Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Salans, located in the Jura in Burgundy-Franche-Comté, finds its origins in the seventeenth century with the construction of a mansion by the Laborey family, on the banks of the Doubs. This mansion, acquired after the Revolution by Baron Claude-Alexandre Desbiez de Saint-Juan, was profoundly transformed in the early 19th century by his son, Charles de Saint-Juan, who gave him his current neoclassical style, with added wings and a redesigned facade.

Baron Charles de Saint-Juan, the general advisor of the Doubs, also modernized the interior in a management style and created a three-hectare English-style romantic park with a waterfall, river and exotic essences. This park, like the castle, was listed as historical monuments in 1992, thus preserving the architectural and landscape heritage of this property which welcomed the regional intellectual elite in the 19th century.

Originally, a medieval defensive castle existed on the hills of Salans, probably destroyed in 1479 by the troops of Louis XI. This first building belonged successively to the families of Vienna, Gorrevod and Jean Bontemps d'Arbois, treasurer of Burgundy. After the Revolution, the 17th century mansion, confiscated from the Laborey family (whose last heir was shot in 1798), passed to the Desbiez de Saint-Juan, which made it a place of culture and reception until 1918.

In the 20th century, the castle changed hands several times. In 1935 Félicien Ruffet, a former Republican guard who had returned from Laos, installed his family there and restored the property in a management style, adding orchards and hives. In 1985, the Ruffet family sold the estate, which was then meticulously restored by Monsieur and Madame Opelt (1997-2007) before becoming the property of the Guillemin family.

The architecture of the castle combines a 17th century tower, preserved at the rear, and a neoclassical facade opening onto the park. The latter, with its stream, pond and fence walls, as well as the east and north gates, has been protected as historical monuments since 1992. The large interior staircase, facades and roofs of the house body are also classified.

The castle of Salans was a high place in the intellectual life of France in the 19th century. Charles de Saint-Juan received figures like Charles Nodier, Auguste Castan and Charles Weiss. His daughter, Marie de Saint-Juan, nicknamed the "Mme de Sévigné franc-comtoise", animated a literary and musical salon, welcoming notably Charles de Montalembert and Father Lacordaire, while publishing religious and culinary works.

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