From Chevreuse to Dourdan: the treasures of medieval Hurepoix | Heritage Treasures

Southwest of Paris spanning the departments of Yvelines and Essonne It is a country whose very name evokes the Middle Ages It is the mysterious land of Hurepois It is home to the natural park of the High Valley of Chevreuse and it forms a group of woods carved by several rivers His territory alternates between forested mountains agricultural plateaus steep slopes and vast meadows These landscapes offer a remarkable array of historical sites marked since the Middle Ages by the presence of influential lords Over the centuries these great families sometimes allied and sometimes hostile to the crown They share the land leaving them with an exceptional cultural heritage Castles manors and parks are all testaments to this rich and turbulent past Among them are the impressive remnants of the Madeleine the medieval fortress of Dourdan The elegant château of Breteuil and the picturesque domain of Saint-Jean-de-Beauregard Le Hurepois is an area that roughly corresponds to a plateau characterized by a limestone base There aren't many opportunities for strong cultivation on it so these areas that have remained forested for a long time These forested areas are of major importance whether for construction or for defense The supply of coal for metallurgical industries or wood for all glassmaking After that she does not appear as she is within the boundaries for example of bishoprics or dioceses We are in an area that is more of a geographical entity than a true political one The borders of the Hurepois territory have become clearer over the centuries Today they are bordered by the Seine to the north and east bordered by barley fields to the southeast and by the Rambouillet Forest to the west He is surrounded by the shelter the cattery and the mound Its capital is located in Dourdan where pottery dyeing and fulling develop The origin of the word remains unknown The term appears in the 13th century It may come from Herupe meaning bristling The name given to the people of ancient Nustria because of their opposition to Charlemagne Another etymological hypothesis suggests that Hurepois refers to Orobia the Latin word for barley and would therefore be the land of barley In our regions what will unite us what will create population centers It will somewhat attract the population which is initially rather scattered We are on loose occupation grids with small population centers In fact they are essentially religious centers the churches which will create land contexts that will lead people to live around them both because they are community hubs and places of worship place where the dead are buried and then with the cemetery And furthermore the church itself creates a unique characteristic around it that will promote the development of urban centers On these lands the arrival of the lords stems from the growth of settlements They settle near cities and villages on strategic sites often on high ground to control the routes of communication It is the case with the medieval castle of the Madeleine which proudly overlooks the Ivette Valley and the current town of Chevreuse The first traces of a village at this location date back to the 10th century The village gets its name from the Latin word cavrosa meaning goat Referring to the abundance of goats in the region and the tanning activities at which the city has made a specialty On the presence of a lord appearing in certain texts around the 11th century in the second half of the 11th century At that time there was likely a wooden defensive system all around with a system of ditches The petrification of the site took place in the second half of the 12th century between 1160 and 1180 A large trench was found that spans what corresponds to the current high court of the site In which there is ceramic furniture that corresponds well with the second half of the 12th century and thus it shows that the wall is being built by filling the ditch and we will have this first wall that will be built at that time In the 13th century the site's layout was divided into two parts The upper courtyard reserved for the lord corresponds to the currently open section available for visits The lower courtyard sold in parcels during the Revolution is now private The castle takes its name from the private chapel dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene located in the lower courtyard now disappeared The Hundred Years' War will accelerate the fortification of the site The new lord Peter de Chevreuse is entrusted by the king not only To reinforce the castle's fortifications but also to fortify the city Then a wall was built starting from the castle to encircle the entire city The gate behind me is not the same gate that was there at the time The most sophisticated châtelet dates from the late 14th to the early 15th century under the impetus of Pierre de Chevreuse during the large-scale militarization of the castle At that time there was probably a platform which is a lifting system so nothing remains today And what is quite interesting about the Madeleine Castle It was a castle that was half protected by a moat so that came here with