Château de Cruzille

History

A castle and fortified house at Cruzille are mentioned in 1262, and the Nanton family held the lordship in the 14th and 15th centuries. It later passed to the Bauffremont lords of Sennecey, and in 1583 it was raised to a county for Georges de Bauffremont. During the Wars of Religion it changed hands several times, and in 1589 League troops stormed it and killed its fifty defenders.

In the 17th century the La Baume-Montrevel family restored the château and built its terraces. On 29 July 1789, during the Great Fear, a band of rioters broke into the empty building and damaged it. In the summer of 1944 it became the headquarters of the Armée secrète for Saône-et-Loire, and a Resistance tribunal sat here during the Liberation. From 1949 it housed establishments caring for children.

Architecture

The original castle was a quadrilateral with round towers at the corners, once crowned with battlements. The west wing and a south-west tower probably disappeared in the fighting of the late 16th century. The east wing survives between two round towers, one resting on a sloping base. The north wing, though much altered, keeps a fine stone staircase with straight flights and a round-arched gateway.