This history of the construction is manifest when we look upon this curious pile of different buildings. Above, the ruin of the donjon; at the foot of the slope and united to it, a grand chateau whose front façade is framed by two towers of the Middle Ages; and before this semi-feudal abode, charming stables in the style of those of Chantilly. A grandiose aggregation, utterly without harmony, almost barbaric, but in which is reflected with attractive clearness the whole past of France, from the invasion of the Normans to the Revolution.
Beautiful furnishings, lovely paintings, fine carvings, adorn the apartments. The walls of the salon are covered with matchless tapestries, which portray the history of Esther. But it is the portraits which monopolize our attention here. Some are mere copies. The others are attributed—correctly—to Mignard, to de Troy, to Nattier. They evoke the glorious or charming memories of the castellans and the chatelaines, and, thanks to them, the whole past of La Roche-Guyon is born again. I do not know that there is in the whole of France a chateau so rich in memories and in history.
[Original]
It belonged to the Guys de la Roche, and the wife of one of them, the heroic Perrette de la Riviere, there sustained a siege of five months against the English. In the sixteenth century it belonged to the Sillys, and you may be shown the chamber where, on the morrow of the battle of Ivry, King Henri found a good supper, a good lodging and nothing more, for the virtuous Marquise de Guercheville ordered that his coach should be harnessed, so that he went away to the house of one of his lady friends two leagues from there—an admirable adventure on which a novel might be written. Then La Roche passed to the du Plessis-Liancourts: thus its name is mingled with the history of Jansenism; then to the La Rochefoucaulds: the author of the Maxims dwelt here; then, after the Revolution, to the Rohans, and in 1829 it returned to the La Rochefoucaulds. These names alone are a pæan of glory.
Among the portraits hung on the walls several represent the Marquise d'Enville at various ages. What pretty, fine features! It was this Marquise who created the château as it still exists today, and transformed the old citadel into a home of luxury. Her father, Alexandre de la Rochefoucauld, exiled by Louis XV to La Roche-Guyon, had taken advantage of the leisure given him by the King's disfavor to commence great works in his domain; he had planted trees upon the naked hillside, thrown down the useless embattlements of the fortress and constructed a new pavilion. The Marquise d'Enville succeeded him in 1779 and continued his work. Without thinking of expense, she built, laid out gardens, ordered paintings, tapestries and statues. She was a woman of taste and spirit: she corresponded with Walpole and Voltaire, was intimate with Turgot and Condorcet, declared herself the pupil of the philosophers, and made her salon the rendezvous of the economists. But it was said that she practiced philosophy more than she preached it; she had founded a free school in her village and had engaged nuns to teach in it; in years of bad harvests, she opened charitable workrooms for the poor. She showed herself faithful and open-hearted in her friendships, for she remained the friend of Mlle. de L'Espinasse without ceasing to be the friend of Madame du Deffand. She was one of those aristocrats who worked with candid generosity for the ruin of the aristocracy: the Revolution neither surprised nor frightened her. But, on September 4, 1792, a band of revolutionists at Gisors murdered her son, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, who had sat in the Constituent Assembly among the Constitutionalists. In the following year she was herself denounced, arrested, thrown into prison and owed her liberty, perhaps her life, only to a petition of the citizens of the commune of La Roche-Guyon. She died in 1797 at the age of eighty.
A little way back we met Boileau, dreaming at the foot of the bluff of Haute-Isle. A few steps farther on, at La Roche-Guyon, we meet Hugo and Lamartine; both stopped in this château during the Restoration.
La Roche then belonged to the Duc de Rohan-Chabot.