Photo : Mairie de Villemomble / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Château de Villemomble
In the Middle Ages the seigneurial residence of Villemomble, in the Seine-Saint-Denis, seems to have been no more than a small turreted castle surrounded by ditches and reached by a drawbridge. The Renaissance château is better known. It was one of King François I's favourite stops when he came hunting in the surrounding forests; the owner was then Florimond Robertet, Treasurer of France.
The estate then passed to Tristan, Marquis de Rostaing and confidant of the king, when he married in 1544 Françoise Robertet, Florimond's granddaughter, who from 1560 was lady-in-waiting to Catherine de' Medici. Bénigne Le Ragois de Bretonvilliers, a counsellor at the Parlement of Paris, bought the lordship in the following century. Also owners of the neighbouring châteaux of Avron and Noisy, the family ruled a vast estate. It was partly broken up in 1765, when Madame de Montmirail, née Le Ragois de Bretonvilliers, sold the lands of Villemomble and Noisy to the councillor of state Jean-Baptiste Paulain d'Aguesseau de Fresnes.
