Château de la Motte-Broons, the fiefdom of Bertrand du Guesclin
The Château de la Motte-Broons, once the impregnable fortress of the legendary Bertrand du Guesclin, stood near the picturesque village of Broons. The Colonne du Guesclin, a commemorative column, now marks the site of the former castle.
An artificial mound built by Celtic tribes several millennia ago.
The Château de la Motte-Broons started as a modest but strategic defensive tower perched atop an artificial mound, built around 1109 by Pléardus, Lord of Bron and vassal of Olivier de Dinan. It commanded the river crossing and the surrounding marshes.
The castle entered the annals of history in 1251, when Robert du Guesclin married the daughter of the Lord of Bron. Their grandson, the illustrious Bertrand du Guesclin, inherited the ancestral home and had it completely rebuilt in 1355. He transformed the castle into a formidable fortress, with a central keep flanked by four imposing towers, all surrounded by a protective moat crossed by a drawbridge.
Upon Bertrand’s death in 1380, the title of Bron passed to his brother Olivier.
Bron, a coveted fortress
Bron has always been a coveted fortress, renowned for its strategic importance, and has been the scene of numerous conflicts throughout history. This began during the War of the Breton succession, during which Bron frequently changed hands, each change of ownership bearing the scars of battles and sieges. The most significant of these sieges was that led by the Duke of Brittany, Charles de Montfort. He captured Bron after a long battle.
The marriages of Duchesse Anne de Bretagne to King Charles VIII, and later to Louis XII, significantly shaped the political landscape of Brittany, culminating in its official integration into the Kingdom of France in 1532. This integration was not to the liking of the Duke of Mercoeur, then Lord of Bron, who led the Breton rebellion after Henry of Navarre ascended the throne in 1553 as Henry IV. Mercoeur’s ambition was indeed to restore Breton sovereignty, relying on his wife’s lineage, which descended from Duchess Jeanne Penthièvre, the niece of John III, Duke of Brittany.
However, the Mercoeur family’s claims were thwarted during the reign of Henry IV. The surrender of Mercoeur in 1598 marked the end of the Breton rebellion, prompting King Henry IV to issue a decree ordering the demolition of La Motte-Broons in order to stifle any further attempts at independence. Although the king’s order was slow to be carried out, it was not forgotten. It was only in 1616, on the orders of his widow, Marie de Medici, that the castle was razed to the ground.
Colonne du Guesclin
In the 19th century, the Château de la Motte-Broons was a field of ruins, its stones reused by the villagers to build their homes. Today, nothing remains of the once formidable fortress except the two pillars that once guarded its entrance.
The site of the castle is now a simple field in the centre of which stands the Colonne du Guesclin, a 10-metre granite column erected in 1841.
The memory of the castle also lives on in the name, Bron, of Celtic origin and meaning hill, although its spelling has evolved over centuries. Indeed, a second “O” and an “S” appeared after the French Revolution, then a circumflex accent in the 19th century, which was replaced by a diaeresis at the beginning of the 20th century. Thus, all three spellings are accepted: Broons, Brôons, or Bröons.
Did you know that du Guesclin duelled with Thomas Canterbury in Dinan in 1357?
Department of Côtes d’Armor
Coordinates Colonne du Guesclin – Broons: Lat 48.331519 – Long -2.266756
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: DuGuesclin made Constable of France Public Domain
