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Origin and history

The Château de Marimont, located in the hamlet of the same name on the commune of Bourdonnay (Moselle, Grand Est), is an estate acquired in 1791 by Marie-Anne Collot-Falconet. This territory, formerly dependent on the Counts of Rechicourt under the episcopal principality of Metz, was completely destroyed during the Thirty Years' War and rebuilt in the early eighteenth century. The village of Bourdonnay, whose etymology dates back to the Gallic name Bourdonus, underwent major administrative transformations, from the department of Meurthe in 1790 to that of Moselle after 1871, following German annexation.

In 1791, Marie-Anne Collot-Falconet, a figure linked to artistic circles (daughter of sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet), bought the Marimont estate, which spanned 316 hectares. His daughter, Marie Lucie Collot, married Baron Antoine-Stanislas Jankovitz in 1792, a noble of Hungarian origin whose godfather was Stanislas Leszczynski, former king of Poland. Their only son, Anselme, died tragically in 1830 at the age of 24, a victim of a hunting accident at the castle. His remains, originally buried in Bourdonnay Cemetery, were transferred in 1847 to a funeral crypt built by the Baron on the ruins of a medieval tower.

Marimont's crypt also houses the remains of Marie-Anne Collot (d. 1821), Baron Antoine Jankovitz (1847) and his wife Marie Lucie (1866). Their adopted son, Vincent-Ferdinand Jankovitz, and his wife Louise-Simone de Vaulchier, rest in the ancient tomb of Anselm in the village cemetery. The site also housed a Chappe tower between 1798 and 1852, serving as a telegraphic relay on the Paris-Strasbourg line, demonstrating its strategic role in the communications of the time.

Bourdonnay, marked by his Lorraine history, suffered the consequences of European conflicts, notably the Thirty Years' War and the German annexations (1871-1918). The commune, rural and scattered, is part of the regional natural park of Lorraine and the country of ponds, with an economy historically linked to agriculture and river canals, such as that of the Marne on the Rhine. The castle of Marimont, although little documented before the 18th century, thus embodies several strata of local, family and technical history.

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