a drawbridge that spanned this moat of water and was walking around the castle along about half of its circumference The most important works carried out at that time consisted of reinforcing the north facade of the upper courtyard and reworking the two towers The castle will become a true urban citadel ready to house a royal garrison The northern part of the castle truly represents the transformation of the site from the second half of the 14th century From a feudal residence to a true urban citadel The two towers the Guard Tower and Charles V Tower Sister tours in a way built probably on ancient fortifications that used the same foundation Then the Guard Tower four levels with several fireplaces inside a tower staircase that allowed access to these different levels and then a somewhat later addition with this small square building in which there were heated toilets directly heated by the fireplaces They are located inside the Guard Tower which allows for a bit of extrapolation regarding a certain residential function Despite all of this the Guard Tower The two towers are connected by the walkway the curtain wall which was probably equipped with beams so these wooden elements which are obviously no longer there today but which probably allowed for a roof Some advances above the moat and which had a defensive role This defensive role of this part of the castle completed by the machicolations visible here so these openings that allowed launching a certain number of objects at the attackers Machicoulis is from old French meaning "chewed column" in Latin So "maché" means to crush to attack the neck so the neck It is noted that the staircase leading to this walkway does not start at all at ground level This allows us to also extrapolate on the presence of wooden elements o join this staircase which could be either pulled up or lowered and which obviously allowed for another defensive functio Preventing the attackers from easily climbing onto the rampart On the contrary the Charles V Tower here was much more in a residential function You can clearly see here with the side openings the windows all the holes in the walls that accommodated ceilings or roofs and which in this case with the addition of fireplaces truly attes From the residential function of this Charles V tower The archaeological research confirms that the interior of the keep is particularly luxurious and entirely painted in colors As is often the case in the Middle Ages At that time the keep was taller and longer than today He has an additional floor and two bays that were demolished in the 17th century to secure the building constructed on a sloped site In the early fifteenth century the civil war between the houses of Burgundy and Armagnac would upend the castle's fate The lord of Chevreuse a long-time supporter of the King of France In 1417 he changed sides to join the English-Burgundian faction The castle is therefore occupied by an English garrison The village however remains in the hands of the French army For 20 years between the castle and the village it was a no-man's-land where people kept shooting at each other So we need to understand that we are in a war zone we are really in an area where we know for example The village population will decrease very sharply at that time Once the English had been driven out of the castle by the French army it must be understood that the site is heavily ruined We will find a number of dumps in which there are many archaeological furnishings They are called arrowheads which are the metal tips placed on the ends of crossbow bolts That helped us get a good grasp of the sequence of these events The garrison eventually surrendered to the army of King Charles VII in 1438 The parish now counts only about thirty souls With the help of the king Nicolas de Chevreuse restored the fortress This is the final phase of the fortress's works The entrance gatehouse is being rebuilt the walls are being restored and the two rectangular towers located to the south are being erected on the side of the valley and the village As a reward the lordship is elevated to a barony around 1460 This entire section is the most recent part of the Madeleine Castle which dates from the second half of the 15th century At that time the walls that enclosed the commune of Chevreuse started from that tower The tower located in the southeast of the castle made a circuit and returned to end just at the level of the gatehouse which is to my left And here on this southern section of the wall are the second types of machicolations found within the castle amely the machicolations on the arch that you can see right there It's already a bit the end of the story of this site since at the end of the 15th century the castle is going to be sold And it is clear from the texts that a castle is seen which is still considered ruined despite its renovations Later it will house garrisons as is known among others during the religious wars Where it is known that there is a garrison stationed mainly in the towers to the south of the castle and one of these towers is going to be set on fire Therefore there must have also been battles related to the religious wars in Chevreuse But