This lovely chateau had been on my radar for some time. I'd planned on going here way back when I went to that Sanatorium, but time was not on my side that weekend so I had to dash.
On the last day of my more recent trip to France, I checked out of my Airbnb but still had a few hours before I needed to be at the airport. I decided to finally visit this adorable wreck.
I do not recommend urbexing with a full case of luggage by your side. This isn't Discworld. It doesn't follow me around on a hundred tiny feet. But we work with what we've got.
Quite fortuitously, there are billions of photos online of this chateau in its heyday, many of them used for postcards, so I was really spoiled for choice when it came to comparison shots. But to keep things simple, we'll go with one that best matches my own angle.
(photo not mine, obviously)
Isn't that cool? It seems to have lost a whole top floor, plus its cute little corner towers. As is often the case, someone whose entire existence is an argument in favour of pro-choice got a bit overzealous with a box of matches.
As I approached the chateau, I was spotted by some French teenagers who were loitering about. They tried to speak to me but they stopped when they realised I couldn't understand them.
They were probably just boggled about me carrying a full case of luggage with me. Alas, this isn't discworld. It doesn't eat people.
After watching me take my external shots, one of the teenagers did speak up when they realised I actually planned on entering the building. She made some hand gesture to indicate that the building could collapse on my head, which I shrugged off with a dismissive gesture.
Communication is apparently only 10% speech, the rest being body language and tone. Neither of us needed to understand each other's languages for her to convey her warning and for me to convey my disregard, but also my appreciation. Who says kids don't respect their elders?
When it comes to language, I apparently speak English, but when you're neuro-diverse in England you may as well be speaking Chinese half the time, because people just aren't perspicacious, and they will sooner conclude you're an idiot before they make any real effort to understand you.
But that's a rant for another day. What I'm saying is, in another country linguistic solitude isn't actually that frustrating to me. In fact it's quite liberating. I would happily spend months in a place where I dont speak the native language. It's peaceful.
And if this building is unstable, that's fine. So am I!
Let's slip inside!
The ground is covered in dust but it's still possible to see the mosaic flooring, complete with this charming creature. It looks like some sort of demon, but it's actually a "beware of the dog" sign, in the style of Ancient Rome.
Back in those days, the Romans would indicate the presence of a dog via a mosaic, which is pretty fun, and a bit more creative than a bland sign on a gate.
This one seems to be a homage to perhaps the most famous ancient "Beware of the Dog" sign, which can be seen in the ruins of Pompei.
(image credit: wikipedia)
I quite like this. I love the fact that "Beware of the dog" signs were used by ancient Romans. I know the Romans get credited for a lot of things, like roads, law, a monetary system, etc. But of all the remnants of Roman times, this is by far my favourite just because of how random and obscure it is. We pass them every day, and who would ever have guessed that it's because of the Romans?
That's another useless obscure fact for that pub quiz arsenal that will totally make me a hero someday.
It's also a teeny glimpse into the lives of the people who lived here. We know that they had a dog, and we know that they were people of the world, with a fondness for history, ancient ruins and Roman architecture.
The chateau is commonly said to have been constructed in 1865, but a little more digging revealed that it started construction in 1862 and was finally finished in 1868, whereupon it was occupied by a man named Philippe Imbart-Latour, an industrialist at the top of a shoe manufacturing empire.
Philippe had been born in 1810, and was the seventh of ten children. His father was a leather worker, and this seems to be what led him into the shoe manufacturing business. He married Marie Rustemeyer in 1838 and had his factory built in 1847. This chateau was evidently created out of his success.
As well as being a grand mansion, it's said that the gardens were also pretty spectacular, with waterfalls and an alleged "fountain of youth." There's also an old photo of the chateau that seems to show herons perched on the garden.
(photo not mine, obviously)
But they may well be statues. Herons aren't exactly known for sticking around for photographers.
I'll throw in a photo of the garden for good measure too.
(photo not mine, obviously)
There's also a monument on the grounds that actually predates the chateau. It was erected in 1800, and was intended to have an inscription for Louis Desaix, a general during the French revolution. A ceremony was held, but no inscription was ever made.
Allegedly the monument is now covered in overgrowth in the Chateau's neglected garden, but I didn't see it. Here's an image anyway.
(Photo not mine, obviously)
Philippe Imbart-Latour was apparently something of a saint. He founded a load of local schools, provided homes for his workers, and he introduced gas lighting to his town in 1861.
