Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

Grane Castle, built at the end of the 14th century, was for four centuries the property of the Counts of Poitier-Valentinois. The last representative of this line, Louis II de Poitiers-Valentinois (1354-1419), without a male heir, bequeathed his property to King Charles VI in 1404. This medieval castle became a power issue, especially when 62-year-old Louis II was captured in 1404 by his cousin John de Poitiers, with the complicity of his brother, the bishop of Valencia, and held prisoner in his own castle.

In 1447, the castle, then in ruins after centuries of conflict and neglect, was attached to the royal estate by Louis XI. Repair work was ordered between 1477 and 1516 to restore it. However, the wars of Religion in the sixteenth century ended to degrade it: in 1548 Henry II offered the estate to Diane de Poitiers, but the fighting between Protestants and Catholics, such as the capture of the castle by Montbrun in 1574 and its resumption by the Catholic troops, accelerated its decline. The walls were finally dismantled before the end of the 16th century.

In the 18th century, in 1792, the castle was acquired by the Grenoblois lawyer Pierre-François Duchesne, MP under the Executive Board. Despite its turbulent history, the entire estate — including the castle, its gardens, its park and its hydraulic installations — was inscribed in historical monuments in 1999, thus preserving this medieval heritage marked by power struggles and architectural transformations.

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