Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

Neuilly Castle, built in 1751 in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris, was originally owned by the Earl of Argenson, Secretary of State of Louis XV. The latter received philosophers like Diderot, Voltaire and Rousseau. The castle, adorned with an ionic order and dominating the Seine, was inherited and sold in 1766 after the death of Argenson, for Louis XV refused his legacy.

Acquired in 1819 by the Orléans family, the castle became their summer residence. Louis-Philippe I had important work done there by architect Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, expanding the wings and developing the park. The estate, which extended over 170 hectares, also included the Château de Villiers, bought and integrated by Murat in 1804.

During the revolution of 1848, the castle was burned and looted. Confiscated by Napoleon III in 1852, the park was loti from 1854. Only a 19th-century wing, integrated in 1908 into a convent of the Sisters of Saint-Thomas de Villeneuve (52 d'Argenson Boulevard), remains today. This vestige now houses a chapel dedicated to Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Déliverance.

The park, once fenced and wooded, was divided into 700 lots after 1854, giving rise to current streets and boulevards of Neuilly. The island of La Jatte, accessible by a wire bridge built under Louis-Philippe, housed a " temple of Love" transferred from Monceau Park. The estate was also occupied by institutions such as the boarding school Notre-Dame-des-Arts (1863-1874).

Among the notable owners were Talleyrand, who resided there as a tenant, and Murat, king of Naples, who held a great party there. Princess Pauline Borghèse, sister of Napoleon I, briefly inherited it, but judged it unsanitary. The castle was finally a place of discreet power for the July monarchy, reflecting its bourgeois style.

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