Photo : Wikimedia Commons
'Gentlemen of England, fire first!' is the famous phrase associated with the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, won by Marshal de Saxe. In gratitude, Louis XV made him a Marshal of France and gave him Chambord and certain privileges.
In 1748 he bought the Château de la Grange, at Yerres in the Essonne, which now proudly bears his name. It stands in an immense park.
The château stands on the site of the 15th-century manor house, seat of the seigneury of Athis.
Of all the seigneurial and bourgeois residences along the left bank of the Seine, the Château de Beauvoir is the only one still intact.
Pierre Durey d'Harnoncourt bought the property in 1739 and built the present château on the site of the 'maison plate' of the first lords of Morsang.
Built on the site of a fortified Gallo-Roman farm; in 1512 Augustin de Thou replaced the first castle with three Renaissance pavilions.
The fief of La Fontaine is only reliably recorded from the 13th century; under the Ancien Régime it was a small estate.
The first château on the Vilgénis estate dates from 1216; it was occupied by the lord Hugues de Villa Genis.