Château de Commercy: A Baroque Palace in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page12 sections
History
Château de Commercy is an eighteenth-century Baroque palace in France, built for Charles-Henri of Lorraine-Vaudémont on the site and surviving foundations of a medieval fortified castle. Commercy was formerly the capital of a sovereign principality, and the château later became one of Stanislas Leszczynski’s preferred residences.
Medieval fortress and early transformations
The site was first mentioned around 1037. A fortified castle occupied it by the thirteenth century, and it was enlarged for Robert I of Saarbrücken around 1389 and again in 1434. The castle was remodelled or rebuilt at the end of the fifteenth century, probably for Robert II, lord of Commercy. Its defensive system was strengthened between 1542 and 1595.
Cardinal Jean-François Paul de Gondi, known as the Cardinal de Retz, inherited the Château-Haut lordship and established himself at Commercy in 1662. He converted the medieval castle into a residence while retaining its medieval substructures. After he sold his sovereign rights in 1665, they passed through the House of Lorraine and were confirmed for Duke Leopold I in 1707.
The Lorraine principality and the Baroque palace
Charles-Henri of Lorraine-Vaudémont acquired the principality in 1708 and began building a large Baroque château over the remains of the earlier fortress. The principal works lasted from 1708 to 1710, while major construction continued until 1735. The project involved Nicolas d’Orbay, Léopold Durand, Germain Boffrand, and Emmanuel Héré de Corny.
Charles-Henri died in 1723, widowed and without a surviving child. The principality and château then passed to his cousin, Duke Leopold I of Lorraine. Following Leopold’s death in 1729, they went to his son Francis III, later Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. At the settlement of the War of the Polish Succession, an eighteenth-century European conflict over the Polish throne, Lorraine and Bar were granted in 1737 to Stanislas Leszczynski for life. Stanislas was the deposed king of Poland and Louis XV’s father-in-law.
Leopold’s widow, Elisabeth Charlotte of Orléans, secured sovereignty over the principality and lived in the château until her death in 1744. Stanislas then took possession. He made Commercy one of his favourite residences and frequently stayed there with his court, whose etiquette was less formal than at Lunéville.
During the summer of 1748, Voltaire, the French writer and philosopher, Émilie du Châtelet, a mathematician, physicist, and intellectual, and Jean-François de Saint-Lambert stayed at the château. Voltaire was associated there with the composition of Nanine and Sémiramis. A later tradition links the madeleine of Commercy to an incident in 1755, when Madeleine Paulmier, a young servant at Stanislas’s court, prepared a dessert after the king’s cook had left during a formal dinner.
Stanislas also arranged the château’s annexes, including the water tower on the Meuse and the royal fountain in the Commercy forest, which served as his hunting territory. His death in 1766 brought the annexation of Lorraine and Bar by the French Crown. Louis XV ordered the château abandoned, and its surroundings became a cavalry quarter from 1767 to 1927.
Decline, wartime damage, and restoration
After the abandonment, the gardens were neglected and disappeared. The great parterre and grand canal were destroyed, the water tower was burned, and Louis XV ordered the royal fountain destroyed after Stanislas’s death. In the nineteenth century, the Marne-Rhine Canal and the Paris-Strasbourg railway separated the château from its former gardens, while a velodrome was built nearby.
In 1940, during the Second World War, the château served as a barracks, supply and administrative centre, mobilisation centre, and accommodation for non-commissioned officers. A major fire on 31 August 1944 severely damaged the building. The commune of Commercy purchased the ruins from the French state in 1957 and undertook their restoration. An earlier general restoration had taken place from 1928 to 1937, followed by postwar work from 1944 to 1970; restoration of the château was completed in 1977.
The château entered the register of historic monuments in 1926. The building and important medieval substructures were classified in 1960, and the former common buildings received classification in June 1972. The property has belonged successively to the Cardinal de Retz, Charles-Henri of Lorraine-Vaudémont, Leopold I of Lorraine, Francis III of Lorraine, Elisabeth Charlotte of Orléans, Stanislas Leszczynski, the French state, and the commune of Commercy, which remains its owner.
Remains
The present château is an eighteenth-century Baroque complex built of Euville stone over the foundations and surviving substructures of the medieval fortress. Its formal composition centres on a main courtyard enclosed toward the exterior by a monumental grille. Low common buildings curve around the horseshoe-shaped Fer-à-Cheval square, while two returning wings frame the principal residential block.
Residential palace
Main block
The principal residential block has a central projecting bay with four columns and a triangular pediment, the gabled feature crowning the projection of the façade. At the rear, the building stands on a substantial terrace that compensates for the slope of the ground. A monumental staircase with several flights rises from this base.
Returning wings
Two wings extend at right angles from the common buildings at the rear of the courtyard. Each has two levels of rectangular windows and frames the central residential block, preserving the ordered composition of the palace.
Courtyard and common buildings
Fer-à-Cheval square
The common buildings form a semicircle around the horseshoe-shaped square. Their large rusticated arcades are topped by terraces with balustrades and fire-pots. This part of the complex was transformed under Emmanuel Héré.
Medieval substructures
The earlier fortress was described as having round corner towers. Their bases and other substructures were retained within the later construction, connecting the Baroque palace to the medieval defensive site.
River setting and present fabric
The château overlooks the Meuse, whose waters flow below it. Some remnants of the former garden decorations survive along the riverbanks, while the garden structures and ornamental ponds disappeared. The 1944 fire left the building heavily damaged, but the façades facing the city were fully restored, creating the monumental horseshoe-shaped square seen today. The château now accommodates Commercy’s town hall services, municipal library, and other municipal administrations.
