CHURCH
SAINT NICOLAS
(17th century)
The town of La Ferté-Vidame takes its name from the Latin Firmitas Castrum which means the fortified villa belonging to the vidame'.
Its primitive church existed from the 12th century.
We find it mentioned in a charter dated 1136 under the name “Ecclesia Sancti Nicolai de Firmitate”.
Under the Ancien Régime, the rectory which was at the disposal of the abbot of Saint-Vincent-des-Bois became an annex of the parish of Lamblore. This particular situation of a chief town of a castellany belonging to a rural parish is explained by the detachment of the original parish from the territory around the castle.
Successor to the Huguenot heirs, Claude de Rouvroy de Saint-Simon, proclaimed by the grace of Louis XIII duke and peer of France, acquired the La Ferté estate in 1632. In order to erase all traces of Protestantism, of which the church had become over the centuries a very active platform, the Duke of Saint-Simon ordered in 1658 the demolition of the original church to replace it on the same site with the current building. The work was carried out promptly. On November 1, 1659, the Saint-Nicolas church was blessed by Messire Louis Oudard de Germens, canon priest of Chartres.
Classic in style with its homogeneous and ordered composition, the church was built according to a plan in the shape of a Latin cross. Its construction was inspired by the drawings of the famous Italian architect, Andrea di Pietro Palladio, whose sketches Duke Saint-Simon had brought back from Spain.
The architecture remains faithful to the marriage of stone and brick while giving this alternation a fanciful touch. Very majestic, the facade is built according to the Italian pattern (bossed pilasters, superposition of orders, pediment, volutes), a style also in vogue in France since 1630.
The arms of the Saint-Simon family were engraved on a stone at the pediment of the portal and on two others on either side of the portal. They were burned during the Revolution. Today, only the date engraved on the frieze remains: 1659.
16 59
Square in plan, the bell tower, which adjoins the church in the northern part, is topped with a dome surmounted by a lantern. Two bells are housed in the bell tower: one dates from 1762, the second from 1813.
The history of the church is closely intertwined with that of the lords of the parish, including the families
Saint-Simon, Laborde, Bourbon-Penthievre and Bourbon-Orléans remain the most famous.
Grandstands accessible from the outside and opening onto the side chapels recall their presence.
In 1743, at the request of Louis de Saint-Simon, a great memoirist, the family vault was built in the Chapel of the Resurrection. A slab on the ground marks the location of the grave.
Unfortunately, during the Revolution, the tombs were desecrated, the bones of the benefactors were extracted from the vault and scattered in a common grave dug at the apse of the church.
The church was the subject of significant restorations at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, including the interior ornamentation of the building which is a manifestation of the neo-classical style.