Castle of Courances

The castle of Courances is with Courances (the Essonne).

In 1552, Like Clause, notary and secretary of the King, acquires of the Lapite family a Logis seigneurial located at Courances, at the western end of the Forêt of Fontainebleau. With its death, in 1558, the ground is allotted to his/her son junior Pierre, secretary of the room of the Accounts, then with its Francois, grandson who yields it in 1622 to Claude Gallard, notary and secretary of the King. It is undoubtedly the latter which makes build a castle of plan out of H raised on a quadrangular platform surrounded by ditches, known by engravings of Israel Henriet and Israel Sylvestre (about 1650).

At the 18th century, the castle is put at the last style initially by Anne-Catherine Gallard, widow of Nicolas Potier of Novion, which opens the main courtyard while making demolish the wall and the gantry of entry, then by its Léontine-Filipino grand-daughter of Novion and her husband Aymar de Nicolay who modernize the castle (1775 - 1777) while making open new bays and while making add a vast pediment on each frontage.

In 1830, Nicolay give up the castle, which is repurchased in 1872 by the baron Samuel de Haber. It is for him that Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur undertakes the restoration of the castle in the Style Louis XIII. The campaign work carried out of 1873 to 1884 reveals brick by the removal of the rough coats, raises the roofs of the houses, adds on the roofs of the zinc ornaments. The staircase of interior pageantry is demolished and of the monumental degrees inspired of Fontainebleau are plated on each frontage. A new wing, with gable roof, is high on the site of the old kitchens to shelter the apartments of Master and connected by a gallery to the old wing. It also builds new commun runs, destroyed in 1976 by a fire.

The park was started at the 16th century with the Clause and was completed by Gallard in the middle of the 17th century. It is of this time that date the alley of honor between two channels and the great prospect in the axis for the castle, with its channels and its basins including one large channel of 248 measuring apparatuses, the tablecloths and a room of water. It is the marchioness of Novion which adds, at the 18th century, the splendid mirror of water. Into 1870, Destailleur transforms the park into landscaped garden. The marchioness of Ganay, grand-daughter of the baron de Haber, makes restore a drawing with the Frenchwoman with the assistance of the famous landscape designer Achille Duchêne. She creates in particular the basin of the horseshoe and the fountain of Aréthuse, surmounted by a nymph out of marble carved in 1711 by Claude Poirier for the park of Marly (statue acquired in 2005 by the Musée of Louvre). In 1930, it creates a garden anglo-Japanese.

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