He wanted what was best for the people around him, whether they could afford a chateau or not.
It's always refreshing to see rich people use their power for good.
The rooms of the chateau are vast and spacious, and somehow still manage to hang on to a sense of refinery despite the fact that the entire place has been trashed, stripped, set on fire and totally gutted. Poor Philippe, always so charitable to poorer communities. He would be dismayed if he could see what the peasants did once they got through his front door.
And yet somehow it's still possible to imagine this place in its prime, fully furnished.
What irritates me is the scarcity of information after Phillipe. It's said that this home stayed with his family until the 1930s, but I can't actually find any record of him having children.
That's not to say he didn't! Maybe I'm just shit.
But I've found his gardeners name, Victor Enfer, and it just seems to me that if I've looked this deep, surely the children would have shown up by now?
Instead, in the shoe-making industry, Philippe's right hand men seem to be his brother Henri, and a chap named Jean Pierre Bonifay.
Jean Pierre Bonifay is the husband Marie Rustemeyer's sister, although Philippe himself referred to him as a brother-in-law, indicating that he was pretty close to his wife's side of the family.
Marie Rustemeyer passed away in 1871, but Mr Bonifay maintained a high position at the shoe factory and a friendship with Philippe and Henri.
It's said that Henri and Mr Bonifay discovered Philippe's body in this chateau after he died in 1874, but I don't know the cause of death.
It's generally said that the shoe factory was inherited by Philippe's nephews, but in actual fact it seems to be the husbands of Bonifay's children who picked up their reigns.
Louise Bonifay was born in 1832 to Jean Pierre Bonifay and Louise Rustemeyer. She married Emile Parzudaki in 1855. He's fairly famous in natural history circles, his full legal name being François Charles Émile Fauqueux-Parzudaki.
I don't blame him for shortening it.
He'd made a living cataloguing and selling birds, bird eggs, shells, insects, scorpions, amphibians and mammals, some of which can still be found in Natural History museums around the world today. His collection included animal skins that were new to science at the time or already extinct.
But despite natural history being his calling, Emile Parzudaki inherited Philippe's shoe empire. Presumably it was meant to be Mr Bonifay, but he was getting on a bit at this point and passed away himself in 1882.
I think Emile Parzudaki may even have moved into this chateau too, judging by records from 1880, but I've found conflicting stories. It's possible he inherited the chateau but didn't live there.
It's said that the random switch from natural history to shoe making is indicative of Parzudaki's skills and genius, because it showed that he could just drop one profession and pick up another. But the shoe company collapsed in 1888 and Parzudaki shot himself five times in the head in 1899, so it really didn't go that well.
It's tragic but also quite impressive. I think by the second or third gunshot to the head, I'd be feeling kinda sleepy.
I honestly don't know who lived here after that. Apparently it stayed in the family until the 1930s but it sure wasn't Parzudaki's daughters.
There's some pretty cool graffiti in here.
And then at some point after the war, a prison was built across the road, and it acquired this chateau in 1965 to be an admin block. It was also allegedly used as a canteen and to train prison staff. Eventually (apparently) it became used as a "death hall" for the prisoners who were elderly or sick, mainly from tuberculosis since that was the big thing at the time.
Old maps do label a nearby building as a "Centre Sanitaire," meaning "Health Centre," and that is similarly abandoned, but again part of the prison complex.
According to old photos taken by urbexers before me, this area had a bar or counter against the wall. Presumably that's why there's more rubble on the floor here. I'm not sure if this was an original feature or if it was added later, but it's a shame it's been destroyed. I would quite like something to give this place a little variation.
This area appears to have been a kitchen.
And at the end of this hallway we have the stairs.
There's a few cool bits of graffiti along here, like this bonkers unicorn.
But before we go upstairs, it's time to stop by the best part of any abandoned building, the toilet.
Still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.
Let's head upstairs.
The stairs were actually a nice surprise. Numerous urbex posts claimed that there were no stairs, thanks to arson. But here they are, just about holding together.
Granted, they aren't the safest stairs in the world. I trust the McCanns to babysit more than I trust these to hold my weight for long.
There's a bit of a gap at the top where a few steps have fallen away, but someone has bridged it with a door.
So here's the upper floor!
I love the fact that under the dirt, there's still a few areas where the original floor is peeking through.
There's some interesting graffiti up here.
Generally the upstairs might seem pretty dull. There clearly was a third floor and that, along with the roof, has collapsed.
