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Origin and history

The Tower of Cornillé is an atypical building built between 1833 and 1835 in Cornillé-les-Caves, Maine-et-Loire. Sponsored by Florent Lemercier-Lepré, it was built by the Dutch entrepreneur Alexis Lefebvre, specialist in lighthouses. Its architecture is inspired by the latter, with a cylindrical structure slightly truncated in tuffle stone, surmounted at the origin of a dome. The tower rests on a massive central pillar anchored in the underground galleries of the hill, exploited for the extraction of the tuft for centuries. This bold technical choice made it possible to stabilize the building despite a soil mined by cavities.

The tower initially served as a gazebo, offering a panoramic view of the surrounding area, as evidenced by its large bays and its sommital balustrade. It was also part of the landscaping of the Lemercier-Lepre property, the Charpenterie, in the same way as the 19th century park factories. Some historians suggest an influence of the Tuin brothers, an angeline landscaper, whose designs of ornamental gardens have similar structures. Its positioning, in the axis of the house, emphasized an aesthetic and symbolic will, typical of the rural residences of the era.

During the Second World War, the tower suffered major damage in July 1944, when the German army used it as a radio control station for a nearby airfield. The dome was torn off with the help of caterpillars, and a temporary scaffold damaged the structure. After the Liberation, a temporary tarpaulin cover was installed, but the building deteriorated rapidly. In the following years, a concrete slab replaced scaffolding to protect the upper terrace. The tower was finally listed as a historic monument on 1 March 2007, and a restoration campaign in 2012 was approved to renovate its waterproofing.

The Tower of Cornillé acquired a literary dimension thanks to Maurice Fourré, surrealist writer Angelvin. In her novel La Nuit du Rose-Hôtel (1950), prefaced by André Breton, she became the Colonne Saint-Cornille, owned by a character named Tonton-Coucou, and is described as a phallic symbol. This work helped to anchor the tower in the local cultural imagination, mixing architectural heritage and literary avant-garde.

The reasons for its construction remain subject to debate among historians. Two hypotheses dominate: on the one hand, the search for an exceptional point of view, as indicated by its name of observation tower on the old postcards; On the other hand, a desire to beautify the estate of the Charpenterie, according to the codes of the 19th century landscape parks. The tower, by its appearance and its positioning, created a remarkable visual perspective from the house, while harmoniously integrating into the surrounding landscape.

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