The castle of Bercy was located on the current commune of Charenton-le-Pont, in the department of Val-de-Marne. As for its immense park, it stretched partly over the district of Bercy, in Paris.
The seigneury of Bercy passed in 1521 to the Malon family. The manor which was the seat of the estate was demolished on the orders of Charles-Henri de Mulon de Bercy, also president of the Grand Council, in order to build a new castle. Work began in 1658 according to the plans of François Le Vau, whose brother Louis designed Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles… When the sponsor died, only the central dwelling and the eastern wing of the castle were built. The son Anne Louis Jules Malon, master of requests and future director of the Compagnie des Indes, continued the business and had a very large park laid out. However, it was not until the first third of the 18th century that the whole was completed.
However, from the First Empire onwards, part of the stock was reduced due to the need to transport means of transport resulting from the installation of vast warehouses along the Seine.
In 1847, work on the railway line that will link Paris to Lyon "cropped" other parts of the park. Finally, in 1861, when the Bois de Vincennes was laid out by the city of Paris and another part of the estate was attached to the commune of Charenton, the company that had bought the site decided to demolish the château.
A number of items of furniture and decorations are therefore transferred to large castles in the provinces or to Paris itself, in particular to the Elysée Palace... As for the statues in the park, some are located in Bagatelle and the Lions are installed Quai de Bercy in Charenton.
Nowadays, if the castle itself was located at the height of the current rue Marius-Delcher in Charenton, only certain facades of annex buildings remain, such as the hunting lodge, rue du petit-Château.
Listed in the Inventory, these testimonies of the Bercy of yesteryear can mark out a walk. Information on +33 1 46 76 46 76.
