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Key figures

Origin and history

The Château de Montfleury is an ancient fortified house built in the 13th century, profoundly redesigned in the 16th and 18th centuries, then in the 19th century. Located on the town of Avressieux in Savoie, it was the center of the seigneury of Montfleury, raised in barony in the 18th century. The site preserves a 30-metre medieval dungeon, nicknamed the "Sarrazine Tower", to which were added a house body, a hexagonal tower and a scauguette in the Renaissance, then a neo-Renaissance wing in the 19th century.

The fief was mentioned for the first time in 1392, when Amédée Roccard became the owner by inferodation. In the 16th century, he passed into the hands of a branch of the Mareste family, which began restoration work in 1728, when the estate became a baronie. The last heir of the Mareste, Apollinaire Louis Adolphe, sold the castle fictively in 1858 to his mistress, the Baroness of Rubempré, before his death in 1867. The good then fell to their descendant, Isidore Alberte Cozette de Rubempré, wife of the Count of Luzerna, whose grandson, astronomer and inventor, gave him in 1893.

In the 20th century, the castle changed hands several times: bought in 1960 by M. Giraud, it was transformed into a holiday centre, which partially alters its structure. In 1972, M. Père l ́acquiert and restore it to a museum of the Old Terroir, thus preserving its architectural and historical heritage. The site preserves traces of its multiple transformations, mixing medieval, Renaissance and modern elements.

The Château de Montfleury is also linked to historical figures such as Louis Mandrin, the famous 18th-century smuggler, who would have made it one of his caches. A pistol that allegedly belonged to him is one of the collections of the current owner, Mark Prayer. The estate also served as a setting for several films, including Gloire and Dishonor (2017), celebrating Savoyard resistance, and Le Soldat deserves Paradise (2020), evoking the First World War.

Architecturally, the castle illustrates the evolution of styles throughout the centuries: the medieval dungeon, symbol of defensive power, contrasts with Renaissance additions (house bodies, hexagonal tower) and the neo-Renaissance wing of the 19th. These transformations reflect changes in the status of the estate, from a simple strong house to a seigneurial residence, then to aristocratic property under the Old Regime.

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