Photo : Chabe01 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Château Sainte-Barbe-des-Champs
The first building was erected in the 18th century on land once occupied by a house belonging to the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève, sold in 1649 to a counsellor at the Parlement of Metz. After the Revolution the château housed, until 1831, the Morin school, where Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) studied. In 1851 it was sold to the famous Paris college of Sainte-Barbe, which wanted to open a country annexe. Founded in 1460 by Geoffroy Lenormant, the college was placed under the patronage of Saint Barbara, martyred in the 3rd century.
The architect Henri Labrouste (1801-1875) fitted out the large school, whose pupils included Paul Deschanel (1855-1922), academician and President of the Republic, and Valery Larbaud (1881-1957), who recalled his school years in his novel Fermina Márquez (1911). From 1893 the park hosted the Rosati society, founded in 1778 to encourage poetry, for its annual Festival of Roses. The school closed in 1899. The building passed to the seminary of Notre-Dame-des-Champs, which had to give it up in 1907 under the law separating Church and State. The château now belongs to the town and hosts temporary exhibitions; its garden is open to the public.
