Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

Bécheville Castle, located on the eponymous plateau at Les Mureaux (Yvelines), is built in the middle of the 19th century in an eclectic style typical of the Second Empire. Its architecture blends bricks, cladding stones and slate roof, while its interiors preserve woodwork inspired by Pompeii, tapestries and Empire-style mirrors. The first 22-hectare park, now reduced, once housed a cooler for supplies. An oil on canvas, L-Automne or Le Repos after the hunt (copy of a missing work by François Boucher), as well as a painting depicting a rider, always adorn the rooms.

The seigneury of Bécheville belongs for two centuries to the family of Vion, originally from Burgundy. Mathieu de Vion (died 1645) built the first castle. In 1776 Pierre Louis Randon de Lucenay, a knight, bought the estate and saved his life during the Revolution by giving up his privileges. In 1811 Pierre Daru, Count of Empire and cousin of Stendhal, became owner. The novelist stays there for three weeks, inspiring an episode of Red and Black after a disappointment in love with Alexandrine Daru.

Between 1850 and 1860, Napoleon Daru, son of Pierre, erected the present castle. After 1890, the estate went into several hands, including that of the merchant Jules Fribourg, who had been plundered by the Nazis during the Second World War. In 1953, the town of Mureaux acquired the castle, turning it into a school (school group Jules Ferry) and, since 1977, into a municipal conservatory of music (Centre des Arts).

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