these are really the last military traces one could say of the site's occupation The Madeleine fortress then underwent several restoration campaigns Around 1660 the famous playwright Jean Racine Then in a supervisor training program at Port-Royal-des -Champs he supervises the restoration work on the keep From his time in the area the Racine path remains a rural walk connecting the Port-Royal Abbey to the town center of Chevreuse In 1981 the departmental council acquired the fortress which was in ruins From 1986 until the early 2000s important emergency and restoration work was carried out They are carried out to save this jewel of feudal architecture They then chose to restore its integrity and historical coherence Restoring the state of the 15th century About twenty kilometers to the south another settlement developed during the Middle Ages Dourdan Famous for its pottery workshops sold throughout the Paris region it becomes the capital of Hurepois Today it houses one of the few fortresses in Île-de-France that has preserved the essential parts of its defensive structures The first mention of this castle dates back to 1222 where an April 1222 charter mentions the new castle Right next to the church that has existed since the 12th century therefore the Church of Saint-Germain-Loxeroy We are not exactly sure why these two monuments were placed so close together but in any case they are both at the highest point in the city Therefore visible from any location you arrive from At that time the Kingdom of France is still very fragmented King Philip Augustus launches an important military construction program o consolidate his power over the newly conquered territories particularly to protect himself from the English There are 51 castles in his record Dordogne is the last fortress he is going to build This is also called the Philippian system It is the most refined plan of this system It has the castle built in the Dordogne for several reasons Already we are at the border of the Kingdom of France so we protect the border of course We are at a strategic point between Paris and Chartres where in fact Chartres towards Paris is the wheat route Therefore this route must be protected And above all it was the pottery trade a trade during the 13th and 14th centuries Therefore the city also experienced economic growth at that time The Dordogne Castle is one of Philip August's castles The best preserved at least in Île-de-France You can still appreciate the layout and the defensive systems that are still present So a plan of simple geometric shape a square with corner towers in the corners and towers flanking the middle of the curtains All these towers are equipped with loopholes facing different directions to avoid of course blind spots At the entrance gate with the two towers very close to each other which will provide extra protection for the castle entrance The castle is surrounded by a moat And thus there is the base of the castle called a scarp There is the ditch And the wall on the street side today called the counter-scarp And from the top of this counter-scarp there was a slope of earth called a glacis So he was there to protect the castle Arrowslits or archer holes generally refer to any type of shooting opening The term comes from the word "archer " meaning one who shoots with a bow They already existed before Philip Augustus But these called simple or Philippi arrows are characterized by a straight design The keep has retained all its elements from the 13th century And so it was symbolic It represented royal power through its height He was located away from the rest of the castle Therefore the king did not live inside But he had to be able to take refuge in case of an attack It could serve as a refuge tower So inside you will find everything needed to survive You will notably have an oven with a chimney A chimney flue that heats the entire dungeon It goes all the way up We will have a well And we will have space to store a cellar What to store food drinks etc There is about 8 meters of ceiling height with a magnificent ogive vault which end in what are called dead ends The keep represents the center of power of the domain Here it has the particularity of having its own moat in addition to the one that protects the castle There is no water in the ditches The bed of the stream flowing nearby is too low to supply it To reconstruct all this architecture we of course use the archaeology of the built environment We also have a very important document He is the only representative of the castle before its destruction This is the steward of the Duke of Aubéry It is a prayer book made around 1410 This prayer book contains a calendar Each month of the year is represented One of the duc d'Aubéry's castles You're lucky because he owned the château d'Ordan We were drawn in April This is really a very important document This is really the only one we have from the castle He notably worked on the height and we know in proportion that the Dordan castle has lost two-thirds of its height You have to imagine what it was like when you arrived at this castle that the courtyard was rather dark It is a castle that is not very large in size but it was very