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Origin and history

The castle of Mailloc, also known as the Château des Quatre Mailloc, is a building in ruins located on the former town of Saint-Julien-de-Mailloc, in Calvados (Normandy). It was considered one of the monumental wonders of the region. Its name comes from the four surrounding municipalities (Saint-Julien, Saint-Denis, Saint-Martin and Saint-Pierre de Mailloc), towards which its towers were oriented. The castle stood on the eastern shore of the Orbiquet, in the heart of a domain extending over these four parishes.

A first fortress, destroyed during the Hundred Years' War, was still in ruins in 1462. The Barony of Mailloc was entirely rebuilt in the late 15th or early 16th century. In 1551 John de Mailloc admitted to the bishop of Lisieux, the cardinal of Annebaut. Over the centuries, the castle changed hands and was radically reshaped. In 1693 René-Gabriel de Mailloc obtained the erection of his baronie in marquisat and undertook important works, completed by his son, Gabriel-René de Mailloc.

The castle then passed to the Harcourt family, and was acquired in 1760 by the Countess of Houdetot, daughter of the farmer general Louis Denis Lalive of Bellegarde. In the 19th century, he belonged to the physicist Pierre-Simon de Laplace, then to his descendants, notably the families of Portes and Colbert. An accidental fire, triggered by a cook in December 1925, almost completely destroyed the building, despite the help sent from Lisieux and Orbec. The sinister ravages furniture, tapestries, libraries and historical objects, such as the sword of Charles Quint.

Not rebuilt due to lack of assurance, the castle was partially listed as historical monuments in 1933. Since the 1980s, stabilization work has made a wing partially habitable. Before its destruction, the castle had a quadrangular enclosure flanked by round towers surrounded by moat. Its interior housed tapestries of the Gobelins, porcelains of Sèvres, and a library of 20,000 books, including documents by Laplace and Colbert.

Today, the ruins of the castle of Mailloc bear witness to its prestigious past, marked by noble families and scholars, in a landscape preserved between Lisieux and Orbec. Its history reflects the architectural and social transformations of Normandy, from medieval wars to modern times.

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