Château de Genas: A Seventeenth-Century Summer Residence in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page14 sections
History
Château de Genas is a privately owned seventeenth-century summer residence in Cléon-d’Andran, France, built for the Genas family during the period of France’s monarchy before the Revolution of 1789. Its architect is unknown. The estate stands within the former seigneurie of Cléon d’Andran, a territorial lordship under the Ancien Régime that combined landholding rights with local authority.
The lordship of Cléon d’Andran
The land passed through several ruling families and institutions before the château acquired its later name. It belonged successively to the Adhémar family, the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, a Catholic military and religious order, the counts of Poitiers-Valentinois from 1269, the Taulignan family from 1295, the d’Urre family from 1523, the Sillol family from 1669, and the Moutier family from 1782.
The Genas family at Cléon d’Andran
The Genas family arrived during the reign of Louis XIII, king of France from 1610 to 1643. On 25 September 1605, Marguerite, daughter of the local landholder Aimar Giraud, married Blaise de Genas, lord of Beaulieu. Through Marguerite’s inheritance from her mother and from her uncles Isaac and Alexandre de Giraud, the couple obtained the land on which the château was built. The family occupied the estate from 1614.
Construction took place during the seventeenth century, although the surviving record of the building process is limited. Communal archives were destroyed by Protestants in 1621 and again in 1648, when a company of light cavalry was quartered at the château. While it belonged to the Genas family, the estate was known as Château de Beaulieu, recalling the family’s lordship of Beaulieu near the confluence of the Isère and Rhône. The name Château de Genas came into use after the property left the family and appears on the Cassini map and the Napoleonic cadastre.
René de Genas and the eighteenth century
René de Genas, who lived from 1642 to 1742, was the grandson of Blaise and son of Paul de Genas. He served as the king’s lieutenant first at Montélimar and later at Valence. He was also an art collector and scholar, maintaining a large library and owning paintings, Roman medals, and ancient stones. In 1692, he commissioned the stonemason Pierre Vieux to provide stone for the grand staircase. A proposed alteration was drawn in 1697, but was not executed, and another unrealized works plan dates from the late eighteenth century.
René made an inventory of the château’s furniture and collections in 1739. He was also involved in a prolonged dispute with the Sillol family, then lords of Cléon d’Andran, over the vingtain tax, which he refused to pay. In his testament of 1 May 1739, he named his nephew Christophe de Genas as heir. If Christophe died without a male child, the inheritance was to pass to Pierre de Genas, baron of Vauvert. If Pierre also left no male heir, the château and René’s other property were to go to Saint John’s Hospital in Valence, a charitable and medical institution. The furniture, library, family portraits, papers, and titles were excluded from that transfer and remained with the Reynaud de Genas family.
René died at the château on 24 August 1742 and was buried in the cemetery of Cléon d’Andran. After both designated male lines failed, Pierre de Genas died in 1780, and the provision for the hospital was enacted. Saint John’s Hospital in Valence sold the château in 1782 to M. Béraud of Nîmes. He sold it in 1817 to Monsieur de Valois of Lyon, a captain in the Angoulême Regiment. The property passed to the Raffin family in 1852 and later to its present owners, who descend from the brother of Marguerite de Saulces.
Protection and later changes
The château and its grounds are protected as a historic monument. The exterior staircase was listed in 1981. On 31 July 1989, the protection was extended to the château, park, surrounding walls, and entrance gate. A south wing added during the nineteenth century altered the building without substantially changing the balance of the original ensemble.
Remains
Château de Genas occupies the Andrans plain near Cléon-d’Andran, within a landscape surrounded by the forests and massifs of Marsanne, Saoû, and Eyzahut. Its rectangular central building is oriented east to west, a disposition intended to protect it from the mistral, the strong, cold wind that commonly affects the Rhône valley and Provence. A wood on the northern side of the park provides additional shelter. The estate includes the main residence, its eastern architectural front, a courtyard, agricultural buildings, enclosing walls, a gate, and landscaped grounds.
The central residence
Eastern façade and pavilions
The eastern side of the central building has an Italianate decorative façade whose acoustics have suited theatrical and lyrical performances. Two projecting pavilions flank it. René de Genas’s 1739 description calls these structures the north and south towers. Their curved pediments are topped by rows of projecting roof tiles, and similar tilework edges the projecting sections. Two additional staircases with balustrades serve the sides of the façade.
Double staircase
The château’s distinctive double balustraded staircase leads to the upper hall. Lions stand on either side, while the Genas arms surmount the ensemble. The staircase is paired with unusually elaborate chimney tops decorated with projecting finials. Its arrangement corresponds to the description and dimensions of the residence recorded in René de Genas’s 1739 inventory.
Interior arrangement
The eighteenth-century description places the agricultural buildings apart from the master’s apartments, with a large courtyard between them. The apartments included a vaulted ground floor containing a chapel and an upper floor organized around a large hall. Three principal chambers stood on each side of the hall, alongside another smaller chamber with a fireplace and several cabinets and service rooms. Plaster cornices finished the principal rooms, whose floors were parquet, patterned, or tiled. The vaulted rooms on the ground floor and the upper-floor arrangement correspond to the present layout.
Park, waterworks, and farm buildings
Garden and hydraulic system
The estate included a garden, a formal parterre composed of patterned planting beds, a large farmyard, enclosing walls, a gate, and iron grilles. Its vineyards, meadows, woods, and other lands covered approximately 315 setérées, a traditional regional unit of land area whose exact size varied by locality. The park formerly contained storage basins and channels for irrigation. An orchard windmill drew water from a large underground vaulted space through which a river flowed and powered the system.
Western courtyard and sheepfold
The western side of the estate contains a courtyard and farm buildings, including a notably fine sheepfold. These agricultural elements formed a distinct part of the estate alongside the residence and the formal grounds.
Heraldry and recorded layout
The Genas arms on the château’s pediment are quartered. The first and fourth quarters show a green broom of four branches crossed in saltire and flowering gold on a gold field. The second and third display a silver eagle with a gold beak and legs on a red field. The family’s heraldry changed over time, including the adoption of the eagle through an alliance with the Spifame family. The imperial cadastre of Cléon-d’Andran precisely delineates Château de Genas.
