Château de Saint-Point - Lamartine

Saint-Point, a castle dating from the 12th and 14th centuries, classified as a Historic Monument and Maison des Illustres, became the family home of the poet and politician Alphonse de Lamartine in 1820.

Considered the father of Romanticism in literature, he was also one of the founders of the Second Republic and contributed to the abolition of slavery, the political death penalty and the introduction of universal suffrage.

He received the castle of Saint-Point in advance of his inheritance, at the time of his marriage to an English aristocrat, Mary-Ann Birch, and undertook to restore it in the Anglo-Saxon Gothic style, discovered during a trip to England. Lamartine had a four-lobed gallery and a Gothic porch built and laid out the English gardens.

The visit of the castle of Saint-Point includes Alphonse de Lamartine's bedroom and study, furnished as they were at the time, the 18th century dining room, the study of his private secretary and the Lamartine museum. Located in the large salon on the ground floor, the latter contains the poet's personal objects and souvenirs, preserved by his niece, Valentine de Cessiat.

Visitors can also discover the English garden, the orchard, the vegetable garden, the old greenhouse and the poet's family vault, which he had built after his mother's death. It is located on the edge of the castle, next to the Romanesque church of Saint-Point, in which there are two paintings by Marianne de Lamartine.