Château de Saint-Point

History

Lords of Saint-Point are known from the end of the 11th century, and the castle was besieged and taken by French troops in 1471. Later held by the Rochefort d'Ailly family, it was sold in 1776 to the marquis de Castellane. On 30 July 1789 local people ransacked it. At the start of the 19th century the poet's father, Pierre de Lamartine, bought the damaged château.

In 1820 Alphonse received Saint-Point on his marriage to the Englishwoman Mary-Ann Birch. Thanks to the success of his Méditations, he restored it in English Gothic taste, with a quatrefoil gallery, a Gothic porch and a clock tower. He wrote part of his Harmonies poétiques et religieuses here, published in 1830, and in 1853 he added a pavilion for his bedroom and study.

Lamartine, one of the founders of the Second Republic, died in 1869 and was buried in the family vault he had built beside the Romanesque church after his mother's death. His niece Valentine de Cessiat preserved his memory until her own death in 1894. The château then passed to other families, and since 2006 its owner has kept its period atmosphere and opened it to visitors.

Architecture

The château has a rectangular main block between two large square pavilions. Lamartine added a gallery with quatrefoil openings and a terrace between the eastern towers, a neo-Gothic porch on the west and a clock tower beside the stables and orangery, all marked with his emblem, the trefoil. His study and bedroom, in the 1853 pavilion, and an 18th-century dining room are classified.