Location: Ille-et-Vilaine department Map
Constructed: 11th century by Robert I of Vitré
Château de Vitré is located in Ille-et-Vilaine department of France. Château de Vitré was constructed in the late 11th century by baron Robert I of Vitré on a site that was formerly occupied by a wooden fortress erected here around year 1000 AD. After the wooden citadel was burned monk found a settlement here. Baron eventually used this strategic location of the Vilaine valley. After the castle lost its military importance the castle was turned into a prison. In the 19th century it was proclaimed as a historic monument.
The Château de Vitré occupies the end of a schist spur overlooking the valley of the Vilaine to the north and a marshy stream to the south, which disappeared in the 18th century to make way for the royal road going from Paris to Rennes. “The general party remains that of domination of the field with strengthening of angles. To the south-east, above the then marshy area, near the urban gate of En-Bas, the Saint-Laurent tower is a real dungeon. The renovation of the castle around 1420 had another goal: the affirmation of seigneurial power, shaken by the arrival of the English in Maine ”because the castle then was the refuge of the counts of Laval, in particular when the English took Laval in 1427.
Around the year 1000, a first wooden castle (vetus
castrum mentioned between 1066 and 1076) was built on a castle motte
by Baron Riwallon de Vitré on the current site of the Sainte-Croix
church. This castle, whose shape is unknown, was burnt down on
numerous occasions. It was abandoned in favor of a new stone castle
built by Baron Robert I of Vitré at the end of the eleventh century
on a new defensive site, a vast rocky promontory of schist which
dominates the Vilaine for about thirty meters. A Romanesque-style
porch still remains of this building. It is to Baron André III that
we traditionally attribute the reconstruction of the castle in its
current, triangular form, and the fortification of the city in the
first half of the 13th century. The architectural appearance of the
castle shows the influence of the model of Philippian architecture.
The castle is dominated by a large circular keep, which follows the
top of the rocky outcrop, surrounded by dry ditches. On the death of
André III, the estate fell by marriage to the family of the Counts
of Laval. The direct successors of this family lead us to the
beginning of the fifteenth century, through a great historical gap
of 150 years. In the 15th century, Guy XII de Laval enlarged the
castle which was heavily modified. It was at this time that the last
defensive works were carried out by the two ladies of Laval, the
baroness of Vitré Anne and Isabelle de Bretagne: châtelet with
double drawbridge with arrow, tower of the Madeleine, tower of
Saint-Laurent (later breakthrough of gunboats). The major
transformation, however, is to transform the castle from a defensive
edifice to a comfortable residence.
During the Mad War, Guy
XV of Laval opened, according to Bertrand d'Argentré, without a
fight, on September 1, 1487, the doors of his castle of Vitré and
the city, to the royal troops. D'Argentré affirms that he had left
for instructions: To enter from night the François in his castle of
Vitré by a poster, and by this means the fist masters of the city.
This decision is taken against the will of the inhabitants and
presented as a fait accompli.
From the end of the fifteenth
century and into the sixteenth century, comfort arrangements
prevailed: construction of circulation galleries and a
Renaissance-style oratory (in 1530). The Parliament of Brittany took
refuge there three times (1564, 1582 and 1583) during the plague
epidemics which raged in Rennes.
With the families of Rieux
and Coligny, owners of the castle between 1547 and 1605, Vitré
shelters the Protestant cult and becomes for a few years a Huguenot
bastion. In 1589, the fortress resisted a siege of 5 months by the
Duke of Mercœur.
In 1605, after the death of Guy XX de Laval,
the castle became the property of the La Trémoille family,
originally from Poitou. The castle was abandoned in the 17th century
and was slowly deteriorating. It suffered in particular the partial
collapse of the Saint-Laurent tower. One of the major elements of
the French Revolution in Vitré was the accidental fire which
destroyed the stately home in 1795.
At the beginning of the
nineteenth century, a departmental prison was built in place of the
seigneurial house and occupied the entire northern part, including
the Madeleine tower. The prison became a garrison with the arrival
of the 70th Infantry Regiment from 1867 to 1877.
The castle
was bought by the state in the 19th century. In 1872, it was one of
the first castles classified as a historical monument in France and
restored from 1875 under the direction of the architect Denis Darcy.
Passed into the public domain, a small museum was set up there in
1876, under the leadership of Arthur de La Borderie. Paradoxically,
the latter had the collegiate church of the Madeleine destroyed,
located on the forecourt of the Château, while he was the town's
curator. A boys' school is built instead.
Nowadays, the town
hall of Vitré is installed inside the enclosure of the castle, in a
building rebuilt in 1912 according to the plans of the medieval
house.
The entrance facade to the east is
preceded by a vast esplanade called “Place du Château”. This
esplanade nowadays replaces the medieval farmyard transformed in the
17th century into a stable yard.
The entry gatehouse, which
dates from the 15th century, is made up of two pepper-pot towers
(north tower in rubble stone and south-facing tower) topped by a
gallery of Breton machicolations in sandstone and a double-storey
fortified walkway (covered walkway above). above which rises a
recessed upper story, topped with pointed roofs from which emerge
large stumps of chimneys). The symbolic meaning of this defensive
work is stronger than its military necessity, the lord having
probably wanted to demonstrate his desire for ostentation and
dissuasion. A plank walkway takes the place of a drawbridge and
leads to a double door, each one served by its drawbridge as
evidenced by the grooves of the cart door lined on its left by a
narrow pedestrian door also in a pointed arch. This massif is
completed to the south by a square turret used as a latrine.
The Saint-Laurent tower was the governor's home. The four floors of
this imposing tower are such that it acts as a dungeon. Built in the
15th century on the site of a 13th century tower), it collapsed in
1835 and was rebuilt around 1870. It currently houses a museum which
presents a collection of paintings retracing the history of Vitré.
The Oratory tower, also called the Chapel tower, takes its name
from the Renaissance apse that adorns its facade. This tufa aedicule
is the work of Guy XVI and is one of the first manifestations of
Renaissance art in Brittany. The coat of arms of the Count of Laval
surrounded by the collar of the Order of Saint-Michel appears
intertwined with those of his wives, Charlotte d'Aragon, Anne de
Montmorency and Antoinette de Daillon. This tower was the subject of
protection as historical monuments in 1898, then in 1901. Since the
2010s, this tower has been restored. That of the apse was completed
in 2012.
The stately buildings are distributed around the
inner courtyard, which have become those of the Town Hall.
The oldest element of the castle is the facade of the old 12th
century Romanesque chapel, in polychrome apparatus (unusual use of
slate for the keystones and columns). Two blind arches frame the
portal formed by three arches falling on small columns with simple
transoms and a tympanum whose lintel is formed by keystones.