Les Essarts is the Forbes family estate at Saint-Briac, France, and the international family seat of the descendants of James Grant Forbes (b. Shanghai, China), a member of the Forbes family of China and Boston who settled in Brittany at Les Essarts. He is the grandfather of two famous politicians, Brice Lalonde, a Green Party candidate for President of France in 1981, and US Senator John Forbes Kerry, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States of America in 2004. Many of the Forbes family have socialized during summers spent in Brittany at Les Essarts.
Les Essarts had been occupied and used as a Nazi headquarters during World War II. When the Germans fled, they bombed Les Essarts and burnt it down. The sprawling estate was rebuilt in 1954.
Les Essarts is also considered a Winthrop family estate. As the two families are related and the Winthrops still have use of Les Essarts.
Famous quotes containing the words les, family and/or estate:
“The deer and the dachshund are one.
Well, the gods grow out of the weather.
The people grow out of the weather;
The gods grow out of the people.
Encore, encore, encore les dieux . . .”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“True spoiling is nothing to do with what a child owns or with amount of attention he gets. he can have the major part of your income, living space and attention and not be spoiled, or he can have very little and be spoiled. It is not what he gets that is at issue. It is how and why he gets it. Spoiling is to do with the family balance of power.”
—Penelope Leach (20th century)
“I ‘gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish th’ estate o’ the world were now undone.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)