The French Château de Chaumont-la-Guiche r -Laguiche located in

Saint-Bonnet-de-Joux Saint-Bonnet-de-Joux () is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in central eastern France. In the Charolais natural region of Burgundy. See also *Communes of the Saône-et-Loire department The ...

(

Saône-et-Loire Saône-et-Loire (; Arpitan: ''Sona-et-Lêre'') is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in France. It is named after the rivers Saône and Loire, between which it lies, in the country's central-eastern part. Saône-et-Loire is Bo ...

), in a region formerly known as Charolais in southern

Burgundy Burgundy (; french: link=no, Bourgogne ) is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. The c ...

, was constructed beginning in 1500 for the .Babelon 1989, pp. 797–798. The most famous feature of the château is the monumental 17th-century stable block, designed by the noted French architect,

François Blondel François Blondel ( June 1618 – 21 January 1686) was a soldier, engineer of fortifications, mathematician, diplomat, military and civil engineer and architect, called "the Great Blondel", to distinguish him in a dynasty of French architects. ...

Description

The northwest façade of the '' corps de logis'' has tall

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

and

transom Transom may refer to: * Transom (architecture), a bar of wood or stone across the top of a door or window, or the window above such a bar * Transom (nautical), that part of the stern of a vessel where the two sides of its hull meet * Operation Tran ...

windows. An openwork stone

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

runs along the base of the steeply

pitched roof Roof pitch is the steepness of a roof expressed as a ratio of inch(es) rise per horizontal foot (or their metric equivalent), or as the angle in degrees its surface deviates from the horizontal. A flat roof has a pitch of zero in either insta ...

, which is pierced with dormers opening into the

attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

. At the right end is a large square pavilion, which rises an additional storey; toward the left end, a taller octagonal

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

encloses a staircase. Each has a separate, steeply pitched roof. The southeast façade is framed by two towers: a square pavilion to the right and a large round

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

tower to the left (the Tour d'Amboise). Both towers and the ''corps de logis'' are surmounted by protruding crenellated parapets, supported by ranges of corbels. The steep roof of the ''corps de logis'' has six dormers of a markedly different design than those found on the northwest side. The square tower is also topped by its own steeply

Architectural history

The oldest part of the current

château A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Nowaday ...

, the western portion of the southeast façade, was constructed between 1500 and 1514, during the reign of

Louis XII of France Louis XII (27 June 14621 January 1515), was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, he succeeded his 2nd cousin once removed and brother in law at the tim ...

, for Pierre de La Guiche, the king's ambassador to Rome and, by marriage, a nephew of Jacques d'Amboise. The Tour d'Amboise was constructed in 1505. Pierre de La Guiche named his château after the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire (owned by the House of Amboise) and built it in the style of the

châteaux of the Loire Valley The châteaux of the Loire Valley (french: châteaux de la Loire) are part of the architectural heritage of the historic towns of Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Montsoreau, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours along the river Loire in France. They illustr ...

. Construction was continued in 1584 by his son, Philibert de La Guiche, governor of

Lyonnais The Lyonnais () is a historical province of France which owes its name to the city of Lyon. The geographical area known as the ''Lyonnais'' became part of the Kingdom of Burgundy after the division of the Carolingian Empire. The disintegratio ...

and ''grand maître de l'artillerie'' from 1578 to 1596. In the 17th century the château was completed by the addition of two wings perpendicular to the ''corps de logis'' with pavilions at the far ends, forming an interior courtyard opening to the north. These were pulled down in 1805. Neo-gothic elements, including the octagonal stair turret on the northwest façade and the square pavilion at the east end of the southeast façade, were added to the château in 1850. File:Château de Chaumont, Saône-et-Loire.jpg, View from the south, 1835 lithograph by

Émile Sagot Émile Sagot (1805–1888) was a French illustrator and lithographer Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a meta ...

