Joinville

Joinville on the Marne became a seat of the house of Lorraine after the lordship passed to that family in 1386. Claude of Lorraine and Antoinette of Bourbon later made it the capital of their estates. Their patronage gave the town a notable Renaissance legacy, including the chateau du Grand Jardin, completed in 1546.

The setting also exposed Joinville to warfare near the frontier between France and the Empire. Charles V besieged and burned the town in 1544; Claude helped rebuild it. Henry II raised Joinville to a principality for the Guise family in 1551. In 1584 Henri of Guise signed the Treaty of Joinville with Philip II's ambassadors, placing the town within the diplomacy of the French religious conflicts. The principality subsequently passed by inheritance to the Orleans family in 1693. Revolution dismantled part of this lordly landscape: in 1790 Philippe-Egalite offered the great upper castle for sale on condition that its purchasers demolish it.