Pontivy (Pondi in Breton) is a French commune with 14,606 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) in the Morbihan department in the Brittany region. It is a sub-prefecture of the arrondissement of the same name, capital of the canton of the same name and seat of the community association Pontivy Communauté.
Pontivy Castle
The Château de Pontivy (Morbihan), called the
Château des Rohan, was built in the 15th and 16th centuries by the
de Rohan family. The castle has been registered as a historical
monument since October 26, 1925, while the facades, roofs,
courtyards and ditches have been classified since December 30, 1953.
Property of Josselin de Rohan, the latter has some. donated for a
symbolic euro to the city of Pontivy in October 2015.
Construction
An old feudal castle belonging to the Porhoët family
is attested in the 12th century along the Blavet, below the current
castle4. This “Château des Salles” was besieged in November 1342 by
the English troops of Guillaume de Bohain, lieutenant of King Edward
III, during the War of Succession. Ruined probably by the assaults
he had to sustain, he was abandoned. After this War of Succession,
the Viscounts of Rohan decide to make Pontivy the capital of their
quasi-principality. In 1456, the site was given to the Cordeliers
who built their monastery there. Viscount Jean II de Rohan (Count de
Porhoët, son-in-law of Duke François I of Brittany, opposed to Duke
François II and governor of Brittany for Charles VIII), wanted to
build a new fortress there thanks to the corvée regime. Combining
the advantages of a solid fortress, those of a pleasant residence
for a cultivated and even refined great lord, he built the current
castle between the spring of 1479 and 1485 on a new castle site
which probably includes that of John I of Rohan, his
great-grandfather: he had a large basin dug on the sides of a hill
controlling the main access to the village, set back from Blavet,
and which overlooks the town to the east. It was certainly the
architect Jean Le Roux who opened the windows at the top of the main
facade and those with mullions on the north facade to accompany the
Renaissance6. Jean II de Rohan, by building his last military
edifice, thus made Pontivy a great fortified town.
In 1488,
the fortress was taken and occupied by the troops of the Duke of
Brittany François II, opponent of Jean II de Rohan. It returned to
the hands of the Rohans in 1490.
The Huguenot reputation of
the castle is so well affirmed that in 1572, it accommodates the
Protestant provincial synod, the chapel becoming one of the first
Protestant temples in France. On December 3, 1589, an army of the
League made up mainly of Spanish mercenaries, besieged the castle
which capitulated. The chapel finds its original destination.
From 1621, the southern angle was occupied by a terraced
construction, foreshadowing the many redevelopments to which the
fortress was subject.
Place of the "Breton declaration of
independence" of 1940
The castle is the site of the abortive
declaration of independence of Brittany when the Breton National
Committee was created by members of the Breton National Party in
July 1940.
The choice of Pontivy is not trivial, because it
is in this city that the last Congress of the Breton National Party
should have been held in 1939, which the police had banned. The
participants in this meeting are few (around 200 including 80
released prisoners). Many activists are still detained in the camps,
others like the painter Paul Durivaut were killed on the
battlefields. A few days earlier, Olier Mordrel and Fransez
Debeauvais, joined by Marcel Guieysse and Célestin Lainé, met to
form this CNB, of which Debeauvais was unanimously elected
president. The post of vice-president fell to Olier Mordrel, but
this post was abolished by the majority of the members, following a
request from Célestin Lainé who did not see its usefulness. This
internal intrigue will explain 4 months later changes in the
organization of the party and the ousting of Mordrel.
Debauvais, Guieysse and Lainé take turns speaking after Marcel
Planiol, the lawyer of the PNB, has recalled the titles of glory of
each. Mordrel proclaims the declaration of Pontivy, where it is
specified that "The Breton National Council, representative body of
the Bretons, concerned about the collective good and the honor of
their people, would act at the time chosen by him to endow Brittany
with a national state, in its natural setting and in the spirit of
its tradition, so that it can finally live as an organized nation,
free of its aspirations and master of its interests ”and that“ the
international status of the Breton State, the nature of its
relations with France and Germany would be defined by agreements,
freely discussed within the framework of the possibilities offered
by the new general conditions ”. The main objectives of the future
Constitution are set out in the “Pontivy Program”, which L'Heure
Bretonne is to reproduce in its first issue of July 14, 1940.
The castle serves as barracks for Lu Brezhon, embryo of the
Breton national army created by the Breton nationalist Célestin
Lainé in the wake of the creation of the Breton National Committee
in 1940.
Restorations
From 1955 to 1972, the castle was
restored under the direction of René Lisch, chief architect of
historical monuments. The inauguration of the restored castle,
dedicated to temporary exhibitions, took place on May 25, 1972 in
the presence of the Duke of Rohan, elected officials from the Breton
departments, and the Pontivy municipal council.
70,000
tourists visit the castle each year.
