Château de Bourbon: A Former Fortified Castle in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page10 sections
History
Château de Bourbon is a former fortified castle at Bourbon-l’Archambault in France, developed by the Bourbon lords from an earlier stronghold into the capital of the Bourbon lordship and, later, a powerful medieval fortress. The settlement stood in the historic Bourbonnais, about 25 kilometres west of Moulins, and its castle occupied a strategic rocky spur above the Burge valley.
Early stronghold and the Bourbon lordship
Bourbon was an ancient villa in the territory of the Bituriges before becoming the seat of a Berry viguerie in the tenth century. A viguerie was a medieval administrative district governed by an official with judicial and administrative responsibilities. An early castrum, meaning a fortified settlement or stronghold, was reportedly destroyed by Pepin the Short in 761 during his conflict with the duke of Aquitaine. A wooden castle stood at Bourbon by 947, and successive rebuilding gradually replaced its timber construction with stone from the twelfth century onward.
The Bourbon family, known from Aymar of Bourbon, who died in 953, established a feudal principality between Berry, Autunois, and Auvergne. Its alliances with Cluny, a major medieval Benedictine monastic institution, and later with the Capetians, the French royal dynasty descended from Hugh Capet, strengthened its regional position. Aimon II of Bourbon became a direct vassal of Louis VI of France. Nine lords named Archambaud or Archambault ruled between the tenth and thirteenth centuries.
Expansion into a ducal fortress
The castle was enlarged under Philip Augustus and probably gained its round, rusticated towers under Archambaud VIII of Bourbon in the first half of the thirteenth century. Rusticated masonry uses blocks whose outer faces project strongly from the wall. Between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the site developed into a fortress with fifteen towers.
Mahaut of Bourbon, heiress of the Bourbon line, brought the castle to the Dampierre family through her marriage to Guy II of Dampierre, constable of Champagne. The Dampierres later became associated with the house of Burgundy. In 1288, Béatrice of Burgundy, heiress of the Bourbonnais, married Robert of Clermont, sixth son of Louis IX of France. Their marriage created a new Bourbon dynasty of royal descent and transferred the lordship to Robert.
Louis I of Bourbon, the first duke of Bourbon, enlarged the fortress after his father’s works. Around 1315 he founded a Holy Chapel dedicated to Notre-Dame, a chapel intended to house important Christian relics. It was served by seven vicars and three clerics and held relics that Robert of Clermont had brought to Bourbon for his wife. Around 1485, Jean II rebuilt the chapel and dedicated it to Saint Louis, following the plan and style of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.
War, rebuilding, and the Bourbon capital
English companies attacked the fortress repeatedly between 1356 and 1369, and the castle was burned. After a fire in 1370, Louis II rebuilt and strengthened it, making Bourbon his capital. Nine dukes successively ruled the Bourbonnais from the castle: Louis I, Pierre I, Louis II, Jean I, Charles I, Jean II, Charles II, Pierre II, and Charles III.
Charles III, the last duke of Bourbon, became constable of France after the victory of Marignano. A conflict involving accusations of betrayal and the claims of Louise of Savoy led Francis I to confiscate the Bourbonnais in 1523. After Louise’s death in 1531, the duchy was incorporated into the royal domain. Francis I briefly recreated a Bourbon apanage in 1544 for his son Charles of France, duke of Angoulême and Orléans, who died without an heir in 1545. The duchy later returned to the crown and was granted again as an apanage to the future Henry III, who held the title Henry I of Bourbon. In 1661, Louis XIV created the duchy once more for the Bourbon-Condé branch.
Decline and preservation
After medieval fortresses lost their military purpose, the castle was abandoned in the sixteenth century. Only the canons serving the Holy Chapels continued to occupy the enclosure, where they built two small houses in the lower bailey. In the seventeenth century, princes and princesses visiting Bourbon for its thermal waters stayed at the castle. The waters were reputed to treat certain illnesses and competed with those of Vichy. Madame de Montespan died there on 26 May 1707.
