The Château de Montlhéry is a

castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

in the '' commune'' of

Montlhéry Montlhéry () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located from Paris. History Montlhéry lay on the strategically important road from Paris to Orléans. U ...

in the

Essonne Essonne () is a department in the southern part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. It is named after the river Essonne. In 2019, it had a population of 1,301,659, across 194 communes.département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. There are a total of 101 ...

'' of France. Ruins date from various periods, most notably the 10th, 11th, 13th and 14th centuries. The present 13th-century castle, with its prominent

keep A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residen ...

, succeeded a castle built in the 11th century, and an earlier foundation, built from 991 to 1015. The castle is a rectilinear pentagonal plan, with five surviving towers, one of which is much larger than the rest and serves as the keep, forming the point of the pentagon, at the end of the ridge. A gate tower protected the entrance on the opposite site. Recent evidence suggests that there may have a second court or bailey extending in front of the present gate, as well as a substantial chapel inside the presumed lower court. Thanks to its position, the keep was notably connected with the scientific experiments of

Pierre Gassendi Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi, Petrus Gassendus; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he a ...

(measurement of the speed of sound),

Claude Chappe Claude Chappe (; 25 December 1763 – 23 January 1805) was a French inventor who in 1792 demonstrated a practical semaphore line, semaphore system that eventually spanned all of France. His system consisted of a series of towers, each within l ...

(experiments with optical telegraphy in 1794) and

Alfred Cornu Marie Alfred Cornu (; 6 March 1841 – 12 April 1902) was a French physicist and professor of École polytechnique. The French generally refer to him as Alfred Cornu. The Cornu spiral, a graphical device for the computation of light intensities in ...

(measurement of the speed of light in 1874). Visitors today can see the keep, the well, the

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

and the remains of the curtain wall. The castle is state property. It has been listed since 1840 as a ''

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 collection of buildings, ...

'' by the

French Ministry of Culture The Ministry of Culture () is the ministry (government department), ministry of the Government of France in charge of List of museums in France, national museums and the . Its goal is to maintain the French identity through the promotion and pro ...

References

External links

* Castles in Île-de-France Essonne Monuments historiques of Essonne {{France-castle-stub

See also

References

External links