high It was during the religious wars that the castle lost two-thirds of its height The fortress then belonged to the Duke of Guise ead of the Catholic League fighting against the Protestant party But in 1591 She is besieged by the troops of Henry IV He orders an attack on the castle He positions himself in front of and on the side of the castle And they will fire the cannons The castle will not withstand the attack since firearms did not exist in the 13th century Certainly the castle will be hit directly by these shots The roofs will disappear A large part of the curtain walls will collapse The garrison of Captain Jacques d'Argiens is retreating to the keep And probably because of a betrayal They will be taken to the dungeon The 1591 siege deeply shakes the castle's walls which are thick 2 meters The last gap still visible until 2010 was filled during a restoration campaign The troops of Henry IV They also tried to bring down a corner tower without success But a long crack still testifies to this act of sabotage Deprived of its defensive features the Château de Dourdan therefore loses its military function The crown remains the owner of the place until 1672 Philippe d'Orléans then turns it into a prison Later in 1743 The castle is assigned new functions A royal edict from King Louis XV authorizes the creation of granaries to facilitate the collection of salt The king's monopoly subject to the salt tax A salt granary is then established the old fortress castle of Dourdan It serves both as a warehouse and a court responsible for judging offenses related to the Gabelle For the construction of this building an old house facing Chartres Street was demolished which corresponded to the old fortifications of the Duke of Guise and then the materials were reused to build these two salt stores Salt was a vital commodity It was used for salting food preservation and animal feed The territorial district included 55 parishes That is to say it was the territory spanning between Chartres Montfort-la-Maurie Etampes and Dourdan In the so-called large gabelle regions such as Dourdan it is mandatory to purchase annually from a fixed location The tax thus collected is a considerable revenue for the crown The Gabelle is abolished just after the Revolution The castle is then converted into a departmental prison He houses several hundred common criminals men and women In 1819 the dukes of Orléans regained the castle which became a municipal prison The prisoners are placed in the dungeon and guard rooms of the medieval castle You still find moving testimonies of their passage today In 1848 the castle which now belongs to the state is sold It was bought four years later by a local notable from Dourdan Amédée Guenet who restored it and in fact a stylish bourgeois house Then Joseph Guyot becomes its owner The castle is the vacation home of the Guyot family who live in Paris He continues the renovations both inside and outside particularly in the neo-Gothic style Joseph Guyot is the portrait of a 19th-century humanist scholar He comes from a family of magistrates a very cultured family His father was also a poet And a whole series of adjectives could describe Joseph Guyot's personality o account for the diversity of his interests For example one could call him an archaeologist a collector a historian but he was also a heritage mediator if one can use a current term He opened the castle for visits on weekdays except Sunday and the castle serves as a base for all its research This history enthusiast published a local monograph in 1868 titled Chronicles of an Ancient Royal City D'Ourdan capital of Hureupois At the castle he is working to give a pseudo-medieval appearance to the facades which will be erased later If it maintains the romantic aspect of the park it installs all the modern comforts in the interior spaces particularly central heating The museum still preserves the very beautiful cast iron radiators At the birth of his daughter in 1894 Joseph Guyot starts a photographic album dedicated to his daughter and this album contains a number of photographs postcards poems early drawings notes and these photographs show the life of the Guyot family in the castle Elizabeth and her husband the Viscount Léopold Gaillard de Lavalden are unable to maintain the castle They decided to sell it in Vézelay in 1961 The private house gradually transformed into a museum It currently houses the heritage collections of the former Hôtel Dieu particularly the Regency furniture from the Louis XV and Louis XVI periods and paintings and prints Joseph Guyot's room has remained as it was About twenty kilometers to the north is the château de Breuteuil built on a promontory overlooking the entire valley Famous for its collection of automaton dolls illustrating Perrault's tales It is among the most beautiful memories of several generations of children The earliest lords of Breuteuil are mentioned during the Middle Ages But the site here of the Château de Breuteuil has been inhabited and built for much longer than that since it is believed that during the Gallo-Roman period there were two Gallo-Roman farms here called villas These two villas gave their name to the land of