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Origin and history

The Château de Montmusard, located in Dijon in Burgundy-Franche-Comté, is an emblematic pleasure house of the French neoclassical style. Built in 1765 according to Charles De Wailly's plans for Jean-Philippe Fyot de La Marche, the first president of the Parliament of Burgundy, it embodies the social ascent of this family of magistrates. The estate, initially modest, was expanded over four generations to become a 137-hectare park, adorned with French gardens, fountains and a spectacular kiosk with a flying table, a popular ingenious mechanism of Louis XV.

De Wailly's architectural project, inspired by the ancient temples, juxtaposed two circular salons: an open doric peristyle (l-Odeum) and a covered rotunda dedicated to the Muses. The construction, supervised by Abbé Fabarel, was completed around 1769, but the Marquis de La Marche, ruined by debts and the Maupeou reform, died in 1772. The castle, sold and partially demolished in 1795 by Claude-Hubert Antony, lost its rotundas and southern wing. In the 19th century, the estate was divided by subdivisions and the installation of railway infrastructures.

Today, there remains only one rectangular wing of the castle, classified as Historic Monument in 1929, surrounded by a wooded land of three hectares. The paintings of Jean-Baptiste Lallemand and the engravings of the Voyage Pittoresque de la France (1786) bear witness to his former splendor. Montmusard remains an early and audacious example of neoclassicism in France, marked by the influence of travels to Italy and Dijon intellectual circles.

Montmusard's kiosk, built in 1748 by Claude-Philibert Fyot de La Marche, father of the sponsor, was an octagonal pavilion decorated with rock and surmounted by a lantern. Equipped with a flying table mechanism for intimate dinners, it was described as a "wonderful" before falling into ruins in the late eighteenth century. This building, placed on a semi-entered podium, offered a view of the canal and gardens, now missing.

Charles De Wailly, a Parisian architect protected by the Marquis de Voyer, initially proposed a mansard project before opting for a temple dedicated to Apollo and the Muses. This innovative party, combining open colonnade and closed rotunda, was exhibited at the Salon of 1771. The construction site, undermined by financial conflicts and the control of Abbé Fabarel, ended in emergency. The statues of the Seasons and Muses, carved by François Attiret, briefly decorated the peristyle before the sale of the estate.

The assumptions about the failure of the castle, defended by Eugène Fyot and Allan Braham, underline the absence of foundations under the Muses Salon. According to them, the views of German would be idealized, and the small wing in return would date from the initial construction. Yves Beauvalot, on the other hand, claims that the building was well finished, but dismantled to escape revolutionary tax. The current remains, integrated into the Saint-Dominique school, recall this lost heritage.

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