Blérancourt

Infobox Commune de France
nomcommune=Blérancourt
région=Picardie
département=Aisne
arrondissement=Laon
canton=Coucy-le-Château-Auffrique
insee=02093
cp=02300
maire=Patrick Laplace
mandat=2008-2014
intercomm=sans
longitude=3.151389
latitude=49.516944
alt moy=60 m
alt mini=53
alt maxi=159 m
hectares=1080
km²=10,8
sans=1193
date-sans=1999
dens=110|

Blérancourt is a commune in the department of Aisne in Picardie 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). 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 "oeil de boeuf" window under a hemicyclical arch that carries the dentilled cornice across and breaks into the roof balustrading above. Slate roofs with cyma curves converge to a central four-sided cap. The central gateway takes the form of a triumphal arch with a prominent keystone. The Jardins du Nouveau Monde, on its grounds, contain an arboretum and garden plants from the New World.

The house of Louis de Saint-Just now houses a museum devoted to the French Revolution.

ee also

*Communes of the Aisne department

References

* [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/museo_fr?ACTION=CHERCHER&FIELD_4=REF&VALUE_4=0209301 Ministère de Culture: Blérancourt]