Château de Digoine

History

Digoine was the first of the four baronies of the Charolais, and its lords held a high place at the court of the dukes of Burgundy. The château's story is traced back to 1390, when Robert de Damas married Marie de Digoine. Under the name Damas de Digoine, the family built the massive towers of the north front, which gave the house its first defences.

The Reclesne family, from the Nivernais, bought the estate and began rebuilding it in the early 18th century, in works that lasted nearly fifty years. From 1750 the Burgundian architect Edme Verniquet reshaped the north front and built the grand south front. In the early 19th century the estate passed to the Chabrillan family, who added a heated glasshouse, a library panelled in elm burr and a private theatre.

In 1908 the Marquise de Croix bought Digoine for her son, and the family kept it for three generations. In 2012 it was sold, empty, to Jean-Louis Remilleux, who bought back many original pieces at a major auction in Paris and added his own collections of period objects. He has since restored the house, the theatre and the gardens, and planted a large new rose garden in 2017.

Architecture

The main block is flanked on the north by two round towers with onion domes and lanterns, and on the south by short wings. On the park side, a central projection stacks Ionic, composite and Corinthian orders beneath carved trophies. Inside, a vestibule paved in black and white marble has reliefs of water gods, the salons have Louis XIV-style panelling, and a troubadour library fills one tower.