The château du Saussay is built on the ruins of a 15th-century feudal castle, and is a rare collection of two 18th-century châteaux facing each other at the entrance to a Romantic park surrounded by water. Inside, their reception rooms evoke the lives of their inhabitants.
The property of Olivier Le Daim, barber to the French kings from Louis XI to Louis XV, the château was burned by the Spanish during the Wars of Religion.
The owner obtained permission from Henry IV by letters patent to surround the château with water. He then rebuilt the château in the brick-and-stone style. The property of Me de Gaumont, a member of parliament, it was handed down by the women of the Bragelongne family, by Canclaux and finally Colbert at the start of the 19th century.
In 1735 a pavilion - identical in appearance to the original château - was built facing it, to give the appearance (surviving to this day) of two châteaux opening onto a park. Just before the French Revolution, the entry building and raised bridge were demolished and replaced with two elegant pavilions in the style of the architect Nicolas Ledoux (end of the 18th century). In the 19th century the Colberts doubled the size of the main pavilion and endowed the château with a magnificent library.
At the start of the 20th century, the château passed to the Bourbon Busset family, and the park was redesigned by the great landscape artist Achille Duchêne, joining the charm of parks in the English style with classical harmony of gardens in the French style. His redesigned park was made up of three perspectives, several water features, and lawns framed with topiary or planted with rare trees. The académicien Jacques de Bourbon Busset lived in this château, where his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren still live today.
References:The Petersberg Citadel is one of the largest extant early-modern citadels in Europe and covers the whole north-western part of the Erfurt city centre. It was built after 1665 on Petersberg hill and was in military use until 1963. It dates from a time when Erfurt was ruled by the Electors of Mainz and is a unique example of the European style of fortress construction. Beneath the citadel is an underground maze of passageways that can be visited on guided tours organised by Erfurt Tourist Office.
The citadel was originally built on the site of a medieval Benedictine Monastery and the earliest parts of the complex date from the 12th century. Erfurt has also been ruled by Sweden, Prussia, Napoleon, the German Empire, the Nazis, and post-World War II Soviet occupying forces, and it was part of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). All of these regimes used Petersberg Citadel and had an influence on its development. The baroque fortress was in military use until 1963. Since German reunification in 1990, the citadel has undergone significant restoration and it is now open to the public as a historic site.