History
The castle was built in the late 12th century on a trapezoidal plan with corner towers and a keep. In the 1670s Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban bought it with the reward that Louis XIV gave him after the capture of Maastricht in 1673. The castle had already been altered in the 15th century. Vauban settled here with his family and transformed the interiors.
Vauban turned Bazoches into a kind of headquarters. He created lodgings and workshops where the military engineers working under his orders drew up plans for the fortifications of the kingdom. He also worked on his own writings here, including the Dîme royale, published in 1707, a bold proposal for fairer taxation. The castle still belongs to descendants of his eldest daughter, Charlotte, and was classified as a historic monument in 1994.
Architecture
Bazoches keeps its medieval plan: a trapezoid with four round towers and a square keep around an inner courtyard. The moats were filled in around 1840. Inside, the marshal's bedroom still has its furniture, itself classified. His study is a small polygonal room with a painted ceiling in trompe-l'œil. The courtyard has been restored following Vauban's own plans.
