I once wrote about the Château de Brissac, which sits in the western Loire Valley and has belonged to the same family for about 500 years. Today I want to tell you about a castle with a similar, yet different, story. Like the Château de Brissac, it has belonged to the same family for about 1,000 years (!). But while Brissac was a castle built for pleasure, the Château de Josselin, in Brittany, became a symbol of the fight for independence.
This is a fascinating castle hiding more than a few secrets, and the Rohan family, who still rule it today, is one of the most interesting families in French history. Today we’ll uncover the story of the castle and its residents, but first, let’s set the mood with this short video:
Building, destroying, building, destroying, and building again
The first castle in the area was built in 1008 by Guéthénoc, the Viscount of Porhoët, who named it after his son Goscelinus. Over the years that name turned into Josselin, and that’s still the name of the castle today. The lords of Josselin could not have chosen a better spot: a cliff above the Oust river, along a major medieval trade route. Add to that a church that became a pilgrimage site after someone found a statue nearby, tangled in a thicket of brambles, which, according to the story, cured his daughter’s blindness. The church is still called Notre-Dame-du-Roncier (Our Lady of the Brambles) today, and the pilgrims who came to it brought the lords of the castle no small amount of money.
The castle built by Guéthénoc was destroyed by the English during the 12th century, and a new castle was built in its place. Its men were involved in the Combat of the Thirty, which you can read about in Danny Ashkenazi’s article, The Brittany You Don’t Know. The castle we know today was built in 1370 by Olivier de Clisson (1336-1407), who would go on to become Constable of France (a rank equivalent to commander in chief). The fortress had 8 towers connected by a wall, and the castle became one of the strongest fortresses in Brittany. Since Clisson had no male heir, the castle passed once again to the Rohan family, when Viscount Alain VIII married his daughter Béatrice.
During the 15th century the Rohan family grew ever stronger, and at times it looked like they were just a hair’s breadth from the Duchy of Brittany itself. But that goal eluded them, and when you can’t beat your rival, it’s best to join him. That’s exactly what Jean II did: in the late 15th century he built a Renaissance palace of granite among the towers of the Château de Josselin. If you look at the facade of the palace you’ll spot the letter A, the first letter in the name of Anne de Bretagne (1477-1514), marking the alliance between the Duchess of Brittany and the Viscount.
So yes, the Rohan family never became the rulers of Brittany, but that didn’t stop its sons from making plenty of noise throughout France’s bloody history in the 16th century. During the Wars of Religion, René II joined the Protestant side, and Josselin became a battlefield between 1559 and 1598. During this period the Rohan family lost the castle for a time. But in the end, Henri IV (r. 1589-1610), the leader of the Protestant camp, became king of France (after converting to Catholicism), and the Rohan family discovered they had bet on the right horse. Not only did they get the castle back, but Henri de Rohan was also granted the title of duke in 1603.
But if you thought the title of duke would calm this family down, think again. Henri de Rohan (1579-1638), duc de Rohan, rebelled against Louis XIII (r. 1610-1643) and his chief minister, Richelieu, and during the 1620s became a chronic headache for both of them. After a series of battles and peace treaties broken almost as soon as they were signed, Richelieu finally defeated the duke’s forces and, as punishment, demolished 4 of the 8 towers of the Château de Josselin. Henri de Rohan left France, went to Venice, received an offer from the Ottomans to become the ruler of Cyprus, returned to fight in Europe during the Thirty Years’ War, and eventually died from wounds suffered at the Battle of Rheinfelden in 1638.
The 17th and 18th centuries: strong women and a deadly necklace
Henri de Rohan had no male heir, only one daughter, Marguerite, who became the most sought-after bachelorette in France. But despite plenty of marriage proposals from France’s most powerful noble families, Marguerite decided to marry for love: Henri de Chabot, who came from a far more minor family. This created an enormous scandal at the French royal court; who had ever dreamed you could marry for love? The matter reached Anne of Austria (1601-1666), Queen of France (Louis XIV was then only 7 years old), and when the duchess was asked about the option of marrying someone else, she said:
I don’t know if I can decide to marry him (Henri de Chabot), but I know I cannot bear the idea of him marrying anyone else.
Faced with a statement like that, even the Queen of France couldn’t stand in the way. Marguerite received permission to marry the man she loved, and not only that: Henri de Chabot was required to change his family name from Chabot to Rohan, so that the dukes’ family name could live on.
