Interiors
 
The chapel
     
Built in 1884 by the architect Victor Hue de la Colombe, officer of the Academy, ex-inspector of the town of Paris, on the request of the Husson-Carcenac family. The blessing was celebrated July the 21 and 22 by Monseigneur Pierre-Antoine Paul Goux, bishop of Versailles. The white marble commemorative plate engraved and coming from the castle is preserved in the monastery of the Fort-Manoir. There existed at the XVIIe century a chapel, curious building of plan centered, cover of an oval cupola, located at the site of the house of right-hand side. One knows it according to the documents drawn by François de la La Pointe in 1693.Absente on the land register of 1819, it remains today only the projecting base about it on the ditch of the turret which was used as sacristy.
     
What strikes the visitor while entering is the splendid framing ceiling with fourteen boxes of the fabrics of French school of the XVIIe century, with a significant inspiration of Simon Vouet. The central line understands five boxes. The first represents "La Possession de soi", in the four other boxes are detached the allegories from the cardinal virtues: the Force, Temperance, Prudence and Justice. Childish scenes, nine in all, with the tone pastels, are detached on blue bottom and finish the unit restored in 1992.
     
A chimney of medieval style (XVe-XVIe) was installed to replace the marble high altar, work of the Viegl marble-mason's yards in Menton (XIXe) offered by Henry-Gustave Carcenac, mayor of IIe district of Paris. It is since October 23, 1927 with the Monastery of Mousseau. To announce for the remainder of the decoration, a very beautiful door in oak decorated with strap hinges and a roasted counter, as well as a fireback struck with the arms of the families Habert de Montmor and Budé. Finally let us announce, the very beautiful stained glasses, due to the Master glass-maker Emile Hirsch (1832-1904). This artist born in Metz, entered to the school of the Art schools and was formed under the direction of Eugene Delacroix and Hippolyte Flandrin. He appeared in the Show of Paris of 1852 to 1880 with portraits and paperboards for stained glasses of churches. He specializes in the great compositions on historical subjects which with the favour of the religious fights of IIIe republic are often chosen by the sleeping partners. One owes him the restoration of the stained glasses of the Cathedral of Chartres, as well as the stained glasses of the churches Saint-Séverin and Saint-Thomas d' Acquin in Paris, of the Saint-Louis Cathedral to La Rochelle (Saint-Louis and Sainte Jeanne d' Arc) like those of the Chapel of the College of the girls of Pessan (Gers). The stained glasses of the Chapel of the castle of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis represent the Saint-Pierre apostle (1884) and the Saint-Paul apostle.
     
At the beginning of last century the chapel was decorated of a beautiful stoup out of wooden carved by Guignault, and of a very remarkable painting of the school of Pérugin
     
Parlors
     
At the ground floor of the castle the parts of pageantry are. We penetrate initially in the hall where the main staircase "à la Française" with her splendid wrought iron slope appears to us on the left with double flights. Its beauty makes that it is quoted in the sale contract of 1737. The staircase is out of stone to the first stage, then in oak and floor tiles for the second. In the rise of staircase is aligned a series of prints of the XVIIe century, representing the line of Habert de Montmor. Donation of Olivier Fauveau, author of the works on the history of the city, they are due to the artists Pierre Daret, Claude Mellan and Nicolas de Plattemontagne.Face with us the old dining room winter, transformed since 1952 into office of the registry office. This part has an arched ceiling of edges and a very beautiful carved stone chimney, of Renaissance time. It is most probably the only one which could go up at the origin of the castle. Another interesting decoration in this part, two very beautiful doors. The first which allows us of entry is a very old employed again door in solid oak without any doubt. This double door with coarse strap hinges was doubtless a door of outside. The second, inside the part is of a very beautiful smoothness. This double door in oak, date of the XVIIe century. It finely is worked and bored arcades with balusters. It could be a question of a door of fence of chapel.
     
