Photo : Raphdvoj / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Château de Girecourt-sur-Durbion
The Château de Girecourt-sur-Durbion, in the Vosges, is a fortified 16th-century seigneurial residence built around 1540 by Pierre de Haraucourt. A description of 1755 shows four high walls flanked by a tower at each corner; it is surrounded by water-filled moats.
During the Thirty Years' War it was besieged by the Swedes at Easter 1639. It then passed to various owners, including the jurist Jean-François Humbert in 1705 and the Bourcier de Villers family, who in 1782 raised a column in the park commemorating a French victory at Minorca; it was destroyed in the Revolution, but its remains survive. The park was laid out and the château transformed in the first quarter of the 19th century.
A complete restoration begun in 1994 by the Courtalon family revealed 16th-century coffered ceilings, considered among the finest in Lorraine, and won a Vieilles Maisons françaises prize in 2012. The château is registered as a historic monument.