File:Château de Chaumont-la-Guiche by Victor Petit - Antonio Raimo Galleries (cropped).jpg, The southeast façade in the mid-19th century File:Château de Chaumont-la-Guiche by Blanche McManus - amazon(dot)com (cropped).jpg, View from the south, 1909 drawing by

Blanche McManus Blanche McManus (1869–1935) was an American writer and artist. She and her husband, Milburg Francisco Mansfield wrote a series of illustrated travel books, many of which included information about automobiles which were new at the time. Biogra ...

The stables

The most notable feature at the château is the famous stable block, a vast rectangular building with two monumental stone-balustraded exterior double staircases flanking the main entrance. The latter is surmounted by a life-sized

equestrian statue An equestrian statue is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse, from the Latin ''eques'', meaning 'knight', deriving from ''equus'', meaning 'horse'. A statue of a riderless horse is strictly an equine statue. A full-sized equestrian statue is a d ...

of Philibert de La Guiche, "an imperial motif unprecedented in a building of this sort". The identity of the horseman is suggested by

reliefs Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

of two

cannons A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during ...

above the

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

. Two large, very tall stone chimneys loom over the extremities of the building. The cross-vaulted ground floor is divided into three aisles by 56 Tuscan columns in two parallel arcades. The outer two aisles contain stalls for more than 80 horses. The stables were erected from 1648 to 1652 by the local

mason Mason may refer to: Occupations * Mason, brick mason, or bricklayer, a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork, or who lays any combination of stones, bricks, cinder blocks, or similar pieces * Stone mason, a craftsman in the stone-cut ...

and entrepreneur François Martel, who is often credited with the design, but

claimed it as his own in a note in his 1685 edition of Louis Savot's ''L'architecture françoise''. Henriette de La Guiche, the daughter of Philibert, built the stables for her second husband, , ''colonel général'' of the king's cavalry,

governor of Provence The land of Provence has a history quite separate from that of any of the larger nations of Europe. Its independent existence has its origins in the frontier nature of the dukedom in Merovingian Gaul. In this position, influenced and affected by ...

, and a grandson of Charles IX of France. Alais had also inherited the

Château d'Écouen The Château d'Écouen is an historic château in the commune of Écouen, some 20 km north of Paris, France, and a notable example of French Renaissance architecture. Since 1975, it has housed the collections of the Musée national de la Renaissan ...

. These royal connections account for the monumentality of the design. Alais probably knew Blondel via the military. Alais could not have used the stables much. He died in the year after its completion. The stables have been classified as a ''

Monument historique ''Monument historique'' () is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which National Heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a coll ...

'' since 1982 by the French Ministry of Culture. File:Ecuries du château de Chaumont en Charolais, façades restaurées, juin 2021..jpg, In June 2021 after a restoration File:Stables of the Château de Chaumont-la-Guiche - notrefamille(dot)com.jpg, Postcard

Notes

Bibliography

* Babelon, Jean-Pierre (1989). ''Châteaux de France au siècle de la Renaissance''. Paris: Flammarion/Picard. . * Ganay, Ernest de (1953). ''Châteaux de France: Normandie et régions nord et est''. Éditions Tels. * Gerbino, Anthony (2010). ''François Blondel: Architecture, Erudition, and the Scientific Revolution''. London and New York: Routledge. . * Hautecoeur, Louis (1948). ''Histoire de l'architecture classique en France. Tome II, Le règne de Louis XIV''. Paris: A. et J. Picard. . * Herrmann, Wolfgang (1982). "Blondel, François", vol. 1, pp. 216–219, in ''Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects'', 4 volumes, edited by Adolf K. Placzek. New York: The Free Press. .

External links

Photos and history (in French) of the Château de Chaumont la Guiche
at Châteaux de France

at Charolles Info * . Originally at ralphlauren.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Chaumont La Guiche, Chateau De Châteaux in Saône-et-Loire Stables Monuments historiques of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté fr:Écuries du château de Chaumont