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Origin and history

Robert the Devil's Castle, located in Moulineaux, Normandy, is a castle built at the end of the 10th century, today in ruins. Its remains are located in a wood, 500 meters southwest of the church of Saint-Jacques-le-Majeur, on the edge of the A13 motorway. Built on a cliff overlooking the Seine on the left bank, it offered a strategic position to monitor the two branches of a river loop and control the surroundings of Rouen. Its location made it an ideal lookout point for the Rouenne region.

The origin of his name remains uncertain: he could refer to Robert II of Bellême, Robert the Magnificent (father of William the Conqueror), or to a count of Moulineaux of the ninth century, Robert the son of Duke Aubert, according to the sources. No historical evidence confirms its construction by these characters, but a local legend attributes it to them. Jean sans Terre would have contributed to its construction or expansion between 1200 and 1203. In 1365 Charles II of Navarre restored the castle to the king of France John II the Good, in the framework of a political agreement.

Over the centuries, the castle has undergone several transformations and degradations. His ditches were filled in 1855, and in January 1871 he became a place marked by fighting during the Franco-Prussian war, especially for the Ardèche mobile guards. Between 1903 and 1905, Lucien Lefort, pupil of Viollet-le-Duc, partially rebuilt the castle for Oscar Cosserat, owner of the time. Ranked a protected site in 1935, it was restored in the 1950s by Roger Parment, then mayor of Moulineaux, who built historical reconstructions and medieval scenes there.

Open to the public until 2003 with nearly 50,000 visitors annually in the 1980s, the castle was then closed for security reasons. A fire in 2007 destroyed the floors of the North Tower, known as "of Rouen". Repurchased by the Community of the agglomeration of Rouenne, a €700,000 programme was launched to rehabilitate the surroundings. Today, the moat and the court are accessible to the public, while the rest of the site awaits complete restoration.

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