Bévilier From the medieval fortress of Bévilier destroyed in 1596 only the dovecote and the moat remain today The first phase of construction of the castle in its current form begins in 1610 The senior residence is then completely enclosed by walls surrounded by moats and consists of five pavilions arranged around the courtyard of honor In 1712 the Breuteuil family inherited the castle Well you know the Château de Breuteuil has been in my family for 400 years It is one of the few castles in France and even I believe in the world that has always belonged to the same family for so long Four hundred years is a long time but it is an important period for a castle because a lot of things happen during these first 400 years Over four centuries the estate has been profoundly transformed It was first Claude Stanislas the fourth Marquis of Breuteuil It undertakes a first phase of work paying particular attention to the gardens surrounding it Claude Stanislas de Breuteuil significantly improved the comfort and beautification of the castle during the reign of Louis XV He created new salons and new rooms The walls on the courtyard were torn down o allow for open views of the gardens Then the final phase of expansion Well it was at the end of the 19th century that Henri de Breuteuil added wings extending back toward the courtyard of honor e wings that can still be seen today In the 19th century gardens also underwent significant changes It was at the end of the century that the Duchesnes Henri and Achille Duchesnes The two great landscape architects of the time redesigned and created the French gardens as we know them today Previously in the 18th and early 19th centuries there was an English-style park all around the castle The Breuteuil family counts many notable figures Among these remarkable individuals there is a woman with a singular destiny Gabrielle-Emilie born de Breuteuil Marquise of Châtelet Then there were women and there have been many of course in the castle It's a chance The most famous woman She is truly someone recognized around the world her name was Emilie de Breuteuil the Marquise du Châtelet She was a great lady of science She was the first woman to interpret Newton's works She wrote about the nature of fire She wrote a lot a lot of things Not everything could be said here but she was a remarkable woman who worked very hard especially physics and mathematics And as Voltaire said if she had been a man she would have been completely transformed as the most intelligent woman Great friend and muse of Voltaire who would be his lover for 15 years Gabrielle-Emilie is considered as the first woman of science in our history His work in mathematics and physics continues to attract the attention of researchers around the world Her research contributed to the writing of the Diderot and d'Alembert Encyclopedia A very fine example is kept at the castle His scholarship earned him the nickname "Light of Breuteuil " the light that went out in 1749 The castle experienced two periods of partial abandonment first during the French Revolution The owner of the castle at the time Charles de Breuteuil was a young boy who was only 8 years old Because he was a minor He was able to benefit from a revolutionary law that placed the property of minor children under sequestration The revolutionaries indeed believed tha That the children were in no way responsible for the political situation of the country and therefore did not have to suffer the consequences of the Revolution So the castle was placed under sequestration entirely closed and Charles de Breuteuil was able to recover it in good condition In any case not looted or burned but mostly So that was the first phase of the castle's dormancy At the very end of the 18th century In the 19th century Marquis Henri de Breuteuil took control of the estate Influential politician It deeply marks the beginning of the 20th century It notably participates in the realization of the Entente Cordiale in 1904 It will be the fate of France that will be the fate of England during the two world wars In the 20th century the castle began its hour of glory That is between 1900 and the First World War all of European high society paraded here in Breuteuil There were great hunts and balls and several kings and queens from Europe came here After World War I and the death of Henri de Breuteuil the castle fell into a bit of a decline He really fell asleep after World War II where it was more or less abandoned depending on the years But it was at that time that the castle began to suffer from partial abandonment Then in 1967 the current owner my cousin Henri-François de Breuteuil got married and returned with his wife Séverine de Caz to the family castle They embarked together on a major restoration campaign and public opening I used to come here when I was very young I was a student because I was very attached to this castle I remember that I often came on a small scooter from Paris and that I lived in a small room in the castle which had no heating But I was coming to study my exams sometimes with some friends in a really run-down castle But I wanted to show that he would be saved one day And of course the good fairy who