sully au château de Sully-sur-Loire . Boutroux, Sully-sur-Loire 1935.
- Jean Mesqui: Histoire monumentale de la ville et du château de Sully-sur-Loire . In: Bernard Barbiche et al .: Histoire de Sully-sur-Loire . Ed. Horvath, Roanne 1986, ISBN 2-7171-0436-4 , pages 103-163 ( PDF; 8.3 MB ).
- Alo Miller, Nikolaus Miller: The Loire Valley . 1st edition. Reise Know-How Verlag, Bielefeld 1999, ISBN 3-89416-681-9 , pages 89-91.
- Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos, Robert Polidori : Castles in the Loire Valley . Könemann, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-89508-597-9 , p. 324-325 .
- Eckhard Philipp: The Loire Valley . 3rd edition. Goldstadtverlag, Pforzheim 1993, ISBN 3-87269-078-7 , pages 323-325.
- René Polette: Lovable Loire castles . Morstadt, Kehl 1996, ISBN 3-88571-266-0 , pages 97-98.
- Werner Rau: Travel mobile. Loire Valley . 1st edition. Rau Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-926145-27-7 , pages 33-35.
- Janine Soisson: The Loire Castles . Parkland, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-88059-186-5 , page 6.
- Eugène Viollet-le-Duc: Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture francaise du Xie au XVIe siècle . Volume 3, 1856.
- Le château de Sully . In: Le Magasin pittoresque… , Vol. 24, Paris 1856, pages 7–8.
Web links
- Sully-sur-Loire Castle on richesheures.net (French)
- Images from Base Mémoire
- Sully-sur-Loire Castle as a 3D model in SketchUp's 3D warehouse
References and comments
- ↑ Some publications incorrectly state that this room is the Béthune bedroom.
- ^ J. Mesqui: Histoire monumentale de la ville et du château de Sully-sur-Loire , page 132.
- ↑ Although the residential building of the Sully-sur-Loire castle is not a French residential tower from the Middle Ages, the name of the donjon has established itself in the specialist literature. However, the term Logis would be more appropriate.
- ↑ J. Mesqui: Histoire monumentale de la ville et du château de Sully-sur-Loire , page 116.
- ↑ www.richesheures.net Status: December 29, 2006.
- ^ J. Mesqui: Histoire monumentale de la ville et du château de Sully-sur-Loire , pages 120-121.
- ^ J. Mesqui: Histoire monumentale de la ville et du château de Sully-sur-Loire , page 123.
- ↑ J. Mesqui: Histoire monumentale de la ville et du château de Sully-sur-Loire , page 124.
- ↑ J. Loiseleur: Sully-sur-Loire, Monographie du château , page 20.
- ↑ L. Martin: Le château de Sully-sur-Loire , page 12.
Coordinates: 47 ° 46 ′ 3.3 ″ N , 2 ° 22 ′ 31 ″ E