About 18 kilometers from Paris, on the outskirts of the town of Champs-sur-Marne, lies one of the most beautiful estates in France. Château de Champs-sur-Marne is a Rococo castle that has been remarkably preserved over the years despite having passed through many hands. The chateau, whose construction began in 1699, was built in the style of the maison de plaisance. These small palaces were intended to serve as a refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city or from the strict protocols of the palace to allow their owners to retreat to the privacy, intimacy and anonymity that they so craved in the 18th century. Therefore, these buildings were built on 'human dimensions' without any pretension or desire to make an impression or indicate the title and status of their owners.
The history of Château Champ-sur-Marne
Sur-Marne was begun by financier Charles Renouard de la Touane, who entrusted the construction work to the royal architect Pierre Bullet, but Le Touane's bankruptcy shortly afterwards forced him to relinquish the property in favor of Paul Poisson de Bourvalais, who hired Jean-Baptiste Bullet de Chamblain, the son of the original architect who completed the construction in 1706, to complete the construction. However, the second owner of the chateau did not enjoy it for long either, as Bourvalais was accused of embezzlement just a decade after the construction was completed and thrown into the Bastille. The chateau was confiscated by the crown, which expressed no interest or need for it, and therefore sold it to the house of Louis XIV , the Princess de Conti, but she also lost interest in the place after only a year and in 1718 she gave the chateau to her cousin, the Duke de la Valliere, who bequeathed it to his son Louis Cesar in 1739. The new duke began to design and furnish the chateau in the Rococo style that was fashionable at the time, and for this purpose he invited the famous painter Christophe Huet, whose paintings adorn the walls of the Château de Chantilly and the Hôtel de Rohan.
Among his close friends were Voltaire, Diderot and Madame de Pompadour who stayed there. In 1750 the Duke built himself a new château in Montrouge and after failing to sell Sur Marne he rented it to Madame de Pompadour for 12,000 livres a year. Pompadour, who fell in love with the small château, invested a great deal of money in renovating and furnishing the place but, to her dismay, the king (who was his mistress), did not like the place and she was forced to leave it in 1759 after only two years. The ill-fated château stood in ruins again until four years later it was sold to the shipping magnate Gabriel Michel de Tharon. Perhaps because its new owner was not a nobleman, the château was spared demolition and looting during the French Revolution and his family held the place until it was sold. In 1855 to Ernest Santerre.
Despite all the owners and upheavals over nearly 200 years, the chateau only experienced a real revival in 1895 when it was purchased by the wealthy Jewish banker Louis Cahen, Comte Louis Cahen d'Anvers, who renovated the chateau from the ground up and installed decorative panels by Germain Boffrand of the Hotel de Mayenne in Paris . The Cahen family was one of the Spanish-Jewish families who emigrated to France from Constantinople in the 19th century and most of whom settled in the Parc Monceau area of Paris. Louis' daughter, Irène Cahen, married the banker Moise de Camondo and bore him two children - Nissim, who was killed fighting as a pilot in the French army in World War I, and the Nissim de Camondo Museum is named after him. (Musée Nisim de Camondo) in Paris and his sister Béatrice, who and her family were murdered in Auschwitz, thus erasing the de Camondo dynasty.
The Kahn family maintained a large staff of servants and gardeners and hosted many parties at the château, attended by Marcel Proust , Isadora Duncan, Alphonse XIII of Spain and Paul Bourget. Louis' three daughters were painted by Renoir, one painting shows Élisabeth and Alice with a pink and blue ribbon around their waists, and his daughter Irène appears in a separate portrait (now in the musée Bonnat, Bayonne). Louis Kahn hated the pictures so much that he delayed payment to Renoir, which led to him developing a deep resentment towards the family.
Sur Marne was inherited by his son Charles d'Anvers, who donated the chateau and its contents to the state in 1935. This may have saved the contents of the house during the German occupation of France during World War II, as the Nazis had ordered the confiscation of all Jewish property. The chateau was used for official state hospitality until 1959, when it underwent another major renovation to serve as a presidential residence - world leaders visited and stayed there until 1974, when it ceased to function as an official residence. It was only in 1979 that it opened as a museum to the general public, and about a year ago it reopened after being closed for 6 years for renovation, preservation, and restoration. Over 80 films have been filmed in Sur Marne, including Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette from 2006 and Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons. From 1989.
How to get to Chateau Champ-sur-Marne
Sur Marne can be reached by taking the RER line A from central Paris towards Chessy Marne-la-Vallée, get off at Noisiel station and take bus number 220 to Mairie de Champs. You can also walk about 20 minutes from the station to the chateau.