Hôtel de la Gicquelais (maison natale de Chateaubriand)
MonumentHidden Treasure
Hôtel de la Gicquelais (maison natale de Chateaubriand), located in Saint-Malo (Département 35), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Saint-Malo, Département 35, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.6512, -2.0243
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00090815
In the narrow streets of Saint-Malo, the Hôtel de la Gicquelais stands guard over the memory of Chateaubriand. This sober and austere 17th-century residence in Saint-Malo was the birthplace of the father of French Romanticism on 4 September 1768.
History
In the heart of Saint-Malo's inner city, hemmed in by the labyrinth of granite streets that characterise the corsair town, the Hôtel de la Gicquelais stands out as one of the most intense places of memory in French literature. It's not a castle or an abbey, but the house of a notable Malouin - dark stone, narrow facade, sober mullioned windows - and it's precisely this discretion that commands respect: nothing here seeks to impress, everything invites contemplation. Built in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, the residence belongs to the long tradition of middle-class houses in Saint Malo, built of Chausey granite and huddled together to withstand the westerly winds and Channel spray. The architecture is functional, sparing of superfluous ornamentation, reflecting a middle-class merchant and armourer who put solidity before pomp. It was in this austere setting that François-René de Chateaubriand was born, before the family moved to Château de Combourg. A visit to the Hôtel de la Gicquelais is first and foremost a stroll through the inner city of Saint-Malo, whose imposing ramparts frame every step. The house where the family was born is part of a dense neighbourhood where every stone tells the story of the shipowners, privateers and explorers who made the city famous. Visitors sensitive to Romanticism can only imagine the young François-René, lulled by the sound of the waves and the cry of the seagulls, nurtured from childhood by the maritime melancholy that was to permeate all his work. The monument has been listed as a Historic Monument since 1964, in official recognition of its role in the national collective memory. Although the house is not open to the public in the same way as a traditional museum, the cobbled street outside is a must-see on any literary pilgrimage to the walled city. Fans of Chateaubriand will naturally want to extend their visit to the writer's tomb on the Grand Bé rock, visible from the ramparts.
Architecture
The Hôtel de la Gicquelais is part of the architectural tradition of 17th-century bourgeois houses in Saint-Malo, characterised by an austere, functional style dictated by both the Breton climate and local resources. Built from Chausey granite - the dense grey stone quarried from the islands off the Normandy-Brittany coast and omnipresent in Malouin construction - the facade has the tight, vertical profile typical of urban residences in the corsair town: narrow width, several superimposed storeys, well-proportioned openings but no decorative exuberance. The stone mullioned windows, rigorously arranged on the main facade, bear witness to an early 17th-century architectural vocabulary still marked by late-Renaissance traditions, before Louis-Quatorzian classicism took full hold. The soberly moulded window frames are the only notable ornamental elements in a composition that favours harmony of proportion over ostentation. The roof, with its steep slope as befits this windy climate, was probably covered in natural slate, Brittany's king material. Inside, the layout follows the classic pattern of a seventeenth-century nobleman's house: reception rooms on the raised ground floor, bedrooms on the upper floors, and service areas in the basement or appendages. The relative modesty of the building compared with the great shipowners' mansions of the eighteenth century in Saint-Malo makes it a precious example of pre-corsair bourgeois living, predating the splendour developed by the great fortunes of the reign of Louis XIV and the Regency.
Related Figures
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) — écrivain, diplomate et homme politique, père du romantisme français, né dans cette maisonRené de Chateaubriand (1718-1786) — père de l'écrivain, armateur et noble breton, locataire de la demeure au moment de la naissance de son filsApolline de Bédée (1726-1798) — mère de Chateaubriand, femme pieuse et cultivée dont l'influence marqua profondément la sensibilité de l'écrivainLa famille de la Gicquelais — famille bourgeoise malouine qui donna son nom à la demeure au XVIIe siècleJean-Baptiste de Chateaubriand (1759-1794) — frère aîné de François-René, guillotiné sous la Terreur, dont le souvenir hanta l'auteur des Mémoires d'outre-tombe
Tags
Nearby castles
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Hôtel de la Gicquelais (maison natale de Chateaubriand) located?
Hôtel de la Gicquelais (maison natale de Chateaubriand) is located in Saint-Malo, Département 35 department, Bretagne region, France.
When was Hôtel de la Gicquelais (maison natale de Chateaubriand) built?
Hôtel de la Gicquelais (maison natale de Chateaubriand) dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Hôtel de la Gicquelais (maison natale de Chateaubriand) open to visitors?
Hôtel de la Gicquelais (maison natale de Chateaubriand) is currently closed to visitors.
