Maincy (France) (AFP)

Fric-frac at the castle: criminals sequestered the night of Wednesday to Thursday the owners of Vaux-le-Vicomte, architectural masterpiece of the seventeenth century south-east of Paris, where they left with a loot estimated at 2 million euros.

The facts took place shortly before dawn in this castle in Seine-et-Marne presented as the model of the Palace of Versailles, said the floor of Melun.

The owners, aged 90 and 78, were tied up with the nonagenarian's own ties by six masked and unarmed men, according to a police source. The couple does not have any injuries.

Burglars attacked the safe and stole emeralds, the source added.

The prosecution gave the investigation to the judicial police of Versailles, which was on site in the morning.

The flight "took place in a private apartment", which is in the area but not in the castle, and "does not concern the collections of the castle," said the direction of the castle to AFP. "The owners are well and the castle is open to visit at the usual times," she said.

Largest privately owned property in France, with an area of ​​500 hectares, enclosed by a wall of 13 km, the "small Versailles" welcomes 250,000 visitors each year.

This architectural masterpiece, built between 1656 and 1661 fifty miles south of Paris, earned its owner, Nicolas Fouquet, the jealousy of King Louis XIV, who imprisoned him for life.

Vaux-le-Vicomte partly built its reputation thanks to the great names that built it: Louis Le Vau was the architect, Charles Le Brun, the painter, and André Le Nôtre, the landscape architect.

- "Desperate Housewives" -

Nearly 13 hectares of French garden are then designed, with an open living room, without counting multiple pools of water and many statues, including one, covered with 10,000 gold leaf.

In 1661, legend has it that the king ordered the arrest of Fouquet after a sumptuous party given in honor of the court, which dazzled Louis XIV by his jets of water, his fireworks, his impressive buffet given for over a thousand seats and the quality of its shows.

After the arrest of Nicolas Fouquet, the monarch seized the castle and emptied it of its most beautiful objects to transfer them to the Louvre Palace and Versailles.

He was saved by Praslin's family, then by Alfred Sommier, who bought it at auction in 1875. Sommier was the grandfather of the count and the countess of Vogüé.

Owner for five generations, the family of Vogüé, today flourishes this French flagship through the holding of lavish weddings, film shoots or huge private dinners, while deciding in 1968, to open to the public. gardens and the house, where the owners still continue to live there.

In July 2007, French basketball player Tony Parker and American actress Eva Longoria hosted their in-camera wedding reception with a host of distinguished guests, including "Desperate Housewives" actresses, singers and singers. famous sportsmen.

Moreover, shootings of pubs, as with the house Dior or Samsung, but also feature films, a James Bond, "Marie-Antoinette" by Sofia Coppola, "Raid crazy" by Dany Boon and even series like "Versailles" have been regularly organized since the 1960s.

Since 2007, the association Les Amis de Vaux le Vicomte has orchestrated a Nuit des Muses, which brings together guests from all walks of life and of all ages around a giant candlelight dinner.

© 2019 AFP