Castle of Gaillon



View from the town center

 Before coming to the US, I lived for 17 years in Gaillon (Upper Normandy). During that time, I had never visited our beautiful castle. First of all, as many young people living here, I probably wasn't all that interested. But even if I had been, the fact was the castle was not open to the public, therefore one only had the opportunity to admire the city's inheritance from the outside. This weekend was "le weekend du patrimoine"; meaning that all national monuments, museums, castles, in France were free to the public. So my parents and I went to visit the Castle of Gaillon. Here is its history... Cardinal George of Amboise, archbishop of Rouen, Minister of Louis the XII, Papal legate, Viceroy of the Milanese in 1500, installed on the river bank of the Seine the Gaillon Castle; his own vision of Italy where he had been sent for various missions and hoped to become Pope. Architects, painters and sculptors came from Italy through the Loire valley or Rouen's big building sites to transform the medieval castle within just a few years and its estate into the real palace surrounded by gardens. George of Amboise's successors preserved most of his work, but also added a few modifications or extensions renewing the castles gardens and buildings. The castle was kept intact until the French Revolution (in 1789), but then an auction split the castle up into the several parts of which a few were saved, bought by Alexander Lenoir for his "French Monuments Museum" in 1801 and rebuilt at the "Ecole des Beaux Arts" in Paris. Between 1812 and 1827, the castle was enlarged and used as a prison. It then became a private castle in 1919 thus until 1975 after long judicial procedures, the government got it back in a terrible state of ruin. Since then, the renovation has been carried out.