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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The castle of Guise, attested from the 10th century on a rocky spur overlooking Oise, embodies the evolution of military architecture over a millennium. First possession of a vassal family of the Counts of Vermandois (cited in 945), its Romanesque dungeon (55 m of circumference, 5.75 m thick walls) was built between 951 and 1056. In the 12th century, it passed through marriage to the family of Avesnes, then became royal fortress after its destruction in 1177 by the Counts of Flanders and Hainaut. Philippe Auguste rebuilt it in 1186, marking its strategic role in feudal conflicts and the Hundred Years War.

In the 16th century, under Claude de Lorraine then François de Guise, the castle was transformed into a citadel bastioned by Jean de Renaud and the Italian engineer Bellarmato (1538). Four bastions (Alouette, Charbonnière, Moineau, Haute-Ville) and a gallery of countermines make it a modern stronghold. Vauban made adjustments in the 17th century, despite a strategic decline. The site, theatres of repeated sieges (1594 by Henry IV, 1635 during the Thirty Years War), also resisted German offensives in 1914-1918, before being partially destroyed by French artillery in 1918.

Saved in extremis from the demolition in 1952 by the Club du Vieux Manoir, the castle is classified as a historical monument (donjon in 1924, together in 2008). The excavations revealed the remains of the collegiate Saint-Gervais (16th century, 300 squares), a medieval seigneurial palace, and an eight-storey arsenal. Today the property of the city of Guise, the site is restored by youth yards and open to the public, illustrating both French military history and fortification techniques from the 10th to the 17th century.

Among the notable episodes, the castle houses in 1425 Jean de Luxembourg, which finances its restoration with the ransom of Jeanne d'Arc. In 1689, a Protestant woman, Dame Du Fay de La Taillée, was imprisoned there for her faith before her expulsion in 1697. The current remains — dungeon, bastioned enclosures, church bases and casemates — offer a complete panorama of defensive adaptations, from medieval drawbridges to Renaissance counter-mines.

The First World War left deep scars: in 1914, the fortress temporarily blocked German progress, but the fighting of 1918 reduced the castle to its dungeon and ramparts. Turned into a career in the 1920s, then threatened with destruction in 1953, the site owes its survival to the action of André Malraux, who in 1963 rewarded the efforts of the Old Manoir. Since 1965, the municipality and association have maintained its restoration, while organizing events such as visits to LSF (2011).

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