Château de Rosny-sur-Seine

Château de Rosny-sur-Seine
Château de Rosny, by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1840
Location within France
General information
Type	château
Architectural style	Louis XIII
Country	France
Coordinates	49°0′12″N 1°37′49″E / 49.00333°N 1.63028°E / 49.00333; 1.63028
Construction started	ca. 1598
Completed	1828
Design and construction
Architect	Joseph-Antoine Froelicher

The Château de Rosny-sur-Seine is a château in the Louis XIII style, situated in Rosny-sur-Seine in Yvelines, on the left bank of the Seine, at a short driving distance from Paris by the road to Rouen. It is famous as the seat of Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, who retired to the old château to heal from his wounds at the battle of Ivry, 1590, and constructed the present building on old foundations in the closing years of the 16th century. It went through several substantial alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries, and a period of neglect in the 1980s and 1990s. As of 2004, it is under renovation.

The château was built of bricks and limestone by Maximilien de Béthune, duke of Sully, on the site of an old fortified manor that had been dismantled and burned in 1435. In 1529, the old building passed by marriage to Jean de Béthune, the grandfather of Sully, who was born at the old house, but it was modest by the standards of the day, and he had it replaced in the last years of the 16th century with a new building more befitting his high rank. He is reputed to have ceased building in 1610 at the death of Henri IV, who had visited him there and whose monogram appears on the decorated joists of a room there.

In 1709, the estate passed into the hands of the Olivier family. The château was inherited in 1740 by Jean-Antoine Olivier de Sénozan (1713-1778), from his brother François Olivier. He took up permanent residence there in 1753, with his wife the Countess of Sénozan (1718-1794). She was older sister to jurist, statesman and botanist Malesherbes. He was a frequent visitor to the estate. After Jean-Antoine's death in 1778, she seems to have returned to Paris, where she was executed in May 1794, on charges of conspiracy against the state.

The estate went to Madeleine Olivier de Senozan de Viriville (1764–1794), whose son, Edmond de Talleyrand-Périgord, sold it in 1817 to a Parisian merchant. From him it was purchased on 14 August 1818 by Charles Ferdinand, duc de Berry at a cost of 2.5 million francs. It was the his summer residence until he was assassinated on 13 February 1820. Caroline Ferdinande Louise, duchesse de Berry then became châtelaine of Rosny. In 1826, she employed the architect Joseph-Antoine Froelicher to complete the construction of the wings that had been left unfinished by Sully after the death of Henri IV.