Les Charmettes, Historical house in Chambéry, France
Les Charmettes is an 18th-century country house in Chambéry furnished with period objects and household items from that era. The garden surrounds the building and shows how life unfolded in this place.
Rousseau stayed at Les Charmettes, then a property of Monsieur de Conzié, from 1736 to 1742 with Madame de Warens. He returned alone for the winter of 1738–39 and the first half of 1742, reading extensively. In 1905 the house was classified as a monument historique, and the city of Chambéry turned it into a museum under sculptor Mars Valett.
The house name evokes the charm and grace that Rousseau found there, and today it shows how a well-to-do couple lived in the 18th century. The rooms give a sense of daily life from that era, from living spaces to personal objects.
Visitors can explore the house with guided tours available in multiple languages and should know that rooms are connected by stairs. The season significantly affects the garden landscape and the visiting experience.
The garden is not a botanical collection but an 18th-century-style French garden of four square beds, holding about eighty species of medicinal, condimentary, vegetable and fruit plants, with an orchard of old cherry, apple and pear varieties below and a 100 m² slope of former Savoyard vines above the house.
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