History

From its origins to Viscount Walsh

In the 10th century, Eudes I Count of Blois, built a fortress to protect Blois from attack by Foulques Nerra, the Count of Anjou. The Norman knight Gelduin received Chaumont and reinforced the fortress. Geoffroy,his son and heir, who had no children, chose his grand-niece, Denise de Fougères, who married Sulpice I of Amboise in 1054, to be his heir. The castle then passed to the Amboise family for five centuries.

Louis XI set fire to Chaumont in 1465, razing it to the ground, to punish Pierre d’Amboise for having rebelled against the king during the “ligue du bien public” (League of Public Good). His land was returned to him shortly afterwards. He was followed by his son, Charles I, and his grandson, Charles II, in rebuilding the castle from 1468 to 1510.

Queen Catherine de Médicis bought Chaumont in 1550 and sold the castle to Diane de Poitiers upon the death of Henri II. At the end of the 16th century, the castle became the property of Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, then by the banker Scipion Sardini under Henri IV. Under Louis XIV, the estate fell to Paul de Beauvilliers, the duke of Saint-Aignan.

In 1739, Chaumont was bought by Nicolas Bertin de Vaugyen, “maître des requêtes” (legal adviser) within the Paris Parliament. In 1750, Jacques Donatien Le Ray, future governor of Les Invalides for Louis XVI, bought Chaumont. He managed to protect the castle during the revolution and received Benjamin Franklin as his guest.

In 1810, Germaine de Staël stayed in the castle as the guest of the son of Jacques Donatien Le Ray, referred to as “Ray the American”, who sold the castle in 1823 to the baron of Etchegoyen.

In the 19th century, the castle belonged successively to the Count of Aramon, Viscount Joseph Walsh and the prince and princess Henri-Amédée de Broglie.

From the de Broglie family to present times

In March of 1875, the rich young heiress, Marie-Charlotte Constance Say (the grand-daughter of the sugar producer Louis Say), whose fortune was as large as the Rothschild’s, bought the castle and the estate of Chaumont. She married Prince Henri-Amédée de Broglie a few months later. From then on, the princely couple continued to expand and to adorn their estate. To assist them, the de Broglie family called upon the architect Paul-Ernest Sanson to restore the castle exterior, modernise the interior (installation of electricity, central heating and running water) and build the stables in 1877. In 1884, the landscape architect Henri Duchêne completed the country park surrounding the castle.

In 1903, the de Broglie family called upon the architect Paul-Ernest Sanson once again to design the plans for a model farm that combined rationalisation and modernisation. Due to the cost of the project, the prince preferred to choose another architect by the name of Marcel Boille. Boille started work on the farm during the second half of 1903. The work lasted 10 years and was still not completed.

In 1917, the Chaumont estate more than doubled in size to 2500 hectares as a result of the purchase of woods, farms and land and the creation of a network of forest tracks of more than 33 kilometres.

Numerous financial setbacks (the Crosnier crash in 1905, the death of the Prince de Broglie in 1917, the stock market crash of 1929 and the remarriage of the princess to the Infant of Spain, Louis Ferdinand of Orleans and Bourbon) forced the princess to split up her estate after 1930 and to sell several works of art. Bankrupt, she sold the estate, now only 21 hectares (castle, stables, country park, model farm), to the State for 1,800,000 Gold Francs in 1938.

The Chaumont-sur-Loire estate has belonged to the Centre Region since February 2007.