The Château de Pierrefonds () 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 ...

situated in the commune of Pierrefonds in the

Oise Oise ( ; ; ) is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise. Inhabitants of the department are called ''Oisiens'' () or ''Isariens'', after the Latin name for the river, Isara. It had a population of 829,419 in 2019.< ...

department in the

Hauts-de-France Hauts-de-France (; ; ), also referred to in English as Upper France, is the northernmost region of France, created by the territorial reform of French regions in 2014, from a merger of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy. Its prefecture is Lille. ...

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

, Northern France. It is located on the southeast edge of the forest of Compiègne, northeast of Paris, between the cities of Villers-Cotterêts and

Compiègne Compiègne (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Oise Departments of France, department of northern France. It is located on the river Oise (river), Oise, and its inhabitants are called ''Compiégnois'' (). Administration Compiègne is t ...

. The Château de Pierrefonds includes most of the characteristics of defensive military architecture from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, though it underwent a major restoration in the 19th century.

History

In the 12th century, a castle was built on this site. Two centuries later, in 1392, King Charles VI turned the

County of Valois The Valois ( , also , ; originally ''Pagus Valensis'') was a region in the valley of the Oise river in Picardy in the north of France. It was a fief in West Francia and subsequently the Kingdom of France until its counts furnished a line of kings ...

(of which Pierrefonds was part) into a

duchy A duchy, also called a dukedom, is a country, territory, fiefdom, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess, a ruler hierarchically second to the king or Queen regnant, queen in Western European tradition. There once existed an important differe ...

and gave it to his brother Louis I, Duke of Orléans. From 1393 to his death in 1407, the latter had the castle rebuilt by the court architect, Jean le Noir. In March 1617, during the early troubled days of Louis XIII's reign, the castle, then the property of François Annibal d'Estrées (brother of the beauty Gabrielle d'Estrées), who joined the "parti des mécontents" (party of discontent) led by Henri II, Prince of Condé, was besieged and taken by troops sent by

Cardinal Richelieu Armand Jean du Plessis, 1st Duke of Richelieu (9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), commonly known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a Catholic Church in France, French Catholic prelate and statesman who had an outsized influence in civil and religi ...

, the secretary of state for war. Its demolition was started, but not carried through to the end because of the enormity of the task. The exterior works were razed, the roofs destroyed and holes made in the towers and curtain walls. The castle remained a ruin for more than two centuries.

Napoleon I Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

bought it in 1810 for less than 3,000

francs The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' ( King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centur ...

. During the 19th century, with the rediscovery of the architectural heritage of the

, it became a "romantic ruin": in August 1832, Louis-Philippe gave a banquet there on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter Louise of Orléans to Léopold de Saxe-Cobourg Gotha, first king of the Belgians. Among other artists,

Corot CoRoT (French: ; English: Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits) was a space telescope mission which operated from 2006 to 2013. The mission's two objectives were to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly t ...

depicted the ruins in several works between 1834 and 1866. The Château de Pierrefonds has been classified as a '' monument historique'' 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 ...

since 1848. Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (later Napoleon III of France) visited the castle in 1850. As emperor, he asked Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1857 to undertake its restoration, which was continued by Maurice Ouadou and then Juste Lisch until 1885. There was no question of a simple repair to the habitable parts (the keep and annexes): the "picturesque" ruins in front were to be kept for décor. In 1861, the project grew in scale: the sovereign wanted to create an imperial residence, so the castle was to be entirely rebuilt. The works, which would cost 5 million francs, of which 4 million were to come from the civil list, were stopped in 1885, six years after the death of Viollet-le-Duc. The departure of Napoléon III had halted the reconstruction and, through lack of money, the decoration of rooms was unfinished. Inside, Viollet-le-Duc produced more a work of invention than restoration (polychrome paintings). He imagined how the castle ought to have been, rather than basing his work on the strict history of the building. On the other hand, with the exterior he showed an excellent knowledge of the military architecture of the 14th century.

Castle today

Château de Pierrefonds has been designated as a '' monument historique'' since 1862. It is now managed by the Centre des monuments nationaux.

Media

The castle has often been used as a location for filming including '' Les Visiteurs'', '' Le Capitan'', '' Highlander: The Series'', '' The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc'' and the 1998 version of '' The Man in the Iron Mask''. The castle was used as the setting for Camelot in the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

series '' Merlin''; a cut scene of this castle was used to portray Wiz Tech Academy in Disney's TV series, '' Wizards of Waverly Place''. In 2017, the castle was used for filming during the Canal+ and Netflix series ''

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...

''.

Gallery

References

External links