Château des ducs de Bourbon

English translation

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History

Residence of the dukes of Bourbon at Montluçon and political, administrative and judicial seat of one of the seventeen castellanies of Bourbonnais, established on a rocky promontory for surveillance, militarily occupied from the Carolingian era. Rebuilt at the instigation of duke Louis II of Bourbon (1356-1410) from the end of the 14th century, then by his successors. Presumably interrupted or at least slowed down during the captivity of duke Jean Ier of Bourbon in England (1415-1433) and by the last episodes of the Hundred Years War (1434-1448), construction resumed actively around 1450-1456 at the initiative of duke Charles Ier of Bourbon (1434-1456), continued under Jean II (1456-1488) and Pierre II (1488-1503) and was completed in the first decade of the 16th century. By permission of the duke, the clock tower, belfry of the town, was erected in the middle of the 15th century on the axis of the château's main dwelling and the house of the ducal concierge. Left abandoned after the defection of the constable of Bourbon (1523), the château was in poor condition by 1566. From 1661, the prince of Bourbon-Condé became appanage lord of Bourbonnais. His council made the decision to cede graciously the château to the town of Montluçon in 1749, to arrange a public promenade on the esplanade. The Bernard hall to the north, the lower gallery of the lists and the cellars and granaries, which were falling into ruins to the east of the esplanade, were destroyed shortly after. The town hall, the tribunal and the justice of the peace were established in the body of the dwelling of the château in the first half of the 19th century, before its transformation into an infantry barracks from 1858 to 1913. The house of the concierge, returning north of the body of the dwelling, was demolished during an enlargement of the barracks around 1880. The restoration of the château was carried out from 1930 to 1933, with the restitution of the roof structure and covering of the grand hall concomitant with that of the external gallery opening onto the esplanade to the east. The chapel of Saint-Bonnet, attested from the 13th century, and the ducal chapel of the 15th century, which stood on two levels in the south-east angle of the gallery, were not, however, restored. Erected at the western end of a vast plateau of monzogranite, and protected by a curtain wall with false crenellations, studded with nine very projecting cylindrical towers, the château consists of a main dwelling of three levels, 48 metres in length by 10 metres wide. It is cantonned at its southern end by a keep of square plan, 8 metres wide, forming a strong projection of 4 metres to the west, on a base in sloped glacis. Its platform is crowned with ornamental crenellation, without machicolations. This keep, served by a spiral staircase to the platform, is composed of six halls, two per level, whose principal ones are endowed with monumental fireplaces. Towards the middle of the western façade is arranged a turret of irregular plan, housing a small room at the upper levels (including a watch room), and at the northern end the rectangular body of latrines, built in laid brickwork, which served both the grand hall and the house of the concierge. The great hall of the second floor is vaulted and decorated with vault bosses and ribs springing onto corbels ornamented with curly kale leaves. The great hall of the second floor of the dwelling, endowed with a monumental fireplace in its southern part, is surmounted by exposed roof structure in the form of an inverted ship's keel. A restored stone dormer, of flamboyant Gothic style, lights the halls arranged on the second floor, to the west. At the axis of the northern hall of the dwelling rises to the east a square tower, 4 metres on each side, and 25 metres in height, with a cornice carved with branches and foliage, housing a spiral staircase and a clock under a hip roof. On the eastern face of this tower, at the level of the roof space of the dwelling, are carved two moulded jambs of cavetto mouldings, supported by corbels decorated with foliage, terminated by fleuroned pinnacles, between which a pointed arch decorated with crockets formerly framed the clock face. On the first floor, the external wooden gallery with guard-rail in Saint Andrew's cross and tuileau infill, which runs to the east from the south angle of the clock tower to the eastern façade of the keep, was restored identically in 1931, on the octagonal bases of origin of its columns, according to a very figurative drawing made in 1749. [P. Pradel, Le château de Montluçon, Moulins, 1926]