Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

Bellefontaine Castle is an iconic monument located in Samois-sur-Seine, in the Seine-et-Marne department, in the Île-de-France region. Ranked in a Natura 2000 area, it dominates the Seine valley and lies in the heart of the Fontainebleau forest. Its 3.6-hectare park, listed in the General Inventory of Cultural Heritage, bears witness to its historical and landscape importance.

Between 1800, the castle was acquired by Nicolas Bergasse, member of the third state and adviser to Louis XVI, who sold it after his wife's death in 1807. He then became the property of Prince Nicolas Troubetskoi, ambassador of the Tsar of Russia to Paris, then of his daughter Catherine Troubetskoi and his son-in-law, Prince Nicolas Orloff, a Russian diplomat. Prince Vladimir Nicolayevich Orloff, son of Nicolas Orloff, lived there until his death in 1927, after being withdrawn from the Russian revolution.

In the 20th century, the castle served as a holiday settlement centre before being used for receptions and seminars by the town hall of Samois-sur-Seine. Owned by the city of Paris since 1944, it was put on sale in 2011 for an amount of two million euros. In 2018, it was acquired by the community of agglomeration of the Pays de Fontainebleau to develop a reception area for Travellers, with an estimated project of 3.5 million euros.

Today, Bellefontaine Castle is in a degraded state, despite its rich past linked to Russian diplomacy and French political history. Its future now depends on rehabilitation projects carried out by its new owners.

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