Construction of the
Château de Guermantes in Lagny-sur-Marne, Seine et Marne,
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, was undertaken by Claude Viole (died 1638), whose family had possessed the fief of "Le Chemin" since the mid sixteenth century. Paulin Pondre (1650-1723) purchased the property in 1698. He engaged Jules Hardouin-Mansart for renovations to the building, completed in 1710 (Ministère de la culture), and
André Le NôtreAndré Le Nôtre was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France...
to lay out the garden. Pondre was
receveur des finances at
LyonLyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
and had become one of the most powerful financiers of the reign of
Louis XIVLouis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
; he was appointed President of the
Cour des ComptesThe Court of Audit is a quasi-judicial body of the French government charged with conducting financial and legislative audits of most public institutions and some private institutions, including the central Government, national public corporations, social security agencies , and public services...
in 1713. Guermantes was the scene of memorable fêtes.
In 1719 the Scottish financier
John LawJohn Law was a Scottish economist who believed that money was only a means of exchange that did not constitute wealth in itself and that national wealth depended on trade...
purchased Guermantes for 800,000 livres; he only enjoyed possession for a matter of months before the bubble built on paper money burst and he was forced into exile. Paulin Pondre was able to take possession once more; his family were dispossessed at the
RevolutionThe French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
.
Guermantes is built of brick with stone facings and
quoinsQuoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...
, in an H-plan, with projecting pavilions flanking the
corps de logisCorps de logis is the architectural term which refers to the principal block of a large, usually classical, mansion or palace. It contains the principal rooms, state apartments and an entry. The grandest and finest rooms are often on the first floor above the ground level: this floor is the...
, under tall sloping slate roofs and tall chimney stacks. The house stands in a large park. The front is now approached in the English manner, with a drive sweeping to the side and an unbroken expanse of lawn. On the garden front, the house stands on a terrace with steps leading down to the former parterre, which is now lawn, and the expanse of water in the formally-shaped
pièce d'eau, from the far end of which the château is reflected in its entirety.
The original furnishings of Guermantes have been scattered, but rooms retain their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
boiseries. The family Pondre maintained the property until 1929, by which time
Marcel ProustValentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
had employed "Guermantes" for the family at the top of the French society he was describing. There has never been a duchesse de Guermantes; Proust's "château de Guermantes", unreachably beyond the limits of family walks from
CombrayCombray is a commune in the Calvados department in the Basse-Normandie region in northwestern France.Combray is also an imagined village in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu , a book which was strongly inspired by the village of his childhood, Illiers, which has now been renamed...
then purchased by the Verdurins, was based on the duc de Sully's Château de Villebon, Eure-et-Loir.
The real Guermantes provided locations for
Philippe de BrocaPhilippe de Broca was a French film director.Born Philippe Claude Alex de Broca de Ferrussac in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, the son of a photographer of noble origins. de Broca was a cinephile from an early age, and he studied at the l'École technique de photographie et de cinématographie...
for
Cartouche (1962), the Polish director
Andrzej WajdaAndrzej Wajda is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School"...
for
Danton,
Milos FormanJan Tomáš Forman , better known as Miloš Forman , is a Czech-American director, screenwriter, professor, and an emigrant from Czechoslovakia. Two of his films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, are among the most celebrated in the history of film, both gaining him the Academy Award for...
for
AmadeusAmadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...
(1984) and
Stephen FrearsStephen Arthur Frears is an English film director.-Early life:Frears was born in Leicester, England to Ruth M., a social worker, and Dr Russell E. Frears, a general practitioner and accountant. He did not find out that his mother was Jewish until he was in his late 20s...
for
Dangerous LiaisonsDangerous Liaisons is a 1988 drama film based upon Christopher Hampton's play, Les liaisons dangereuses, which in turn was a theatrical adaptation of the 18th-century French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos....
(1988). Guermantes is not open to the public. Two kilometers (1 mi) away is Euro Disneyland.