On Friday February 7,
2014, following heavy rainfall due to storm Petra, part of the south
curtain collapsed. The castle is closed during the restoration
operation launched in June 2016, scheduled for a minimum period of 3
years and a work of 3 million euros: the wall is rebuilt using a
reinforced concrete wall covered with a facing. in stones (reuse of
original stones still in good condition and rubble from a quarry
near Carhaix used in addition); twelve new information panels are
installed around. The new development of the castle is carried out
in six stages: video mapping operation on the facade; arrangements
of the interior courtyard with temporary events, of the public
reception area (with bookstore, dining, meeting and relaxation
areas, toilets, etc.); paying tour loop on the first floor with
permanent scenography and temporary exhibitions; rooms reserved for
guided tours and micro-events on the ground floor and in the
basement; workshops and project spaces, on the ground floor.
This work is accompanied by preventive archeology operations which
reveal in particular two old ovens in the courtyard (the large oven
could correspond to a bread oven while the small oven could have
been used as a pastry oven).
Architecture
The irregular
quadrangular plan (approximately 90 meters by 75 meters) of the
castle, flanked by four circular corner towers connected by a
curtain 20 meters high, remains traditional. The thickness of the
walls reached in places more than 5 meters wide, in order to resist
the progress of the artillery and the fire of the guns. The device
is of schist up to the Breton machicolations carved in granite. At
the first floor of the crenellated and covered walkway, dormers with
pointed pediments were added at the beginning of the 16th century.
Access to the inner courtyard is via a dormant bridge which replaced
the two drawbridges thrown over the moats never put in water. The
counterscarp was leveled at the beginning of the 20th century, the
earth thus recovered having served to fill the ditch.
Only
two main buildings remain, on the west and north sides. The
residential wing at the level of the western facade is flanked by
two large towers with machicolations, capped in pepperbox, out of
the four that probably comprised the enclosure. These towers,
instead of trying to protect themselves from the sidewalk by an
impressive height, prefer to bury themselves and widen solidly on
their bases (60 meters in circumference for the north tower and 48
for the west tower). The two rear towers (the original existence of
the fourth tower, to the south-east, is still the subject of
questions) which collapsed in the 18th century, were raised in
support to prevent further landslides. Several statues of saints
(Virgin with the Crescent, of Saint Maurice on horseback, of Saint
Catherine, of Saint Germain, of Saint Marguerite, of Saint Isidore,
of Saint Louis and of Saint John the Baptist), originating from the
Saint-Laurent chapel in Moustoir-Remungol, are exhibited in this
gallery.
In addition to this west gallery, the stately home
to the north was altered in the 18th century. It is decorated with
stepped pediments and a Louis XV style staircase with a double
flight and a wrought iron banister. A niche under this staircase of
honor houses the statue of Saint-Mériadec (which the Dukes of Rohan
claimed) which was made by Daniel Le Vaillant in the 3rd quarter of
the 20th century. To the east, the original main building was
transformed into an artillery terrace in the 18th century, then a
pleasure garden in the 18th century. We visit the guard room, the
rooms on the first floor overlooking the rampart walk, the ducal
chamber with its beautiful ceiling and the chapel. Note in
particular the two polychrome stone fireplaces with a coat of arms,
from the 16th century, from the castle of Coët-Candec in
Locmaria-Grand-Champ, which threatened to ruin in 1960.
Twins, referring to the stones for a long time called "twins",
abundant in the Salles de Rohan, are represented in decorative
motifs on the walls of the castle of Pontivy, including on the
granite downpipes, referring to the twins of the coat of arms of the
House of Rohan. At home level, these twins are inscribed in a
Saint-Michel necklace and a letter A surmounted by a count's crown,
symbol of the Rohan motto “A plus”, that is to say “without more”,
"Without superior".
Owners and occupants
The castle
belonged to the de Rohan family who stayed there irregularly until
the end of the 18th century. Subsequently, "the castle was
successively occupied by: the sub-prefecture and the courtroom of
the civil court of Pontivy (1800-1839); General Bernadotte,
commander-in-chief of the Western Army in charge of fighting the
Chouans, who established his headquarters there (May-June 1801); the
Sisters of Kermaria, who created a school and boarding school for
girls (1841-1884); a Breton museum founded by Jérôme Le Brigand (end
of the 19th century); the Saint-Ivy guard (the city's sports club),
the scouts of France, a few Pontivyan families housed in the west
gallery then divided into several rooms (1st half of the 20th
century with an interruption in 1939-1940); during the Second World
War: Polish troops then Breton autonomists (June-September 1940) ”.
In 1953, Mme de Rohan leased it to the city of Pontivy with a
99-year emphyteutic lease for a symbolic franc which assumed all the
expenses of the owner. The city of Pontivy was then responsible for
ensuring the maintenance, restoration and enhancement of the castle,
which had just been classified as a historic monument.
In
December 2014, in view of the particular context linked to the
collapse of the curtain wall and the amount of restorations that the
municipality was going to have to support, Duke Josselin de Rohan
agreed to sell his property to the city which became the owner on
October 16. 2015.