contributed wonderfully At the rescue it was my wife Séverine who loved this castle very much It was a lucky time when we got married in 1967 And there we attacked if I may say so right away The restoration of the castle the furniture the paintings the gardens all the things that needed to be done And that's exactly 51 years that we've been working in the castle but it's never finished I often told myself if I open the gates to everyone we can save the castle If I close the gates to everyone it will be the death of the castle For me the public opening was certainly the rescue of the castle the eventual rebirth of the castle Revive this castle Over the past 50 years the number of visitors has continued to grow Today the Château de Breteuil is the most visited château in Île-de-France after Versailles The work continues steadily and constantly Among the planned works is the restoration of the left wing of the servants' quarters and the creation of a second guest house and a reception hall Open the castle to the public all year round It obviously requires increasing the supply to be able to satisfy visitors throughout the year There are events like this on several Sundays throughout the year There may be historical reenactments Whether it's 1900 or military reenactments Every year in the fall Several military historical reenactment groups are coming There are Napoleon's grenadiers American GIs you are a crusader knight Everyone is marching camping and bivouacking in the gardens There are also artistic spirit shows treasure hunts plays and concerts So things like that as entertainment scattered over several weekends throughout the year Hello Fly Definitely it's at the end of the send that I touch It's here I' m opening the line I'm opening my mouth The artistic scenes are ultimately the scenes of cape and sword It is what you see in movies novels and plays of the same name We are looking for scenes as they were used in the past for example in the 18th century and from these scenes we will create a choreography by creating a duel that is to say by creating a sequence There may be an injury maybe a death or a disarmament depending on the scenario we put in place But it's really a sequence that each partner will experience in order to obviously have no accident Since we are working without protection with real weapons Therefore everything must be extremely secure The qualities of a fencer are adaptability in relation to their partner that's very important having a deep technical knowledge and then there must be a fundamental understanding between the two personnel a total trust and of course physical qualities Coordination and memory that's very important It is known that all the kings of France learned fencing at the placement of a master of arms Whether it was obviously the monarchs but also the entire royal family not the women it was forbidden for women But all the king's children learned fencing from a master of arms Fencing is a French discipline that is part of etiquette exactly like dancing horseback riding or music With the marquis it's a true friendship that has lasted many years We used to perform swordplay here the castle park and immediately 800-900 people come and that is extraordinary A bit further east in the department of Lessonne near the Ulysses the Saint -Jean-de-Beauregard estate It spans 500 hectares of woods and plains This agricultural property is still in operation He lives in a magnificent 17th-century manor From the 12th century a fortress already existed at this location It was the property of a certain Eudes de Montfaucon There is no trace left today The fortified castle is succeeded by a senorial hotel which is integrated into the current buildings And then at the beginning of the 17th century At the moment François Dupout was considering the construction of a pleasure castle a castle in the fashion of the time The name Montfaucon has become unpleasant Not because of itself but because it is the name of the gallows of Paris He wasn't here of course The gallows of Paris were in the current Parc de la Villette But this homonymy has become extremely unpleasant for someone who wants to build a pleasant castle So the permission was requested from the king to change the name and the name became Beauregard Beauregard simply means beautiful view Very quickly Beauregard became Saint-Jean-de- Beauregard thanks to the chapel located in the park It is a chapel dating from the 14th century And this chapel was dedicated and is still dedicated to Saint John the Baptist so Saint-Jean-de-Beauregard The current buildings were constructed between 1610 and 1637 Remarkably well-preserved the exterior of the castle remains intact e charm and elegance of its 17th-century classic environment The interior decorations Dressed in 18th-century fashion by one of the owners Madame Charon They still testify to a refined and delicate way of life Saint-Jean is a medium-sized castle but I sometimes say it's a small great castle It's a small great castle terms of its average size It collects and gathers all the symbolic elements of a great castle There is an inner chapel and a chapel in the park There is the vegetable garden the dovecote