Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Placard, located in Mœurs-Verdey in the Marne, finds its origins in the 11th century as a Romanesque fortress. It would have been looted twice by the leaguers during the Wars of Religion (16th century). Over the centuries, it belonged to influential families: the James (XVth century), the Fauquier and Condé (early XVIth), then the Le Cordelier (XVIIIth), which made it recast by architect Charles François Roland le Virloys, known for his work at Metz and his links with Newtonian theories. The castle, directly dependent on the crown from Philip IV the Bel, escaped revolutionary confiscation thanks to the alliance of the Cordelier with the Oudet family.

The name Placard derives from the knights Pacarz, vassals of the Counts of Blois-Champagne, mentioned in charters of the 12th–13th centuries under the names Thierry, Gautier or Guillaume. The fief, originally called Villiers, became a toponym after the Hundred Years War. In the 18th century, the estate was rethought according to the principles of the Enlightenment: a walkway of perspective of 1 km, inspired by the works of the Varignon surveyor (1717), was laid out, while the plantations were entrusted to the royal nursery of Rieux. An engraved date, 1723, recalls the majority of Louis XV and the submission of the seigneury to the monarchy.

During modern conflicts, the castle served as a field hospital during World War I and was occupied by Germans in 1870 and 1940–44. It houses a forest covering ancient clay quarries, rich in biodiversity, and two sources feeding its moat, cleaned in 2020 by volunteers. Passed by inheritance and successive sales, it has been owned since the 19th century by the family Des Portes, including a member, Albert des Portes, naval officer, who acquired it after 1848.

Among the notable figures related to the castle, Pierre Jacques (15th century), seigneur des Bordes, or Jean Guillegan de Beaulieu, mathematician and professor of geometry, who defended his property during a 70-year trial against the heirs of a Parisian notary. Louis Emmanuel de Valois, Count of Alais and grandson of Charles IX, also owned it. The architect Roland le Virloys, professor of Jean-Baptiste Delambre (creator of the metric system), applied innovative techniques, such as the pantograph, presented at Versailles in 1768.

The castle, spared by the destruction despite the wars, preserves medieval and classical elements. Its dovecote, its titrated farm, and its moat make it a rare example of architectural and historical continuity, from the knights of the Middle Ages to the scholars of the Enlightenment, to the upheavals of the 19th and 20th centuries.

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