The Burgundian castle (or, more accurately, "fortified house") was built halfway up the slope of what is now the Rue de Bourgogne. In 1230, Rénier de Bricon paid homage to the Bishop of Langres for the Burgundian fiefdom, after selling him the seigneury. It later belonged to the de Blaisy family, and in 1348 was divided between Eudes de Grancey, Jean de Monstreuil, Guillaume de Blaisy and Ferric de Fougerolles (prior of the nearby hôtel-dieu in Mormant). In 1374, we find Jeanne d'Ecot, lady of "Marac-en-Mormant" (widow of Guillaume de Blaisy). Then, in 1377, this seigneury was bought for 1020 pounds by Garneret de Chauffour and his brother Jean, esquire, known as Raillart and Garneret, thus reuniting the two seigneuries in the de Chauffour family.|Subsequently, the successive owners of the fortified house are known through the faith and homage paid to the Bishop of Langres: Jean de Chauffour, bailly of Chaumont in 1423, then on his death Marguerite de Chauffour, married to Antoine de Vaudrey, became Lady of Marac at the time of the Hundred Years' War. The fortified house was then destroyed (around 1462-1473) during the heroic siege of the town, which was retaken from the English by the Langrois. Although in ruins, the castle was honoured by several members of the de Vaudrey family, before falling into the hands of Antoinette de Bourbon, Duchess of Guise (who bought half the seigneury in 1557), "Dowager of Guise and Joinville, Lady of Donjeux and Marac", wife of Claude de Lorraine, Lord of Joinville. The other half of the seigneury fell to Anne de Gournay, wife of Jean de Montarby, whose grandson, Claude de Montarby, declared himself lord of the Burgundian stronghold of Marac in 1559. Antoinette de Bourbon gradually brought together all the fragments of the seigneury of Marac, before becoming Baroness of Marac and emancipating the inhabitants of her seigneury in 1555.
After her death in 1583, Marac passed to her grandson Charles, Duke of Elbeuf, at the very start of the Wars of Religion. He donated it to his wife Marguerite Chabot, whose daughter, heir to the Burgundian seigneury, was married to François d'Aubusson, Marshal of France and Duc de la Feuillade. The château, which had been destroyed by the Langrois family during the capture of the Champagne château occupied by the Ligueurs, was rebuilt in the time of Louis XIV by their son, Louis d'Aubusson, Duc de la Feuillade, as a pleasure house used as a hunting lodge. It is this house with its adjoining turret that we can still see today.
Not open to the public: this private site can only be viewed from the outside.
Château Bourguignon de Marac
