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Origin and history

The Château de Villeneuve-l'Étang, located in Marnes-la-Coquette in the Hauts-de-Seine, was originally an estate belonging to Louis François Marie Le Tellier de Barbezieux, Secretary of State for War under Louis XIV. When he died in 1701, his heirs sold the estate to Michel Chamillart, another minister of Louis XIV. The latter undertook important work, expanding the estate to 450 acres and completing the Étang Castle, which served as the main residence. The Château de Villeneuve, for its part, housed the manager, the fontainerier and the greenhouses, while a third residence, the Château de La Marche, welcomed the stables.

Following Chamillart's disgrace in 1709, the estate was fragmented and sold. The Château de l'Étang is destroyed, while the Château de Villeneuve, surrounded by a 100-hectare park, passes into the hands of influential personalities, such as Marshal Soult under the First Empire, then the Duchess of Angoulême until 1830. In 1852, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, future Napoleon III, acquired the estate and stayed there with Empress Eugénie, especially on their honeymoon in 1853.

Villeneuve-l'Étang Castle was finally destroyed in the 1880s. The estate, which became public in 1878, was partly attributed to Louis Pasteur for his research. The buildings built under Napoleon III still remain today, bearing witness to the rich and turbulent history of this place.

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