A fire damaged part of the castle in the eighteenth century. The Prince of Condé had the damaged areas repaired to a stable condition without adding ornamental embellishment, apart from a clock installed on the Qui qu’en Grogne tower. After the Condé family emigrated in August 1789, its property was confiscated. In 1793, the fortress was ordered to be demolished, although the three northern towers were excluded from the auction. The remains of the Holy Chapels and the castle were sold by the Cérilly district administration on 8 Pluviôse in Year II, and the surviving towers were used as extensions of the prison.
During the Restoration, the estate returned to the Bourbon-Condé family. In the nineteenth century it passed by the will of the last Prince of Condé to Henri d’Orléans, Duke of Aumale, who was then eight years old. A proposed sale of the ruins was prevented, and the poet Achille Allier helped save three towers, including Qui qu’en Grogne. The Duke of Aumale allowed a small museum to be established among the ruins.
After his death, the castle and estate became joint property of the Orléans heirs, descendants of Louis-Philippe. Henri, Count of Paris, later acquired most of the family’s shares. In 1974, he placed the castle in the Fondation Saint-Louis, a family foundation created to preserve important Orléans monuments and prevent their dispersal through inheritance divisions. The foundation remains the owner. The castle was classified as a French historic monument under the 1862 list, while the Qui qu’en Grogne tower received separate classification by decree on 14 June 1961.
Château de Bourbon also forms the principal setting of Flamenca, an early-thirteenth-century Occitan literary work by Daudé de Pradas. In the narrative, the lord of Bourbon confines his wife Flamenca in a castle tower, while a tournament celebration provides the setting for the central adulterous love episode.
Remains
Fortress platform and defensive layout
The castle occupies a rocky platform approximately 180 metres long and 50 metres wide in the Burge valley. It overlooks the town from a spur that closes the valley. A pond protected the western side, while steep slopes defended the south and east. The principal attacking side was to the north, where a deep ditch strengthened the approach. A large mill operated on the pond below the western walls.
The fortress was arranged around a high curtain wall, the main defensive wall linking the towers, with residential buildings and the castle chapel behind it. A smaller internal ditch separated these buildings from the long lower bailey, an enclosed area within the castle complex. The lower enclosure was also flanked by round towers, extended toward the southeast, and ended at the Qui qu’en Grogne tower.
Northern towers and residential buildings
The principal surviving northern front has three cylindrical towers in rusticated masonry. They date from 1277 to 1287 and were heightened during the second half of the fourteenth century. Their defenses protected the seigneurial residence, including the guards’ hall. Near the tower known as the Admiral Tower, a section of wall survives from the twelfth-century stone phase.
Toward the end of the fourteenth century, a large two-level hall was built against the inner side of the northern fortifications. Large windows belonged to this rebuilding phase. The main entrance lay on the north side through a châtelet, a fortified entrance structure formed by two circular towers.
Holy Chapels
Two Holy Chapels stood within the castle. The first was founded around 1315 and dedicated to Notre-Dame, with seven vicars and three clerics serving the chapel and its relics. Around 1485, Jean II rebuilt the second chapel and dedicated it to Saint Louis. Its plan and style followed the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. The chapels later suffered the wider destruction and dismantling that reduced the castle to ruins.
Qui qu’en Grogne tower
The circular Qui qu’en Grogne tower stands at the southeast end of the lower bailey, where it closed the enclosure on the south. It was transformed and strengthened under Louis II. A spiral staircase inside serves the upper floors and formerly gave access to the wall-walk, the protected passage along the top of a fortification. The first-floor room, probably used as a prison, retains iron rings fixed into the wall.
An eighteenth-century clock and a small belfry stand on the tower platform. The clock was visible from the town. Today, the tower survives with the three northern towers and sections of the enceinte and curtain wall, while the rest of the original fortress was almost entirely demolished or dismantled.
