The La Rochefoucauld: dramas, potatoes and smallpox
And also
The tops
The castle fell by marriage to the La Rochefoucauld. Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld was exiled here by king Louis XV because he plotted with others about the royal mistress madam de Châteauroux…
Too bad: but he had things to do, in La Roche-Guyon: for instance, he landscaped the garden in front of the castle! He lived here with his daughter, the duchess d’Anville, Marie-Louise-Nicole de La Rochefoucauld.
They hosted all the Parisian upper crust, philosophers and politicians.
The duchess also cultivated potatoes and vaccinated people against variola. Hey, the Burgundian François de Chastellux was the first man in France to be inoculated with the virus in 1755, do you remember? So people didn’t hesitate to vaccinate…
But when the French Revolution arrived, the old duchess had her 2 daughters and her only son Louis murdered in 1792, near Gisors…
What about the castle? It was preserved, since the duchess was very generous with inhabitants!