Blérancourt

Blérancourt (French pronunciation: [bleʁɑ̃kuʁ]) is a commune in the department of Aisne in Hauts-de-France in northern France.

The Château de Blérancourt, an influential design by Salomon de Brosse houses the National Museum of French-American Friendship and Cooperation, (Musée franco-américain), founded by Anne Morgan, daughter of the financier J. Pierpont Morgan (due to reopen in 2007).

[3] The corps de logis of the château no longer exists, but de Brosse's twin cubical stone pavilions and a grand entrance gateway approached by a stone bridge across a moat (now dry) survive.

The pavilions have identical façades on all sides, framed in rusticated quoins at the corners: each consists of a pair of pedimented windows that make a composition with a central œil de bœuf window under a semicyclical arch that carries the dentilled cornice across and breaks into the roof balustrading above.

The Jardins du Nouveau Monde, on its grounds, contain an arboretum and garden plants from the New World.

A rustic country house
Louis Saint-Just 's home in Blérancourt, which is now a museum and tourist office.