En un regard
Le château en bref
The Château de Bernis stands within the walls of Saint-Marcel-d'Ardèche, making it one of the few châteaux built inside a town enclosure. Constructed in the late 17th and early 18th centuries on earlier buildings of the seigneurial residence of the Blou-Laval family, it became the property of the Bernis family, which within a century acquired an entire district in the south of the village. The compoix (land register) of 1763 describes an estate comprising apartments, a forecourt, a farmyard, terraces, stables, gardens, a fishpond, pavilions and a mill. In 1792, Cardinal de Bernis, heir to the château, was declared an émigré; between 9 and 11 April 1792, inhabitants invaded the estate, destroyed installations and burned the archives. Placed under sequestration during the Convention, the building escaped the revolutionary sales thanks to a relative who had remained in France, and the Bernis family recovered it under the Empire, keeping it until the beginning of the Third Republic. Classical in style, it has a central block crowned by a triangular pediment and flanked by two symmetrical wings; only one of the two original pavilions survives. On the north side, an inner courtyard opens onto the Place du Monument aux Morts through a wide gateway; on the south side, a vast terrace overlooks a park and the valley. It is private property and can only be viewed from the outside.
