Gadancourt, an ancient Vexin seigneury
Since the Gallo-Roman era, there has been a human presence in Gadancourt, then written Wadancourt. In the 13th century, the area became a seigneury, passed on within the same family until the middle of the 18th century.
Gadancourt, an ancient Vexin seigneury
Since the Gallo-Roman era, there has been a human presence in Gadancourt, then written Wadancourt. In the 13th century, the area became a seigneury, passed on within the same family until the middle of the 18th century.
The sires of Hazeville-Gadancourt
From the 15th century to the middle of the 18th century, the noble fief of Gadancourt was held by the old, aristocratic Lefevre de Hazeville family and its descendants.
On 20 December 1480, Guillaume de Hazeville, an equerry who was lord of Gadancourt, paid tribute to Richard, lord of Guiry and Perchay-en-Vallée for the “new hostel (place of habitation) of the aforesaid Gadancourt with its six turrets”. He was the ancestor of Jehan and Hector de Hazeville, whose tombstones can still be seen in the church choir. During the Wars of Religion, the Hazevilles were Protestant. They rallied to the royal troops following the arrival on the throne of Henri IV. On 6 March 1590, they fought the Duke of Mayenne’s Catholic League, pursuing their opponents, swords in hand, all the way to nearby Avernes. There, a member of the family, the Sire of La Barre, was seriously wounded in the thigh by a musket ball. He was taken to Gadancourt but died there a few days later. In 1595, the lord of Gadancourt, Jean de Hazeville, two of whose brothers were killed in Ivry, south of Paris, fighting behind the white panache of the first Bourbon king, distinguished himself in the battle of Crépy-en-Valois. “At the start of the year 1595,” wrote the poet Agrippa d’Aubigné in her Histoire Universelle, “what remained of the towns supporting the League waged war as if out of duty. The strongest garrison in the Paris area was Soissons, where Poncenat commanded. To stop them, it was decided to fortify the garrison of Crépy-en-Valois, where there were the companies of Moussi, Gadancourt, Douville and Baine. They were in view of Soissons every day. In mid-February, Poncenat wanted to launch an attack, ambushing before daylight two hundred “salades” (soldiers with broad brimmed hats) in a big tenant farm …Gadancourt, who led the runners, pierced the lines of the leaguers to such an extent that the ambush became unnecessary. Moussi with forty “salades” joined forces with Douville’s thirty and had no trouble following up on the surprise created by Gadancourt…”
Royal descent
At the start of the 17th century, the lords of Gadancourt, who were swordsmen at the service of the king, contracted an illustrious alliance. David de Hazeville married Marie de Valois, natural daughter of Marie de Crécy and Charles, Duke of Angoulême, who was himself the natural son of Charles IX and his pretty mistress Marie Touchet. Descended from French royalty, Marie de Hazeville held sway over Gadancourt, which was described as having a “main building and two pavilions, with two small pavilions in the two corners of the courtyard close to the gate of the aforesaid chateau”, for a good part of the 17th century until her death in 1708 at the age of 93 or 94. Her daughter, Marguerite, married François de Morny, lord of Tholligny and from a family which was for a long time Protestant. The chateau then consisted of two pavilions built in the first half of the 17th century and a main building from the 15th century. When Marguerite de Hazeville died at the age of 89, Gadancourt passed to her unmarried daughter, Marie Léonore de Mornay. The last descendant of the Hazevilles, she was heavily in debt and was unable to pay for the costly repairs the chateau required. She decided, therefore, to sell the seigneury of Gadancourt, still occupied, to Sire Jumelin, who was a lawyer in the French parliament. Jumelin had great plans for his new property. He wanted to create a plant nursery in the valley adjacent to the chateau. Jumelin had great plans for his new property. He wanted to create a plant nursery in the valley adjacent to the chateau.
In 1747, his heirs sold the chateau, the farm and the seigneury to François-Jean Roger for 74,600 livres.
Source : José Gilles, Châteaux et châtelains du Vexin, Histoire et patrimoine du Vexin, 2012
The whole story of Gadancourt
