Photography by Daniel Denise
The lecture with Marie de Beauvan-Craon has been unexpectedly cancelled. We hope to reschedule the lecture for the fall semester.
Marie de Beauvau-Craon (“Minnie”) is from a noble Catholic family in northeastern France. Their château is located in the small village of Haroué (pop. 500), just south of the city of Nancy near the border of Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. In quiet country within easy driving distance of Basel, Strasbourg, and Karlsruhe, Haroué thus just outside the administrative, economic, and legal centers of Europe.
In recent years, Mme. de Beauvau-Craon has begun to revitalize the château as a center for the arts. Every year in its front courtyard, a company from Paris (2.5 hours distant) has been staging standards of the operatic repertoire since 2007 for a typical audience of around 2,000. Inside, famed designer Hubert de Givenchy has curated two historical exhibitions in 2010 and 2012. Art exhibitions are beginning to be held inside the château as well. The château and its grounds are themselves masterpieces of seventeenth-century French architecture, horticulture, and art.
Given its location near the economic, legal, and administrative centers of Europe and the interest of its owner in economics and the arts broadly construed, the opportunities for Notre Dame are many. The château could host international summits and conferences, graduate and undergraduate seminars with European peers, high-level workshops in Global Affairs, philosophy, and law, and of course experiences in history, architecture, theatre, music, art history, design, and language. If the undergraduate experience in France continues to take place in Angers, Haroué could be Notre Dame’s place for work at the Master’s level and above.
A past art exhibit at Château de Haroué with haute couture
The New York Times Magazine: Letter From France: A Tiny Village With Its Very Own Princess
Interview with The International Herald Tribune