Chateau de Pierrefonds

Pierrefonds was built around 1400, slighted in 1617 and left a ruin for two centuries until Napoleon III commissioned Viollet-le-Duc to restore it from 1857. What he produced is not a restoration in the modern sense: he completed the walls, roofs, sculpture and interiors according to his theory of what a fourteenth-century castle ought to have been, adding decoration and detail with no medieval evidence behind it, which makes the building a document of nineteenth-century ideas about the middle ages as much as of the middle ages. The result is spectacular and has been used repeatedly as a film and television location.

History

A castle stood here in the 12th century, and after Charles VI made the County of Valois a duchy for his brother Louis I, Duke of Orléans, in 1392, Louis had it rebuilt from 1393 until his death in 1407 by the court architect Jean le Noir. In March 1617, early in the reign of Louis XIII, its owner François Annibal d'Estrées joined the party of the malcontents, and troops sent by Richelieu besieged and took the castle; its demolition was begun but proved too great a task, and the outer works, roofs and parts of the towers and walls were destroyed. Napoleon I bought the ruin in 1810 for less than 3,000 francs, it became a romantic ruin painted by Corot and listed as a monument historique in 1848, and in 1857 Napoleon III asked Viollet-le-Duc to restore it, a project that grew in 1861 into a complete rebuilding as an imperial residence, continued by Maurice Ouradou and Juste Lisch until 1885 and left with its decoration unfinished (Wikipedia, Château de Pierrefonds).

What to look for

• The rebuilt exterior - complete towers, roofs and battlements as reimagined.
• The Viollet-le-Duc interiors - painted halls invented on nineteenth-century theory.
• The double defensive circuit - walls and towers around the courtyard.
• The sculpture - carved detail added during the restoration.

When to go

April to October; the castle closes on Mondays in low season. Autumn suits the setting above the village and lake. Weekends bring visitors from Paris.

What to expect

Much of what is seen is nineteenth-century invention rather than medieval fabric, which disappoints some visitors and fascinates others. Access without a car is limited. Interiors are sparsely furnished.

Nearby

Compiegne lies west; the forest surrounds both.

Key facts