The Château de Bouges is a manor was built in 1765, probably by Ange-Jacques Gabriel. It was built on lands acquired by Charles-François Leblanc de Manarval, the master of the royal forges and the director of the royal manufacturer of cloth in Châteauroux.
The château was modeled after the Petit Trianon at the Palace of Versailles. In 1818, the château became the property of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the former foreign minister of Napoleon Bonaparte. Talleyrand put it at the disposition of his niece and, according to rumors, his one-time mistress,Dorothée de Courlande (1793-1862). She was also owner from 1828 à 1847 of the Château de Rochecotte at Saint-Patrice.Then chateau was purchased by Tunisian general Mahmoud Benaiad.
In 1917, the château was purchased by Henry Viguier and his wife, Renée Normant, who restored it, decorated and refurbished it. Viguier was the président-directeur-général of the Paris department store Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville. In addition to the château, he owned a Paris town house on the avenue Foch, a manor house in Houlgate and a villa in Grasse. The Viguiers, who had no children, left the house and its furniture to the French state in 1968.
The château has a park of eighty hectares, which include a landscape garden, an arboretum, a floral garden created in 1920, large greenhouses, and a formal French garden. It also includes large stables which were later used as garages by the last owners. The manor is classified as a monument historique and the gardens are listed by the Ministry of Culture as among the Notable Gardens of France. The château and gardens are open to the public.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.