And I am back seeking castles again, this time up the alley from my house lol! You won’t believe it but I have been to Concarneau with the family in several occassions, just browse search in my blog. Each time I made reference to this castle to go see it just outside of town, and never did! until today! Goes without saying there is so much beauty to see in my belle France I am afraid won’t have time to see it all, and why see something else.
I like to present to you the Château de Kériolet and its unique architecture and history. The Château de Kériolet is a neo-Gothic and part Renaissance castle located near Beuzec-Conq in the town of Concarneau, in dept 29 of Finistère in my lovely Bretagne. It is less than an hour from my house!
A bit of history I like
Kériolet appears in the texts for the first time in 1481. There resides Jean Trévaré, ducal accountant at Concarneau during the restoration work on the ramparts. In the 17C, Jean de Kerguen, notary at the Conq court, succeeded him, and in 1752, the former mayor Jean-Pierre Billette. In the late 1850s, under the Second Empire, the Champenois Charles Chauveau in of territorial artillery and diplomatic courier, responsible for transporting suitcases and dispatches between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the embassy of France in St. Petersburg, met the Russian princess Zinaïda Ivanovna Ioussoupova; born Naryshkin, immensely rich and widowed. She falls in love with him and wants to marry her; in the face of scandal, Tsar Alexander II consents, but exiles the princess and lays down conditions; Chauveau is made a Roman Count and becomes Count Chauveau; later he appropriated or purchase the names and coats of arms such as the blue of a a leopard of gold laden with three stars of gargouilles of an extinct family from the Nantes region, that of Chauveau de La Mulonnière, ennobled in 1663 ; he is made Marquis de Serres. In order to stand for election, in the new Brittany, the young candidate must acquire a residence in the constituency he covets, which makes him look for a property; elected in 1860 and bought personally in 1861 the estate of Kériolet, in Beuzec-Conq , later the town will be attached to Concarneau in 1945.
The new Château de Kériolet has copies or similarities to the castle of Blois (equestrian statue in bas-relief of Louis XII on the facade), the castle of Rustéphan (turret-staircase), the priory of Locamand (portal entrance) in its decorations. On the south wing, carved crowns of count and marquis, fleurs-de-lis, hermines of Brittany, Russian-inspired stars, scallops, letters A (for Anne de Bretagne) and L (for Louis XII) are contiguous.
The park is decorated with statues: a Velléda, a copy of that of Hippolyte Maindron exposed to the Louvre of Paris; a Vercingetorix, a Charles VIII, and an Anne de Bretagne statues, the good duchess so dear to the heart of the princess, a Joan of Arc, a Bertrand Du Guesclin. The park also includes, in the immediate vicinity of the castle, the guard tower, and the Marie-Jeanne Tower ;named after the Count’s cook!.
The 57-year-old Count de Chauveau died in October 1882 in Kériolet. Charles de Chauveau had left the estate to his sister, Madame Prieur. His widow Zénaïde bought Kériolet and decided to donate it, with the land and its collections, to the department of Finistère, provided to leave everything as is. She spent a few more summers in her residence in Concarneau, before dying in turn in 1893. Her remains were repatriated to Russia.
The great-grandson of Princess Zénaïde, Prince Félix Youssoupoff and his wife, Princess Irina Alexandrovna (the niece of Tsar Nicholas II), left Russia on April 11, 1919, aboard a battleship of the Royal Navy, the HMS Marlborough sent to Yalta, Crimea by King George V of the UK , to rescue his Russian cousins, members of the imperial family. Much later, in the 1950s, Youssoupoff brought a lawsuit in restitution of the castle for non-compliance with the testamentary provisions of her great grandmother, After years of proceedings, the prince won his trial in 1956; Youssoupoff enters into possession of Kériolet, which does not please him, and very quickly the collections are scattered and the land fragmented; he proposes to the city of Concarneau to acquire the castle, the talks drag on. He offers the wells of the kitchens, which was reassembled in the closed city of Concarneau (where you can see it today at the entrance to the right). The estate is reduced to skin of sorrows and is finally sold and resold. In 1971 the chapel is destroyed and its stones recovered to build a house. The castle is deteriorating inexorably; some elements of interior decoration and the park disappear during thefts. The storm of 1987 carries away the roof. Then, Christophe Lévèque, buys the castle, restores it and opens it again to the public as is today , still in renovation on the upper floors who are also his living quarters and not visited.
The visit of the Château de Kériolet is by guided tour and a very good one too. They come for you in the garden by the front door and take you to the big salon, main entrance lobby. It follows the guards’s room but was really an entertainment salon, then the living room, hunting room, the kitchen and the cellars. All with anecdotes of the periods of the castle from the 15C to the 19C ,and the fact that most of the furniture is not original but put it to give it a resemblance of living castle (the furniture was sold all over) , some still goes back to the 15C. The personage of Charles is unique as not been Breton he incarnate all of it in his architecture demands and decorations even trying to be a knight himself of royal blood which was not true. All a fascinating walk thru a beautiful castle very close to me! Done!
Some webpages to help you plan your trip here and should be side visit from the ville close fortified town of Concarneau are
The official Concarneau tourist office on the Kériolet castle : https://www.deconcarneauapontaven.com/en/heritages/chateau-de-keriolet/
Tourist office of Brittany on the Keriolet castle
And there you go another dandy castle in the dukedom of Bretagne indeed, plenty of all kinds abound in my lovely Brittany and belle France. I am just starting lol! Enjoy the Castle of Keriolet in Concarneau !!
And remember ,happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all !!!
Paris1972-Versailles2003 