Château de Sully in Burgundy
Travel to heart of the story
1000 years of history have built the Domaine which is open to you today. Each era has marked this family home which continues to maintain a permanent life.
We invite you to browse the furnished apartments of the Château under the guidance of one of our guides in order to dive together into this high place of Burgundian heritage.
Sully is inhabited all year round by the Duchess of Magenta and her children and its atmosphere is all the more warm and authentic.
Sully is the largest Renaissance castle in southern Burgundy, birthplace of Marshal Mac Mahon, first Duke of Magenta and the first President of the French Republic to live in the Elysée Palace.
Since Roman times
It is said that Sully owes its origins to the Roman General Sillius who is said to have built a villa here, in the time of Julius Caesar, after having pursued and killed Sacrovir, one of the last Gallic leaders to resist the Roman occupation, in the plain. The exact location of his villa or of the Roman constructions remains unknown to this day.
In the fifteenth century
Sully becomes the residence of the Lords of Montaigu whose last Claude, Knight of the Golden Fleece and Chamberlain of Charles the Bold, is killed in the battle of Buxy, leaving only one natural daughter, Jeanne. Thanks to the wedding of Jeanne de Montaigu to Hugues de Rabutin, the château passed into the Rabutin family. Two very beautiful portraits of Jeanne de Montaigu and her husband, also owner of the Châteaux de Couches and Epiry, are in the Fine Arts Museum in Dijon.
In the 15th century, it was Christophe de Rabutin, ancestor of the poet and general Roger de Bussy Comte de Rabutin and his cousin, the Marquise de Sévigné, who watched over Sully.
family home
To our knowledge Sully has only been bought and resold once in its millennial history; by the Saulx Tavannes family. In 1515 the Rabutins sold Sully to Jean de Saulx, husband of Marguerite de Tavannes. Around 1570, their son, Gaspard de Saulx-Tavannes, entrusted the plans for his future château de Sully to the architect Nicolas Ribonnier. It is therefore to Marshal Gaspard de Saulx-Tavannes that we owe the exceptional Renaissance courtyard, as well as the west facade. The widow of the Marshal and her sons undertake; the harmonization of the inner courtyard with the double construction of the east facade.
Ruined by the splendor of broker life at the time of King Louis XIV, the descendants of Marshal de Saulx-Tavanes sold the estate two hundred years later.
And it was in 1714 that Claude Morey, Marquis de Vianges, acquired Sully and had the remarkable north facade built by the architect Franque. Mac Mahon family will add the splendid monumental staircase which today gives access to the large terrace on the moat.
Arrival of theMac Mahon family
In the middle of the 18th century, Charlotte Le Belin, widow of Jean-Baptiste Morey, brother of Claude Morey, inherited the estate. She married a doctor of Irish origin, Jean-Baptiste de Mac Mahon, naturalized French and granted the title of Marquis by King Louis XV.
From then on, the estate entered the family which gave birth, in 1808, to Marshal Maurice de Mac Mahon, future Duke of Magenta (title conferred by Napoleon III following his victory in 1859 at Magenta).This last, sixteenth of seventeen children, will never be the owner of Sully but the relief will be ensured a century later by his grandson, the 3rd Duke of Magenta .
His grand-nephew, the sixth Marquis de Mac Mahon, married Marthe de Vogüé to whom Sully owes many works: the south facade, in neo-Renaissance style, as well as the restoration of the moat.
Marquise Marthe de Mac Mahon died in 1923, childless. So that the castle is preserved in the family heritage, the Marquise bequeaths it to the younger branch of the family, that is to say to the third Duke of Magenta, descendant of the Marshal President.
And today
Today, the castle is the property and permanent residence of the fourth Duchess of Magenta and her two children, including the fifth Duke of Magenta.
Madame the Duchess of Magenta is passionately involved in the tourist and cultural life of Burgundy.
Depuis 1934, la Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin s’est donnée pour but la mise en valeur des produits de la Bourgogne, particulièrement de ses grands vins et de sa cuisine régionale, le maintien et le rétablissement des fêtes, coutumes et traditions du folklore bourguignon, le développement du tourisme en Bourgogne. Elle compte 12 000 chevaliers dans le monde, et défend la Bourgogne et le bourgogne dans une convivialité Grand Cru.
Vice-Présidente de la Route des Châteaux en Bourgogne du Sud
