PLATFORM: Reimagining Heritage at a French Château

It is a crisp November morning when I arrive in a small village in central France. Montrond-les-Bains, as the name suggests, is best known for its thermal baths. But I have come to see its ruined medieval château.

The Château de Montrond, parts of which date to the twelfth century, sits on a hill overlooking farmland. Once a military fortress, in the Renaissance, nobles transformed it into a sublime residence. During the Revolution, the republican army pillaged and set fire to the château, quashing any remnants of its old grandeur. After several years as a quarry, it was left in ruins, for over a century. It was added to France’s national list of Historic Monuments in 1934, and partly restored in the 1970s by the Friends of the Château du Montrond, a local association that continued to maintain it for the next fifty years. During this time, the association used the château’s tower to house a local postal museum (after the retiring local postman made a large donation in the 1990s); in 2012, it began developing plans for a medieval garden on the grounds. Under the group’s stewardship, the château also became the site of festivals, conferences, and other community events, receiving around six thousand visitors a year. But today I am the only one, and for a good reason: the château is closed for renovations.

Figure 1. The Château de Montrond. Photograph by Emma Krasnopoler, 2022.

Figure 2. A construction notice posted outside the closed Château de Montrond in November 2022. The notice distinguishes between the “restoration” of the château and its “development” into a tourist attraction. Notably, the notice does not mention the Friends of the Château de Montrond Association. Photograph by Emma Krasnopoler, 2022.

Discussions of French heritage often conjure images of grand monuments from the highest echelons of society and culture. Châteaux, such as Versailles and those of the famed Loire Valley, hold a special place in the minds of tourists and citizens. They serve as trademarks of the country’s heritage industry. Their association, especially during the Revolutionary period, with political corruption and economic inequality may have once foreshadowed their gradual erasure through neglect. Yet in the nineteenth century, state officials advocated to preserve châteaux as spaces of historical, cultural, and moral formation. Today that trend is accelerating.

This sort of historic preservation can be problematic. The history that is represented in châteaux privileges the elite: the rich and royal who built and owned these great houses, the architects who conceived of them, and the bureaucrats who used the power of the state to save them from ruin (in France, bureaucrats also tend to hail from elite circles). But it’s not only that. As critical heritage scholar Laurajane Smith has argued, France has long perpetuated an “authorized heritage discourse” that uses historic sites like the châteaux to maintain the authority of the state as the sole guardian of French heritage and cultural identity, with all decisions about the restoration, management, and interpretation approved by officials in the Ministry of Culture and Commission of Historic Monuments. The Ministry of Culture, located in Paris, oversees regional offices of the Direction régionale des Affaires culturelles (DRAC). DRAC officials are particularly involved in implementing the heritage policies of the Ministry of Culture, and provide “a variety of intervention, facilitation, advisory, control and evaluation functions.” DRAC activities are closely monitored by the Ministry and its work is widely viewed as a direct extension of the State.

It is this hierarchical dynamic at work today. In 2021, the city of Montrond-les-Bains launched a major restoration effort of the château with funds from a national economic stimulus plan (France Relance that dedicates €2 billion to heritage sites. Experts provided by the Ministry of Culture, the Loire Department, and local government officials devised a €1.6 million plan to restore the exterior walls, tower, entrance, interior commons, and main façade. The project will also displace the postal museum to make space for an installation showing the daily life of a feudal lord, including a staged bedroom, dining room, and guard room. According to the city, “the goal is to recreate a medieval dwelling, as if the lord had just left the place 10 minutes ago.” The lord in question is Artaud IX of Saint Germain, who married Marguerite d'Albon in 1523 and was closely linked to the King of France. In addition, the vault of the chapel on the top floor of the tower will be recreated to provide an observation deck for taking in the surrounding landscape, the emblematic plaine du Forez.

Local officials insist these changes are for the common good because, the Ministry of Culture tells them, they will stimulate tourism. But there are costs. Under the stewardship of the Friends of the Château du Montrond, the site not only added the Postal Museum but was open for rental, community events, and other functions. Now members feel “chased away.”

With the rise of mass tourism it has become increasingly difficult to preserve local expressions of heritage. National economic and cultural policies prioritize tourism through management of heritage sites leading to a loss of local power in favor of national standards and bureaucratic expertise. Community uses and sentimental value are eschewed for promises of economic renewal.

Although marginalized, the Friends of the Château still have one last stronghold: the Jardin de Marguerite, which a team of volunteers constructed on the grounds in 2014 and continue to maintain as a piece of heritage from the château’s medieval past. While the Renaissance period of the château’s history is most closely associated with the Saint-Germain and Albon families, who remained loyal to the King during the French Wars of Religion — and thus retained their land and power for their descendants — the medieval château was mainly used as a military garrison, lookout point, and for food and livestock storage. The château, as is recreated by the renovation project, offers a much more sumptuous view of “medieval daily life” that imagines the wedding banquet of Marguerite et d’Arthaud, the bedchamber of Marguerite d’Albon, and the knight’s guard for the noble family. These fantasies are brought to life thanks to new virtual reality tablets.

“The history that is represented in châteaux privileges the elite.”

Figure 3. The Château viewed from the Jardin de Marguerite. Photograph by Emma Krasnopoler, 2022.

Figure 4. A view of the interior of the Jardin de Marguerite. Photograph by Emma Krasnopoler, 2022.

The Jardin de Margeurite, by contrast, invites residents and school groups, as well as tourists, to feel, smell, taste, and observe its plants to better understand the history and horticulture of the region. The garden, in this way, offers an alternative, and rejoinder, to the state’s approach. By privileging community participation and local identity, the garden takes a quiet stand against the prioritization of economic development and dynastic power.

Despite the change in regime, the Friends of the Château Association will continue to participate in France’s “Rendez-vous au Jardin” (see you at the gardens) festival each year and open the garden to the public. At the 2021 event, the garden earned a prize for “transmission of knowledge,” which speaks to its importance as a place where practices of the medieval past continue to nourish the present.

Walking around the garden, I am reminded of the effort and care taken by its neighbors. Hand-written labels, work by local artists, and well-researched plant varieties demonstrate that heritage is not monolithic. The community that lived alongside, and cared for, the château for centuries still cares for its garden today, in the proud Montrondais way. While the state-led transformation imposes a singular heritage experience shared by thousands of other châteaux, the Jardin de Marguerite stands as a new heritage site that tells the story of local agency, community, and identity holding strong.