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Origin and history

The castle of Thorigny-sur-Oreuse, built in the 18th century in the department of Yonne, was built in 1726 by Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Lambert, on the ruins of a previous castle dating back to the 16th-17th centuries. The latter, surrounded by water and equipped with a fortified courtyard, belonged to influential families such as the Lamberts, linked to the court of Louis XIV by matrimonial alliances. The present park, with its canals, basins and beds, was redesigned around 1680, and a poster of the 1740s attributed its route to the famous landscaper André Le Nôtre, collaborator of the governor of Versailles, Alexandre Bontemps, stepfather of Claude-Jean-Baptiste Lambert.

The 18th century castle, of Regency style, was enlarged before being confiscated during the French Revolution from its owners, Planelli, who had been dispossessed. Acquired by Italian entrepreneurs in Auxerre, it was shaved in 1806, and its decorative elements (like marble fireplaces in Rance) were dispersed among the inhabitants. Only the gardens, registered with the Historical Monuments in 1995 and 2002, today bear witness to this past, with their hydraulic network preserved since the seventeenth century.

The site underwent a last transformation under the Restoration, with the construction of a bourgeois house in 1830, integrating part of the historic park. The scattered archives (library of Auxerre, British Library, Archives of Yonne) and the study funds on the history of Lyons recall the cultural importance of this domain, formerly linked to figures such as Chancellor Juvenal des Ursins or the families Du Plessis and Hemery, owners of the previous castles since the 13th century.

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