While leaving this part we direct towards the library. Formerly "Cabinet of the Room of Billiards" this parlor nowadays accomodates the library of the castle and the exposures. At the XVIIe century, it was used at the same time as room of reception and library. This one was partly destroyed during the war of 1870. Of a simple glance, the visitor is disturbed by the beauty of decorations of the skirtings of the beginning of the reign of Louis XIII. They are the work of the Brothers Pascallon, Claude and Guillaume, painters who carried out with their André father the decoration of the rooms, cabinets and staircase of the castle of Dampierre, under the direction of Claude de La Jaille (1590-1645).
     
The polychrome ceiling called "à la Française" of this part is him also of a great beauty. But the major part of the library is without any doubt this masterly chimney out of painted and carved wooden which decorates a whole section of wall. Dating from XVIe century, this chimney comes from the Sully-on-Loire (Loiret) of the castle of the Grand Master of the artillery Sully, minister of Henri IV On the mantelpiece have can read the "monogram" of Sully and these two wives, subtle interlacings of their initial respective summoned "M.B.S" of a ducal crown (Maximilien de Béthune-Sully) and "C.C.S" (Anne de Courtenay and Rachel de Cochefilet Sully). In the center of the lintel this other cartouche which carries the Latin inscription "An qui amant ipsi sibi somnia fingunt": Those which like forge for them same dreams. Drawn from the book Bucoliques de Virgile (70-19 front. J.C.), this sentence is part of worms 108 of eclogue VIII: Enchantements. The central medallion of the coat is recently again decorated portrait of Henri-Louis Habert de Montmor. It is here about a copy of the painting that Philippe de Champaigne carried out in 1667pour the owner. It is the work of a young artist nîmois Florent Brouzet, graduate of the school of Avignon. The original as for him with disappeared most probably about 1950 following the departure from Milton Reynolds. Another cartouche crowns the unit "Quo jussa jovis": I fly where Jupiter orders. This currency is still today on the ceiling of the room to be slept of Sully to the castle of the Sully-on-Loire.
     

Then there is the great hall overlooking the courtyard and gardens, formerly the billiard room. Again paneling and ceiling are decorated and painted on gray background. The polished floor of black and white stone is decorated with a windrose. In prolongation we penetrate in the house of right-hand side where the small living-room is, today desk of the Mayor. It is in this room that was mainly turned the interiors of the famous serial "Janique Aimée" carried out by Jean-Pierre Desagnat in 1963 with Janine Vila, Alice Sapritch, Colette Teissèdre and Samson Fainsilbert, Michel Barbey, Paulette Dubost and Michel Bardinet for the principal actors. Decoration today is sober, to note however a very beautiful marble chimney (XVIIIe century), over which one still could in 1899, to contemplate a full-length portrait of time Louis XIV, representative Jean-Louis Habert de Montmor, intendant of Galères in Marseille. On the back-plate of the chimney one can see the other cast iron plate (XVIIe) struck with the armorial bearings of the families Habert de Montmor and Budé. The ecus are surrounded of the collar about the Michaelmas and stamped of a heaume and capped with a crown with bonnets, the date of 1500 commemorates the date of the union of the two families.
     
Here we are now in the grand salon, such as it was called formerly by the scholars of the XIXe century. This part is today the conference room of the Town council. The walls are decorated woodworks (XVIIIe), formerly painted in white and gold, decorated carved mirrors and trumeaus (instruments of musiques). Until 1927, date of the departure of the family Husson, the castle contained in this room, four oil on canvas dating from 1731, depicting landscapes, painted by Christophe Huet, a painter whom we owe the two "cabinet des Singes" at the Hôtel Rohan-Soubise in Paris and Chantilly.. Nobody knows what they have become today. The bottom of furnace surmounting the door of entry of the room is him also decorated sculptures.  A marble fireplace from the eighteenth century, which is a plate struck with the arms of family Habert de Montmor and Rochefort Aloigny (the Grand Condé is the source of the alliance) and chandeliers dating from the mid-nineteenth century, complete the decor.
     
