Recent history: From World War II until today

From 1940 to 1955 there were three successive occupations. First, the Germans, from 1940 to 1944, who set up a base for the Luftwaffe. Then, an American disciplinary camp, in the outbuildings from 1944 to 1946. Finally, Field Marshal Montgomery, deputy commander of NATO headquarters, based in Fontainebleau, from 1949 to 1955, who left the huge billiard table behind him.

Hubert, eldest son of Berthe and godson of Martine de Béhague, with his son Jean-Louis (1922-2013) married to Philippine de Noailles (born in 1925), strove to get rid of the traces left by these different occupations as well as various embellishments that had been added by the architect Destailleur.

When the book on Courances was published by Flammarion in 2003, under the direction of Laurent Le Bon and Valentine de Ganay, a journalist wrote: “One can measure the contribution of Jean-Louis de Ganay, who considerably simplified Courances, (…) transforming the geometrical park and lending it a modernity that he perhaps had not meditated, leaving his signature on a 20th century garden.”

Pictures: Jean-Louis de Ganay / Philippine de Noailles / Adrien et Benji – Chris Plytas