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The castle
At
the beginning of the 15th century, in the heart of a small valley wound
by the river Gée, Jean III de Vaulogé built the castle,
defended since the beginning of the 17th century by broad moats - fed
by the arms of the river - and by crenellated walls. One entered to west
through a gate preceded by a draw bridge. The basse cour was organised
around an ensemble of barns, olive-mills, stables and hay-stacks that
delimited the farm (rye, wheat, oats, hemp, white wool, wine, etc.) and
was completed by the ingenious mechanism of a mill, the wheel of which
was fed by the water from the spillway of the moats originating in turn
from Gée.
The initial castle had two wings set at right angles. The main rectangular
building is overhanged by a tower that incorporates a surprising stone
staircase. Attached to the tower, a turret, which shields a small staircase,
hides at the top the paradise room from where one can keep a watch
on the surroundings. The double staircase process was often used at the
time. The large kitchen with a big fireplace was one of the main rooms
of the castle where the owners took their meals and spent most of their
time (dining room will appear around the 17th century). Fish, game, poultry,
pig, rye bread and wheat, wine and cider where the daily products found
on Sir de Vaulogé table.
Oriented east-west, the main residential block offered the lords of the
land the convenience of double illumination and the pleasure of performances
in the gardens that unrolled like a green carpet in the cour verte.
The moats provided mirror-like pools that finished off the composition
reflecting the image of the facade on all their surfaces, clouded over
only occasionally by the slow and relaxed glide of a swan or the precipitous
flight of a duck.
18th
century
In the late 18th century, the Historical Dictionary of the Diocese of
Le Mans defined Vaulogé as a pleasant place to walk. This
elegy was made by René-Charles-Joseph de Vahais, page of the king’s
stable, lieutenant of the French Guard and distinguished lord of Vaulogé.
Thanks to numerous works of modernisation, he transformed his father’s
castle into a splendid country residence. Following
various successions, the property was inherited in 1793 by Henri-Samuel
Picot de Pontaubray, who decided to follow in his predecessors footsteps
and cultivate the pleasures of the good life. His happiness was brief.
The terror of the revolution ranged in Paris and spread rapidly through
the countryside. Constrained to emigrate to England, Henri-Samuel Picot
de Pontaubray drowned off the English coast attempting to return to France.
When the shock-wave of the revolution had passed, the aristocracy reclaimed
their castles.
19th
century
In 1831, a new castle came into being at Vaulogé. The ancient residence
provided the core around which the new residence was built: an isolated
pavilion bounded at its two extremities by two voluminous towers with
conical tops. It’s Henri-Jean-Baptiste Picot who began the construction
of a neo-gothic wing in order to close the floor between the old castle
and the chapel to create a main courtyard. Designed by the architect Delarue,
who restored the Le Mans cathedral and built the Le Mans City Theatre,
the new troubadour-style building was enhanced by an audacious decorative
alchemy. The block leaned against the 15th century manor is composed of
a rectangular building with at its centre a dormer finely sculptured of
the Picot de Vaulogé coats-of-arms. All windows are surmounted
of small geometrical patterns in the romantic style of that time. The
entrance becomes more majestic: both towers have a door led by a staircase
divided in two to form on each side a small entrance balcony.
The château de Vaulogé can be considered, all proportions
kept, as an evidence of troubadour style of the 19th century.
