The present Château de La Roche-Guyon was built in the 12th century, controlling a river crossing of the
Seine, itself one of the routes to and from
Normandy; The
Abbé Suger described its grim aspect: "At the summit of a steep promontory, dominating the bank of the great river Seine, rises a frightful castle without title to nobility, called La Roche. Invisible on the surface, it is hollowed out of a high cliff. The able hand of the builder has established in the mountainside, digging into the rock, an ample dwelling provided with a few miserable openings". In the mid-13th century, a fortified
manor house (the
château-bas) was added below. Guy de La Roche fell at the
Battle of Agincourt, and his widow was ousted from the Roche, after six months of siege, in 1419; she preferred to depart rather than accept
Henry V of England as her overlord.
James V of Scotland and his bride
Madeleine of Valois stayed for two nights in March 1537. The Château came to the
Liancourt family with the marriage of Roger de Plessis-Liancourt to the heiress Marie de La Roche; he was a childhood companion of
Louis XIII, first gentleman of the
Chambre du Roi, and was made a duke in 1643. He and his wife made great changes to the
château-bas, opening windows in its structure and laying out the terrace to the east, partly cut into the mountain's steep slope. The domain of La Roche-Guyon came to the
La Rochefoucauld family in 1669, with the marriage of Jeanne-Charlotte de Plessis-Liancourt with François VII de La Rochefoucauld. The Château retained its medieval aspect of a fortress, with its moat and towers and cramped, dark living apartments. The Château was largely extended in the 18th century. When
Turgot, the minister of
Louis XVI, failed in his schemes for fundamental reforms in 1776, he retired to the Château briefly, as the guest of Louise Elisabeth Nicole de La Rochefoucauld, Duchesse d'Enville. La Roche Guyon was the birthplace of
François Alexandre Frédéric, duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (1747–1827). In
World War II, the château was a headquarters for German
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891–1944). After
D-Day, he defended
Normandy against the
Allies in
World War II from a
bunker located here. In 1962, the castle was used as a setting for the medieval segment of the
Belgian comic on time travel:
Le Piège Diabolique (
The Time Trap) of the
Blake and Mortimer series by
Edgar Pierre Jacobs. After 1990, restorations and archaeological surveys undertaken by the
Conservatoire régional des Monuments historiques revealed new additions to the documentary history of La Roche-Guyon, undertaken in the 19th century by Hippolyte Alexandre and Emile Rousse. In early 1960, French technocrats had the idea for a new administrative capital, to replace Paris as capital with a French "
Brasília" built near La Roche-Guyon and to transform the commune into a "Monaco on the Seine". In early 1960, there was an architectural design competition for the Project, in which the architects
Albert Laprade and Jean Brasilier participated. The castle is opened to the public and several events take place there (Fête des Fleurs, Salon du Vin etc.). The village is protected on its architecture (as La Roche-Guyon is locate in the Vexin Regional Park). ==Points of interest==