Château des Rochers-Sévigné

The château des Rochers-Sévigné, a former Breton residence of Madame de Sévigné, is a 15th-century Gothic manor house located near Vitré in Ille-et-Vilaine, France.

After partial inscriptions in 1942 and 1944, the château has been listed as a historical monument since March 20, 1995.

The small château was built on a rocky hill – from which it derives its name – by the ancestors of Henri de Sévigné, a Breton nobleman, who married Marie de Rabutin-Chantal in 1644. The residence is built in an L-shaped plan and has two towers. There is also an octagonal chapel, built by Madame de Sévigné in 1671 for her uncle the abbé de Coulanges, known as the Bien-Bon, stables, and outbuildings added in the 18th century. At the back of the garden, a curved wall creates an echo when standing on a slab. Madame de Sévigné used it to read to her daughter.

The French-style garden was created in 1689 and restored in 1982. The whole property is bordered by a wooded park whose alleys were all named by Madame de Sévigné, who stayed at the château des Rochers several times after her husband's death. It was in this residence that she wrote many of her famous letters to her daughter, Françoise de Sévigné, countess of Grignan.

The chapel and a part of the manor, where portraits of the family and some items belonging to the marquise can be found, can be visited. A golf course, a restaurant and reception rooms have been set up on the property.

The seigneury of Rochers, despite its antiquity, was not a high jurisdiction; it only enjoyed medium and low justice exercised in Vitré in 1667 in the auditorium of the barony of Vitré to which it belonged.

At the beginning of the 17th century, the lord of Rochers also possessed the lordships of La Haye de Torcé, located in the parish of Torcé: this land belonged during the 15th and 16th centuries to the family of Bouschet. La Haye de Torcé, like Rochers, was under the jurisdiction of the barony of Vitré, and the lordship of Le Pin in the parish of Domalain: a fief that came into the hands of the lords of Sévigné through the marriage of one of them with Marguerite du Pouez. It was under the jurisdiction of the châtellenie of Désert united with the barony of Vitré. These two fiefs had high justice.

Text adapted from “Château des Rochers-Sévigné” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Château des Rochers-Sévigné ranks #2,519 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #197 of the 469 mapped in France. Founded c. 1550, it is older than 39% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 718 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,574 times in the last 60 days, more than 60% of the atlas. Wikidata records about 2,146 visitors in 2019. 1 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Angers, 82 km away. See how France compares in the castle statistics.

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