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Origin and history

Turenne Castle, also called Turenne Farm, is a collection of remains located in Bazeilles, in the Ardennes department. The most remarkable building still standing is its entrance pavilion, characterized by a charretier arcade framed by two carved pilasters. This pavilion, surmounted by a broken pediment, preserves the traces of an old drawbridge, while a stretch probably overlooking the entrance originally. On the left, a secondary door in the middle of the hangar and a wall pierced with firing posts recall its defensive use. Inside, a building with arcades on the ground floor and a low floor completes the whole.

According to the sources, the castle was built around 1600 by Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Prince of Sedan and Viscount of Turenne, to house his second son, the future Marshal Turenne, between 1611 and 1618. Damaged during the Franco-German war of 1870 and then during the First World War, the site was partially restored. It has been listed as historical monuments since 1950, demonstrating its heritage importance despite its fragmented state.

The castle illustrates the defensive and residential architecture of the modern era, while bearing the stigma of the conflicts that marked the region. Its entrance pavilion, with its carved elements and defence devices, offers a characteristic example of the seigneurial constructions of the early seventeenth century in the Ardennes. Successive restorations have preserved part of its heritage, although war-related destruction has altered much of its original structure.

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