The daughter of Marguerite and Henri de Chabot, Anne, was considered one of the great beauties of the 17th century, and in 1669 she “showed up on the radar” of Louis XIV and became his mistress (right around the time he was moving on from Madame de La Vallière (1644-1710) to Madame de Montespan (1640-1707)). During this affair Anne became pregnant, most likely by the king, since her son, Armand Gaston, bore a suspiciously strong resemblance to him (he was later nicknamed “Louis the Second” at court). Anne’s husband seemed to mind very little, since the king compensated him generously, which allowed the couple to build the Hôtel de Soubise, without a doubt the most magnificent mansion in the Marais in Paris.
In a way, this closed a circle, since the site where the Hôtel de Soubise now stands was once the location of the Hôtel de Clisson, which had belonged to Olivier de Clisson, one of Anne de Rohan’s ancestors. And by the way, that same Armand Gaston profited handsomely from likely being the son of Louis XIV: thanks to his “father,” he was elected to the Académie française, became a cardinal, and built the Hôtel de Rohan, not far at all from the Hôtel de Soubise (as of September 2019 it was under renovation, but once it reopens to the public it’s expected to be stunning).
Another important woman from the Rohan family (though from a different branch) was Marie de Rohan (1600-1679), better known as the Duchesse de Chevreuse. Marie became famous in French history as an indefatigable schemer, who spent her entire life plotting against Richelieu and later against Mazarin. She eventually died in exile at the age of 79, but thanks to her memoirs, she achieved a kind of immortality. How, you ask? Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), when he decided to write an adventure story set in the 17th century, used her memoirs as a source and based “The Three Musketeers” on them. And so, thanks to that bestseller, Richelieu became burned into our collective memory as a wicked villain, while the Duchesse de Chevreuse became known as Anne of Austria’s one true friend. There’s no doubt that when history isn’t written by the powerful, it’s written by Alexandre Dumas…
Throughout the 18th century the Rohan family kept making sure its sons rose to the top of both the secular and religious establishments of France. Two men from the family became famous, though not exactly for good reasons. The first was the Chevalier de Rohan (1783-1760), who entered French history after getting into an argument with Voltaire at a social gathering. The argument turned ugly and included a string of insults, in which the chevalier never stood a chance against Voltaire’s wit and sharp tongue. So, in response, the Chevalier de Rohan hired a group of thugs, who beat Voltaire in the street while he watched the whole scene from his carriage. Voltaire refused to let it go and challenged the chevalier to a duel. The chevalier responded by pulling strings at the royal court, and Voltaire was sent off on an “all-inclusive” vacation at the Bastille.
The second son of the Rohan family who entered history for the wrong reasons was Louis René, better known as Cardinal de Rohan (1734-1803) of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. It’s a long and tangled scandal, one I plan to cover in depth in a future article, in which the cardinal was tricked by a con artist into buying a diamond necklace for Marie Antoinette, and later asked her to pay him back for it. Marie Antoinette (1755-1793) denied the whole thing, saying she had never asked for any necklace, and the cardinal was sent to the Bastille as a result. In the end the cardinal was acquitted at trial, but Marie Antoinette’s public image was permanently tarnished, and it undoubtedly helped speed up the French Revolution.
Josselin rebels again (this time against the Nazis)
During the 18th century, the Rohan family barely lived in the Château de Josselin at all, preferring their far more comfortable residences in Bordeaux, Strasbourg, and Paris. During the French Revolution the family was forced to flee France, and the castle was turned into a prison. By the time the family returned to France, after the Revolution and the rise of Napoleon, the Château de Josselin lay in ruins. But starting in the 1840s, the family began restoring the castle, bringing back the splendor it had known in earlier centuries. During the 19th century a tradition took hold in the ducal family of naming the eldest son either Josselin or Alain, so if you look at the family tree, you’ll see the name alternating: sometimes Josselin, sometimes Alain (today the head of the family is named Josselin).
During the Second World War, the head of the family was Alain, the 13th Duke of Rohan. He was captured by the Germans in 1940 but was eventually released and returned to Josselin. There, without wasting any time, Alain built a network of Resistance fighters who passed vital information about the Germans in Brittany on to the Allies. After the war, Alain went into French politics. I suppose some things, like the Rohan family’s connection to French politics, never change…
Since the second half of the 20th century, the Château de Josselin has been open to the public, though you can only visit it on guided tours, offered in English and French. The tour includes several very grand rooms (unfortunately photography isn’t allowed, so I couldn’t include pictures), and the guides don’t hold back on information about the château and its family (some of you might even say they go on a bit too long). You can also visit the castle’s gardens and the nearby town (I especially recommend stepping into the basilica).
You can find more information about the castle, along with visiting hours, at this link (unfortunately only the French version of the site works).
Want to stay near the Château de Josselin?
If you’d like to visit Josselin, you can find some good options at this link.
Want to learn more about France in general?
I invite you to check out my complete guide to France , and if you’d like to get to know the region where the castle is located a bit better, feel free to visit the page about Brittany.
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