Hotel Le Bois des Chambres & Restaurant Le Grand Chaume

The spiral grand staircase

published at 19/10/2022

In late 14th century in France, the staircase became a feature of prestige, defining the residence and providing inhabitants and guests with access to the reception rooms, which were usually upstairs.

Built in the 1500s, Chaumont's grand staircase is screw-shaped and housed within a polygonal tower. Originally, the tower jutted out from the facade and was open on three sides. The building of an exterior gallery in the 18th century, along with changes in the proportions of the roof in the 19th century, considerably altered its primitive look.
Its sculpted decor includes both the Gothic and the Renaissance repertoires: prismatic columns on the core, supporting crockets with leaves or Italianesque shells.
 

This staircase leads up to many different unfurnished parts of the Château dedicated to contemporary art, including the former bedroom of Princess Henri-Amédée de Broglie, now an art gallery, as well as the Digital Gallery on the east wing’s top floor.

 

Heraldic stained-glass windows

The windows are decorated with heraldic coats of arms in stained-glass, made by master-glassmaker Georges Bardon for the Broglie family. They depict the various families who have owned the Domain of Chaumont with, at the top of the staircase, the de Broglie family’s coat of arms. The empty shields were intended for future heirs, but the State-initiated compulsory purchase proceedings against her Royal Highness the Princess of Orléans and Bourbon, whose first husband was Prince Henri-Amédée de Broglie, prohibited her children from decorating these shields with their own coat of arms.