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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

Wargemont Castle, located in Derchigny (Petit-Caux, Seine-Maritime), is a 18th and 19th century building marked by a total reconstruction in the 19th century. It belongs to the family The Fournier of Wargemont from the 15th century until the Revolution, before being transformed by Merlin de Douai (1812) and then by the Count of Haubersart, who re-engineered the park with English and modernized the interior. The medieval chapel, destroyed, was replaced in the 19th century.

From 1855, the castle passed to the Bérard family, notably to Paul Bérard, patron of Impressionists. The latter invited Pierre-Auguste Renoir from 1879 for creative stays until 1899. Renoir painted major works, including decorative panels for the dining room (classified in 1993) and landscape of the park, now scattered in international museums such as the Metropolitan Museum or the Orangery Museum. The estate becomes a meeting place for artists like Mary Cassatt, Gustave Caillebotte or Jacques-Émile Blanche.

The castle is partially classified as historical monuments: its ground floor (1986) and dining room with Renoir panels (1993). The interior decorations, dating back to the 1880s, illustrate the influence of impressionism on decorative art. The park, described as "a nice isolated place" by Mary Cassatt, has remained unchanged since the 19th century. Recent exhibitions, like Renoir. Rococo Revival (2022) at the Städel Museum, highlighted this heritage.

Before the Revolution, the castle was linked to Albert-Louis-Aymar Le Fournier, Count of Wargemont, officer and close to Voltaire, who organized a meeting there in 1772 to foil a Norman nobiliary conspiracy. Exile in 1789, he died in 1810 without returning. In the 19th century, the estate also welcomed literary figures such as Oscar Wilde (1897), who rented a beach cabin there, or Michel Déon, inspired by places in the 1970s.

The coat of arms of the Wargemont Fournier (silver with three Gules roses) symbolizes the family's secular attachment to this territory, now associated with Renoir's artistic heritage and rose, a recurring motif in his paintings on site. The castle, always privately owned, bears witness to the alliance between architectural heritage and art history.

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