The house of La Rochefoucauld is one of the oldest families of the French nobility. In 1863, the Duke of La Rochefoucauld undertook the construction of a magnificent castle in the middle of the forest of Gaudinière. The castle was bought in the early 1920s by a wealthy Armenian merchant from New York, who wanted to organize a reception center for orphans from Armenia. Chance made that this castle was chosen, and transformed to accommodate a hundred children. After long and expensive development work, the center worked in good harmony with the surroundings, including the village of Ville aux Clercs. The estate created its own resources and even provided a profession for the accommodated teenagers. The castle experienced several fire alerts at the end of the 1920s.
On Saturday November 17, 1934, around 9:30 am, an employee of the estate saw smoke emanating from the roof on the northeast side. Firefighters from neighboring towns rushed to the scene. They could not contain the fire, but a lot of furniture, and objects were saved from the disaster. The investigation concluded that there was a short circuit in the attic. The residents were housed in the redeveloped outbuildings, but their situation could not last like this. The New York patron, after two years of study and reflection, preferred to shift his efforts to the Armenian communities in Greece, and more recently in 1991 in Syria and Lebanon.
The domain was then sold for a few thousand Francs between the years 1937 and 1938. It is a company, a subsidiary of the "Mines de Lens" in the north of France which bought the entire domain to reforest it, in order to s '' supply mine poles. The ruins were then demolished, dispersed, even looted.
Translated by Google •
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