The Château de Montmort is a stately home built on the site of a medieval castle in the commune of Montmort-Lucy. A castle existed as early as the 11th century and there is still evidence of its existence in the ramparts and ditches. The present buildings seem to date from the 16th century, the time of their reconstruction.
The castle was the headquarters for Karl von Bülow's German Second Army during the First Battle of the Marne. During the battle, Bülow and OHL Commander Helmuth von Moltke the Younger's representative. Richard Hentsch. held a crucial meeting at the castle and agreed that the force was threatened by an Allied encirclement. The subsequent retreat of Bulow's Second and Alexander von Kluck's First Armies was a crucial turning point of the First World War.
The lower structure has mullioned bay windows characteristic of the early Renaissance. At the sides, two flush towers were built to hold cannons. Two wings of the lower structure were removed in the 19th century. The higher structure, built later, carries the date of 1577. The building plan corresponds with a reference to the former castle in an old document: a square keep confined by circular towers. One tower includes an inclined ramp to allow horses to reach the higher levels.
The ground floor is composed of vaulted rooms. On the first floor, in the skirtings of the large living room, the engraver and theatre decorator Eugène Cicéri installed painted fabrics in 1851, taking as his inspiration the engravings of Sébastien Bourdon. The gatehouse with its brick turrets is also a 19th-century addition. The château is surrounded by a park and kitchen garden.
References:Rosenborg Palace was built in the period 1606-34 as Christian IV’s summerhouse just outside the ramparts of Copenhagen. Christian IV was very fond of the palace and often stayed at the castle when he resided in Copenhagen, and it was here that he died in 1648. After his death, the palace passed to his son King Frederik III, who together with his queen, Sophie Amalie, carried out several types of modernisation.
The last king who used the place as a residence was Frederik IV, and around 1720, Rosenborg was abandoned in favor of Frederiksborg Palace.Through the 1700s, considerable art treasures were collected at Rosenborg Castle, among other things items from the estates of deceased royalty and from Christiansborg after the fire there in 1794.
Soon the idea of a museum arose, and that was realised in 1833, which is The Royal Danish Collection’s official year of establishment.