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Origin and history

The castle of Nozoy, originally a 13th century castle, was founded in 1262 by Jean I of Chalon, founder of the house of Chalon. Built as a main residence and stronghold, it protects local seigneuries, especially the rich saline of Lons-le-Saunier and Salins-les-Bains, the heart of the Jurassian salt industry. Nozeroy, capital of the fief, is then surrounded by thirty fortresses to secure the area.

In 1432, Louis II of Chalon-Arlay, prince of Orange, transformed the castle into a luxurious Renaissance palace. Nicknamed the "pearl of the Jura", this palace houses a fabulous courtyard, decorated with goldsmithies, tapestries and precious dishes. He welcomed illustrious guests such as the Dukes of Burgundy Philip the Good and Charles the Temerary, or the future King Louis XI in 1456. Humanist Gilbert Cousin bragging in his writings, describing sumptuous festivals and a refined court life.

The prosperity of the palace declined after 1530, with the death without heir of Philibert de Chalon, last prince of the house of Chalon-Arlay. The states of Franche-Comté, sitting in Nozeroy since the 14th century, were transferred to Dole. In the 17th century, the castle was looted and occupied by military forces during the war of Ten Years (1634-1644). In the 18th century, Princess Elizabeth Pauline of Ghent of Merode, heiress of the place, partially dismantled the palace to reuse its materials in her new castle of Arlay, before being guillotined in 1794.

The ruins, already weakened by a fire in 1815 that pushed the villagers to take its stones, fell down permanently in 1868. Today, only the tower that has been listed as a historical monument since 1927, remains of a past in which Nozeroy was a political and cultural centre of Franche-Comté.

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