Henri Husson, mayor of the commune of 1888 to 1927, was an art lover incontestably informed. Indeed thanks to the artists that Mr. Carcenac côtoyaient within the framework of his official functions for the organization of the World Fairs, the Husson family made the acquisition of new works regularly, those coming to perfect the framework of life of the family. In the collection of Henri Husson in 1889 have will retain works of: Pérugin (1448-1523); Antoine Van Dyck (1577-1640); Gabriel Franck (1590-1639); George Lallemant (1575-1636); Pieter van Laer (1592-1642); Peter Bonaventure (1614-1653); Antoine Coypel (1661-1722); Jean-François de Troy (1679-1752); Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755); Bernard Lepicié (1735-1784); Jean-Baptiste Mallet (1759-1835); George Michel (1763-1843); Elisabeth Chaudet-Husson (1767-1832); François-Louis Lanfant de Metz (1814-1892); Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863); Ernest Meissonnier (1815-1891); François Bonvin (1817-1887); Louis Duveau (1818-1867); Philippe Rousseau (1816-1887); Benjamin de Fichel (1826-1895); Jean de Gudin (1802-1880); Philibert-Leon Couturier (1823-1901); Louis Français (1814-1897); Eugene Deshayes (1828-1890); Arsene d' Haussy (1830-1870); Louis Mouchot (1830-1891); Jules Noël (1815-1881); François Reynaud (1825-1909); Jules Rozier (1821-1882); Fabius Brest (1823-1900); Narcisse Diaz de la Pèna (1807-1876), Petrus Van Schendel (1806-1870); Emile de Salmon (1840-1913); Albert Carrier-Belleuse (1824-1887); Jules Franceschi (1825-1893); Emile Gallé (1846-1904); without forgetting the friend of the family, the painter sculptor Edouard-Henry Lombard (1855-1929).
     
The Noble Stage
     
The first stage or "noble stage" was at the XVIIe century made up of seven apartments of Masters and garde-robes. Thanks to the inventories of 1676 and 1718 we can know the decoration of each part. Which are called "red Room" "Green Room", "Yellow Room", "White Room" or "Room of the Emperors" each one of them had on its walls of the tapestries of Rouen, of Paris, of Flandres, of Antwerp, of Lyon or Bergamo, generally representing landscapes or characters of mythology. Furniture was mainly out of woodnut or wood ebony, the tables out of marble or furnished with incrustations of scales of tortoises. On those carpets of Turkey or Perse were thrown. The chairs, the armchairs and the couches were covered with fitted carpet, of tapestry with flowers, brocatelle of Venice, velvet cramoisis, satin, silk brocart or of serge of color verte.Les curtains were of fustian with grains of barley, felt, serge or of small-Venice. The majority of the parts contained bronze or marble busts with the effigies of the Queen of Spain, of Henri IV, children and women, characters of mythology, and even a bust of Aristote. Without less forgetting of course the admirable collection of masterpieces whom had Henri-Louis Habert de Montmor, not than 177 paintings among which 89 carried an attribution whose following names seems to designate a cabinet of great quality: Raphaël, Léonard de Vinci, Rembrandt, Andréa del Sarto, Jacopo Bassano, Jan Sanders van Hemessen, Claude Vignon, Corneille de Lyon, Michel Corneille, Pierre de Cortone, Jean Cousin say the Father, Jean Ducayer, Tintoret, L'Albane, Delamare, Jean de Boulanger, Brueghel, van Eyck, Pérugin, Martin Fréminet, Titien, Jean Clouet, Alexandre Véronèse, Jacques Blanchard, the Parmesan, Giorgione, Antonio Moro, Jules Romain, Charles Beaubrun, without forgetting for as much, those representing the members of its family which carried out Philippe de Champaigne, Claude Mellan, François de Troy, Nicolas de Plattemontagne, Paul Flocquet, Pierre Duret and Ferdinand Elle.
     
Of rich person decoration interior of castle of Mesnil-Saint-Denis us preserve only today unit of works of joineries painted out of camaieu green and ochre (doors and shutters) whose safeguarding is remarkable, and a splendid chimney out of wooden painted and carved. It carries in the center of its coat a cartouche framing a Roman numeral "MDCL" 1650 surmounted by a crown comtale. To also note on the jambs, two figures in grisaille in cartouches : Justice and Science.
     
The interior of the castle is visible with all visitors at the time of administrative steps, the castle since 1952, being transformed into Hotel-of-City. Apart from that, the parlors are opened to the public at the time of the "Journées du Patrimoine" in September of each year.
     
     
Copyright © Olivier FAUVEAU - 2001