But now dirt has built up and plants have started to grow, slowly transforming what was once bedrooms into a little wild garden. I can't dislike that. I think it's awesome. The house is growing a botanical bob.
This is the biggest room upstairs, and it still has its ceiling. Presumably this is where Philippe and his wife used to sleep. I imagine it probably became a lot lonelier once Philippe was widowed. Perhaps this is where his brother Henri and Mr Bonifay found him after he had passed away.
But let's not dwell on the darker parts. This is also where Philippe lay next to his wife every night for the years that they lived here together. It wasn't very long. They moved in around 1868, and she died in 1871, but for a brief period this is where they were happy. They were rich, but they were humans. They had hopes and dreams and conversations within these walls. And to die within a few years of each other is kinda nice. Everybody dies, so when it comes to romance, dying in chronological proximity is about as close to a happy ending as there is.
And look, they had a freakin' balcony! That's pretty cool!
Alphonse Boudard, a French novelist born to a prostitute by an unknown father, served some time in the prison here after falling into a life of crime after serving in the French resistance during the war.
It was his time in prison that allegedly gave him a fondness for writing, and many of his novels are written about his time in a sanatorium and in prison. One of his books describes how he shared a cell with a "half idiot" who murdered his neighbour with an axe.
I'm not sure if Alphonse ever set foot in this chateau, but if he was in a prison sanatorium, and this was the "death hall" then it is possible.
He described the prison as a landfill. It wasn't the happiest time of his life.
The prison allegedly closed in 2004, and consequently this is when the chateau was abandoned. Since then, as is often the case, it's all gone downhill, the majority of the damage being caused by arson in 2010.
It was purchased in 2013 for €250,000 with the plan to turn it into apartments with some sort of community hall, or something, but at the moment nothing has happened.
And let's be honest, we've seen this song and dance before. I really doubt anything will happen. The longer we wait, the deeper the pockets needed to pull it back from the brink.
It is a sad legacy, given that the industrialist who lived here is the guy who gave his town gas powered street lamps. It has historic significance, at least locally. But here it is, a shadow of itself.
Time was ticking, I had a plane to catch, and I'd forgotten to charge my camera after my last couple of adventures. Presumably this was the time to call it a day.
But no, I realised that the building had a cellar. I was already miffed that I couldn't do the nearby prison health centre, so there was no way I was leaving this chateau unfinished.
Let's give it a quick sprint through.
This door sure is curious.
Generally the cellar best reflects the modern makeover of the "prison era." Here we have a kitchen, where once we may have seen a huge wine dungeon.
"Why you can't?"
"Because you have Trump Brain."
Alas, I was in too much of a rush, and completely neglected to get the full graffiti in shot. But "You have Trump brain" is my new favourite insult.
Here we have the shower block.
Here we have some lockers that presumably would have been used by the prison staff.
In a weird way, the cellar is the best preserved part of the building. There's still things to see down here.
And we're about done.
Well I didn't die.
That's about it for the chateau. It's an absolute death trap, and there's not much to see, but I kinda love it. Even a wreck like this has a story, and as always it's a privilege to tell it.
I'll finish off with some old photos looking up at it from the village.
(Photo not mine, obviously)
That gatehouse on the left is also derelict, apparently. This photo was taken just inside the front gate.
(Photo not mine, obviously)
The front gate itself can still be viewed on Streetview but it is an overgrown mess.
Interestingly signs for the prison do still exist around the town, even at the gateway to the chateau. And maybe in the future I'll return to see some of the other buildings. But unfortunately time, and camera batteries, were not on my side today. I said goodbye to the chateau and then headed for the airport.
I won't be doing any more France blogs for the foreseeable future, but never say never. There's still loads to see out there.
I've got a few more amazing things on the horizon though, and begrudgingly the best way to stay updated with my blogs is to follow my social media.
That is, of course, assuming it shows my posts. The Zuckerberg ones are particularly lugubrious. Nevertheless, role the dice, and follow me on Facebook and Instagram. I'm also on Twitter for some reason. But generally I try to push the ones that aren't owned by weeping cysts on the rectum of humanity, so definitely come and find me on the likes of Bluesky, Vero and Cara. My hope is that someday we can leave the shitty social medias behind and make the internet fun again by gathering on communities that promote our creativity instead of chipping away at our attention spans.
Maybe it's a pipe dream, but I can hope.
Thanks for reading!
