Château de Colombey

In the tenth century, Colombey was a collection of huts serving as dwellings for serfs, with a castle at its center flanked by turrets with arched windows, thick walls studded with loopholes. One of the turrets was topped with a metal pigeon, the dovecote. Another ended with an iron cross, which was the castle chapel, later to become Saint-Nabor church. The highest tower, remarkable for its full-arch entrance and its jagged armorial escutcheons serving as a weather vane, constituted the keep. In 1681, the old feudal castle was still standing at the end of the village, on the church side, with its four-pillar dovecote, a sign of high justice, and its enclosure of towers. In the 18th century, Théodore de Tschudi had the old feudal castle demolished to build a large house in the style of the era: less imposing but more pleasant to live in and more comfortable, opening onto a garden. He began to develop the small wood into a park where Lorraine species grew: beeches, oaks, and hornbeams. His son converted the surroundings of the castle into an English park. He had trees from Asia, Africa, and America planted at great expense and allowed his contemporaries in the vicinity of Metz to discover the black locust, acacia, sophora, American walnut, and Japanese lacquer tree. The castle, taken and retaken during the clashes of the 1870 war, was set on fire on September 27, 1870; the park, gardens, and nurseries were devastated. It was completely burned by order of the Metz garrison on October 27 of the same year. Here is the description given by Charles Abel, president of the Metz Academy, visiting Colombey after the battle: "I was eager to see what petroleum had spared in this residence, which evokes dear memories among our scholars and horticulturists. But I remained completely bewildered, searching for those beautiful farms, that remarkable greenhouse where so many experiments had been carried out under the auspices of the Metz Academy. I saw only walls blackened by petroleum smoke. Where I had admired rose beds and groves of exotic trees, twenty graves of German soldiers stood in place of flowerbeds." A painter, J. B. Léon Simon, familiar with Colombey, also returned to the site after the capitulation, to sketch "the ancient trees he had admired in all their vegetative strength some time before, and which at that hour lay on the ground next to the corpses of men and horses hastily covered with a thin layer of earth." Charles Abel concluded by saying: "If the owner of the Château de Colombey, taking advantage of the presence of masons in these places, could have the chapel restored, his park, the castle, and the church of Colombey would become the destination of the most charming and instructive walk in the vicinity of Metz." In 1914, the castle still comprised significant ruins that allowed its location to be reconstructed, but during the First World War, the walls were completely demolished and almost all the stones were removed. The remaining buildings today, rebuilt since [When?] further west than the old castle, are those of a farm. It borders the road leading to Borny, passing in front of the Westphalia and the Allée des morts (German monuments from the 1870 war). A cross in front of the farm, which was previously in Coincy, commemorates a plague epidemic in the village. It is difficult today to locate the castle in the middle of the park, which is now only used for livestock. What remains are the foundations, large cellars covered by a mound of earth and already tall trees, a well about twenty meters deep, and a medium-sized building, still standing, which served as a stable for the castle.

Charles Abel, Notice historique sur l’église et le château de Colombey, Nancy, impr. E. Réau, 1876, 26 p., reissued in the Mémoires de l’Académie nationale de Metz, impr. spéciale des voix lorraines, 1877, ISSN 1149-0349.

Saint-Nabor Church of Colombey, chapel in the forest near the castle. Battle of Borny-Colombey, battle of August 14, 1870. List of castles in Moselle

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