Things to See in Bar-le-Duc

Bar-le-Duc occupies the wooded Ornain valley and was once the capital of the independent Duchy of Bar. Its prosperous past is clearest in the Renaissance upper town, but the lower town, churches, bridges and later civic buildings add several other periods to the city’s architectural record.

The Renaissance upper town

Place Saint-Pierre and rue des Ducs form the core of the upper town. Renaissance houses and aristocratic residences line both, many with decorated façades of pale stone. Statues, trophies and gargoyles appear above the street, while some buildings conceal courtyards, domestic wings and outbuildings behind their formal fronts. Medieval houses and fragments of the former ramparts survive in the surrounding streets.

The Tour de l’Horloge, formerly called the curfew tower, is the last remnant of those defences. It carries two clock faces dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From the foot of the tower, a staircase of 183 steps descends towards the lower town.

Another Renaissance landmark is the Collège Gilles de Trèves, built from 1573 to 1575. Gilles de Trèves, dean of the collegiate church of Saint-Maxe, founded it to provide higher education for the city’s young nobles and to counter ideas associated with the Reformation. Its large inner courtyard is framed by two tiers of balcony galleries supported on fluted pilasters, a design thought to have Flemish origins.

Churches, sculpture and the Musée du Barrois

Saint-Étienne church was built between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Its façade combines Flamboyant Gothic and Renaissance elements. Inside is Ligier Richier’s Transi, also known as Le Cadavre. According to tradition, the sculpture represents René de Chalon, Prince of Orange, raising his heart towards heaven as a sign of lasting love for his wife. A polychrome wooden Calvary stands at the high altar; the church also contains a fourteenth-century statue of Notre-Dame-du-Guet and a relief of the Sacrifice of Abraham.

The sixteenth-century Château des Ducs de Bar houses the Musée du Barrois. Its archaeological section draws on finds from Nasium and the Barrois, while other collections cover non-European cultures, arms, painting and sculpture. Works of Lorraine sculpture from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries are among the material described in the collection.

Place de la Fontaine provides a smaller piece of civic history. Its Baroque fountain was once one of seven sources of drinking water for the upper town and has been protected as a historic monument since 1930. The nearby Belvédère des Grangettes looks across the lower town, Côte Sainte-Catherine, the Marbot neighbourhood and the slopes bordering the Ornain.

The lower town and the Ornain

The lower town developed around water. Seven bridges cross its channels, and the streets also meet the Marne–Rhine Canal and the industrial canal running through the town hall park. Pont Notre-Dame is an arched medieval bridge built around 1350 between rue Ernest Bradfer and Place du Maréchal Foch. Its five arches support a small central chapel dedicated to the Virgin. Almost destroyed during the Second World War, the bridge was rebuilt to its earlier form. The oratory contains a statue of Notre-Dame and stained glass depicting the Virgin Mary and Saint Barbara.

Notre-Dame church is the city’s oldest religious building. Constructed between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, it combines Romanesque and Gothic work. Its interior includes a crucified Christ by Ligier Richier and a late fifteenth-century relief of the Immaculate Conception.

Château de Marbeaumont

Banker Paul Varin-Bernier commissioned Château de Marbeaumont between 1903 and 1905. The design combines Renaissance and Louis XIII references with modern construction methods associated with Gustave Eiffel. Lemonwood, walnut, stucco and gold leaf were used in its richly finished entrance hall. During the First World War, the building served as Marshal Pétain’s headquarters; it was subsequently adapted as a media library.