The fortified Flemish castle château de Grand-Rullecourt with its towers and crow’s-foot gables overlooks the road from Avesnes-le-Comte to Lucheux. The lords of Rullecourt were the generous donors of land to the Abbey of Mont-St-Eloi. Joan of Arc passed there as a prisoner in 1430. Antoine-Constant de Hamel started to build the new castle in 1746.
After the French Revolution, the chateau was sold as a national asset. His grandson bought it back but couldn't afford to keep it. It later belonged to Captain Wallerand de Hauteclocque, who was killed during World War I. After the war, the property was sold in parts. Later rented as a holiday camp, the castle was left uninhabited for some time. The daughter of Mr. Voisin, Mrs. Buneau, sold the chateau to Patrice and Chantal de Saulieu and their children on 24 December 1987. Today Château de Grand-Rullecourt is a Bed & Breakfast hotel.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.