Marquise de Brinvilliers Castle
In the heart of a village in Lorraine lies an abandoned castle completely overgrown with wild vegetation. After entering through a rusty gate, we advance with difficulty through the brambles, the estate has been abandoned since the 1970s, a real jungle. There is not much left of the castle, the interest lies on its rear facade on which there are still four caryatids, magnificent statues still supporting the remains of the castle. A real hidden treasure, a real emotion to discover this. Victim of a violent fire in 1969, the history of this place is as violent as the flames that condemned it. A tragedy. Until this event, the castle was inhabited by notables, rich industrialists who made their fortune in the steel industry. A couple who had everything to live a fairy tale, a castle, a considerable fortune but the evil was elsewhere. Esther was a distraught woman, condemned to never be a mother, her husband Théodore was sterile. The solution of adoption was never an option, Esther absolutely wanted the baby to come out of her body, she did not want to take that of another. Victim of her sterility, the man was continually belittled by his handicap, she always blamed him for the fact that she could never be a mother. She considered him a sub-human, finally their couple remained linked by their common wealth, there was no more feeling or sexual relationship, a heavy and oppressive climate.
Theodore wasted his time on treatments to combat sterility with various therapies and experimental drugs, until he became seriously ill with disastrous side effects. Finally the final solution came while leafing through a local newspaper, Theodore noticed an advertisement for the opening of a swingers club a few kilometers from the castle, a sudden idea took shape, a Machiavellian stratagem. The hardest part would be to convince his wife, she who was such a prudish woman that the act of fellatio surpasses all transgressions. And what Theodore feared happened, totally hysterical upon learning of his plan, Esther hit him several times and broke a significant number of plates. The affront too much, the insurmountable humiliation. In her car, to evacuate her hatred, she drove without direction, without goal, just to get away from this climate that had become too unbreathable. How this pious woman could agree to mix sexually with other men to harvest their sperm in order to get pregnant was something that was totally inconsiderable. Her faith could never face that. All night, Esther traveled hundreds of kilometers to arrive in Aussois, a village in Savoie. She stopped there for days, locked in her room in this picturesque hotel. She took the time to think, to take stock of her life, her family situation and her destiny. At almost 55 years old, Esther was reaching a point in her life where she could no longer hesitate and had to make difficult choices to finally give life. Against all expectations, her husband's morbid proposal made perfect sense and she decided to face this ordeal. Back at the castle, she apologized to her husband for having had such a reaction and agreed to go to Private88 to illicitly harvest sperm.
This night of March 18, 1968, no excitement in front of the club door, the couple is on a mission, dressed in suspenders and leather jackets, Esther comes here to have the chance to finally be a mother. They cross a long corridor with fluorescent neon lights, eyes are on them, they are not comfortable and it shows, they walk quickly without looking at anyone, totally disordered in such an environment. A few glasses of vodka to forget themselves and give themselves the strength to go towards the others, the parents. The first words are exchanged, the first hands slip into Esther's crotch under the hopeful gaze of Théodore. Naked, lying on a bed, a dozen men penetrate her one after the other, her eyes closed, she imagines herself in the middle of a medical procedure, hiding any sexual dimension. She is motionless, she lets herself be moved, touched, caressed like a doll that is being manipulated, her husband strokes her hair to encourage her in this difficult ordeal. Each ejaculation is one more chance to procreate and that night, given the large number of men who came to penetrate Esther, the chances are numerous. A soiled body, a tortured pride, Esther was never the same after this ordeal. Already having little libido, she was now totally disgusted with sex. The days passed and the wait was long, waiting to know if she would have to return to this devil's house to try her luck again. A month later and a positive pregnancy test, Theodore's plan had miraculously worked. The end of an ordeal. The gynecologist remained cautious about the rest of the pregnancy, at her age the risk that the newborn would have Down's syndrome is quite high which was not a problem for this future mother, whatever the handicap or not of her child, she was finally going to become a mother.
The first ultrasounds create a new harmony in the couple, a love that is reborn in the happiness of finally building something and having an heir. Theodore has no complexes about the fact that he will not share any DNA with his child, his wife's joy was his greatest reward. Unfortunately, in the 19th week of pregnancy, Esther has horrible stomach pains, she bleeds profusely every time she goes to the toilet, she is having a miscarriage. On the blood-covered floor, the fetus falls under Esther's helpless cries. She screams in despair, her husband is helpless and faced with a situation he had not foreseen. In one night, all their hope has flown away. In her hands, she holds him tight, she clings to her child and does not want to let go, she kisses him and asks him for forgiveness. Theodore is dialing the number of the emergency services so that they come and take care of his wife and the fetus but she categorically refuses and makes him hang up. She explains to him that they are going to take her baby and that she wants to keep him. Her husband did not dare contradict her, her madness scared him and he submitted to this unbelievable idea. As the days went by, she considered her fetus as her living child, he had a name and a room just for him. To preserve his body, every evening, the fetus was placed in the freezer. Helpless, Theodore saw his wife spend her days talking and laughing with her fetus, madness took over, she had become mentally ill. During the days, she walked him in a stroller in the village public garden and spent crazy amounts of money on toys and clothes that he would never wear.
The husband had a hard time adapting to this morbid family life, so as not to tarnish his reputation he could not even ask for outside help, he was gradually sinking with his wife. Despite the fact that the fetus was put back in the freezer every day, its condition was deteriorating and its stench was becoming unbearable. A real chaos. To put an end to this, he committed a horrible act in the middle of the night. While his wife was sleeping, he took advantage of the fireplace to burn the fetus. Esther, awakened by this abnormal smell, discovered her husband in the living room in front of the fireplace. He went towards her telling her that now everything was over, that she would have to mourn. Immediately she went to the freezer in a panic and discovered that the fetus was no longer there. He told her that it had burned in the fireplace so that she would stop being sick. Burning her hands in the flames, in tears, she desperately tried to recover her fetus, there was already nothing left. Truly possessed by her grief, she ran to the kitchen to retrieve a knife to stab her husband several times and then dragged his body towards the fireplace, head first. In tears and trembling, she created several fires in the castle and violently stabbed herself in the throat, she fell to the ground, died and burned still alive with her castle. It was a real blaze and the firefighters took several hours to extinguish it and discover the carnage. Since that horrible night, the castle remained in ruins, in memory of this tragedy.
HERITAGE EMERGENCY: To continue to keep our French heritage alive, it is important to join forces with associations and structures that can give a second life to these forgotten places: urbexsession.com/agir-pour-le-patrimoine. To prevent these places from one day ending up as dust as is unfortunately the case, it is necessary to get involved in different ways. For our part, we make an artistic imprint through our photographs to immortalize these places. On this page: urbexsession.com/les-lieux-rehabilites you can discover examples of rehabilitated places and on this one: urbexsession.com/les-lieux-disparus places that unfortunately have not stood the test of time.
Source: https://urbexsession.com/chateau-marquise-de-brinvilliers/