The orangery the icehouse and vast stables designed for 20 to 30 horses So really all the symbolic elements are there and besides fortunately the castle is entirely classified as a historical monument From the cellar to the attic interior and exterior Historically the size of the dovecote indicates the importance of the lordship Interestingly today The pigeon loft of Saint-Jean -de-Beauregard is the largest in Ile-de-France This is certainly due to the destructio Most doves' nests were destroyed during the Revolution either as a symbol or because they were no longer useful But once they were indispensable You must understand a pigeon loft as a poultry house It's just that they raised pigeons there instead of raising chickens But the huge advantage of the pigeon over the chicken is that it can feed itself in the fields and in the woods And this building is actually spectacular on the outside of course it's a tall tower but inside because it has kept all its compartments and its rotating ladder system that allowed two men to climb all the way up since the eggs had to be collected from the young pigeons and of course clean the cages and as nothing wasted the cleaning of the cages It produced a very valuable fertilizer for the vegetable garden which was publicly known as La Colombine Today the emblem of Saint-Jean-de-Beauregard is its vegetable garden Completely enclosed by walls He is one of the few that have survived until today practically intact Ranked as a remarkable garden in 2005 it harmoniously combines flowers fruit trees and rare vegetables The kitchen garden of Saint-Jean-de-Beauregard is a miniature copy of the kitchen garden of Versailles Perhaps the modernization of the garde and the difference compared to the 17th or 18th century is that this garden is a profusion of flowers Today we are trying to combine the production and the aesthetics of the garden and the part related to aesthetics is connected to flowers One of the backbone elements of the garden these are the pear tree supports And the pear is truly the fruit of the 18th century Many improvements have been made to pears Many old varieties are still cultivated today It's a bit our pride The passion for plants has been passed down from mother to son In 40 years Mrs Necurel has transformed the vegetable garden In particular by establishing flower collections She is also the originator of the Plant Festival Born in 1984 it is now one of the most important horticultural events in France Plant festivals take place twice a year in April and late September On this occasion 250 exhibitors Among the best in Europe but many come from France display rare plants hard to find But it's also a public event It is an event where many families come with their children to discover nature even if it is nature tamed by humans But it is truly a festival of essence Being able to bring together 20 000 people twice a year is a great joy for us It gives this property real meaning Additionally it helps finance part of the work The castle park hosts many other events Open to young people it receives classes and leisure centers and offers fun visits in the form of treasure hunts To amuse children and adults Despite the large amount of work only 2 gardeners share the maintenance of the park and vegetable garden Two gardeners for maintaining a 20-hectare park that's really the minimum For the vegetable garden in particular We have a gardener who arrived 35 years ago he was a young man And to take care of the garden all by oneself it's a garden of two hectares and that's quite an achievement I've been working in the field for 35 years so you can't just count the hours you have to have the passion for a garden like that and not get overwhelmed It is a four-branch vegetable garden therefore four large squares bordered with annual flowers for aesthetics and some slightly older vegetables But also fresh vegetables in the beds all around these flower crosses of the lawn There are fruit crops Vegetable crops and then flower crops Currently there are many collections a collection of eleboras a collection of colomates a collection of peonies a collection of irises also old fruit trees some old vegetables like lentils patience Many vegetables such asparagus tomatoes peppers eggplants potatoes artichokes and zucchini Otherwise there are raspberry bushes gooseberry bushes It is diversified because it allowed To sustain 40 people in self-sufficiency on the estate What I like the most right now it's May are the first strawberries with varieties like Garillette and Sérphine We are going to start the harvest soon some of them are beginning to turn red Varieties that will produce abundantly in order to make jams My greatest joy is being outdoors not in a city and then being able to take a walk whenever I want The day I don't work I take a little walk in the garden just to look at the flowers which isn't good What is nice which I don't have time for otherwise You have to be passionate that's all at work Thus concludes this overview of the castles of the Happy Weight Always standing despite the ravages of time and wars thanks to all the passionate people who have allowed these treasures to endure To reach us