In 1374, the Vendôme family, who possessed the prestigious title of vidame de Chartres (officer in charge of exercising the military and judicial powers of the bishop), bought the estate and had a stone castle built. This same castle was then acquired in 1635 by Claude de Rouvroy, a favorite of Louis XIII. His son, Louis de Rouvroy, better known as the Duc de Saint-Simon, retired to this area to write some 12,000 pages of his Memoirs; chronicles of the last years of the reign and the court of King Louis XIV at Versailles who, between portraits and memories, dismantles the courtesan machine, and its springs of appearances and power. He also had the stable building built there, the current "small castle" now housing the Orée du Perche Tourist Office. At the end of his life, Saint-Simon no longer had any male descendants and his granddaughter, who inherited the estate, sold it in 1764 to Jean-Joseph de Laborde, banker to the court of Louis XV and farmer general (in charge tax collection). The Marquis de Laborde holds one of the largest fortunes in France, which comes in particular from the slave trade. He had the medieval castle destroyed and launched the construction of a new building: it is the castle whose ruins can be admired today. This was built in just three years. Consisting of three floors, it would have had 167 rooms and its facade is 150 meters long. Laborde is not limited to the reconstruction of the castle, he also redevelops the city park: a huge area of 860 hectares, surrounded by a wall of 13 kilometers which makes it the second largest park in the region after Chambord. It is also the last French-style garden created in France, with a perspective of 1.5 kilometers.
The park is free to access with a regularly mowed and well-maintained lawn. Do not hesitate to cross the threshold of the door and enter the park to see this remarkable monument.
After various negotiations, the estate returned in 1793 as an inheritance to the Duchess of Orléans. But the latter having emigrated to flee the Revolution, her property was confiscated. Already largely ransacked by looters, the castle was sold in 1798 to Mr. Cardot-Villers, a businessman who dismantled castles to resell them in spare parts. Cardot-Villers was even part of a gang called the "Black Band", speculators who bought up National property to resell it. Thus the building will be dismantled to resell the stones, the metal of the gutters, the woodwork, the slates or the rubble... drink … The castle will not recover and will then fall somewhat into oblivion, seeing several owners pass by. In 1923, the Citroën company bought part of the estate to set up a test center there, which still exists today under the banner of the Stellantis group. It was not until 1945 that La Ferté-Vidame was bought by the State before being sold in 1991 to the department of Eure-et-Loir, which is now trying to protect and enhance these imposing ruins testifying to the din Of the history. A melancholy and enigmatic monument that invites us to meditate on the vanity of power and on these words of Saint Simon in the foreword to his memoirs: "To write the history of one's country and of one's time, (…) is to show oneself step by step the nothingness of the world, of its fears, of its desires, of its hopes, of its disgraces, of his fortunes, his works; it is to convince oneself of nothing at all by the short and rapid duration of all these things, and of the lives of men; it is to recall a vivid memory that none of the happy people of the world will remember. has been, and that bliss or even tranquility cannot be found here below; it is to show that, if it were possible that this multitude of people of whom we make a necessary mention could have read in the future the success of their labors, their sweats, their cares, their intrigues, all, with a dozen or so at the most, would have stopped short at the start of their life, and would have abandoned their views and their dearest pretensions."
Translated by Google •
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