Château de Petit-Bourg
France · Europe
About
The Château de Petit-Bourg is located in Évry-sur-Seine (Essonne).
The first château known on the site of Petit-Bourg, on the Seine, overlooking the Forêt de Sénart, began in the 17th century for André Courtin, Canon of Notre-Dame de Paris and was completed about 1635 for Jean Galland. Around 1650, Monseigneur Louis Barber de La Rivière, Bishop of Langres, had gardens designed by François Mansart. Jules Hardouin-Mansart worked there around 1662.
Near 1695, Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan acquired the Château de Petit-Bourg. There she realized important alteration work and charged André Le Nôtre with designing the gardens à la françaises, and staged in terraces. She took refuge there after her disgrace.
With her death in 1707, her son Louis Antoine de Pardaillan de Gondrin, duke of Antin, inherited the château and remade the gardens. Between 1716 and 1722, he undertook to entirely rebuild with the architect Pierre Cailleteau dit Lassurance. The new Château de Petit-Bourg was a truly princely residence, the masterpiece of Lassurance. The best decorators of the time had worked there. One particularly noticed the cabinet in the gallery of the appartement du roi (angle du pavillon du midi, à l'étage) and the grand salon, decorated by Louis-Claude Vassé with royal portraits and ducal emblems.
Before the reconstruction of the château, the duke of Antin received Louis XIV and, in 1717, the Tsar Peter the Great in Petit-Bourg. After the reconstruction, Louis XV and the queen Maria Leszczyńska stayed there frequently. Madame de Pompadour saw it while living in Étiolles - before being raised by the royal favour, and dreamed of this splendid residence.
Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.