Crèvecœur
Castle
A family... a museum

Property of the Schlumberger Museum Foundation since 1970, Crèvecœur castle houses an exhibition focussing on the industrial adventures of the Schlumberger brothers, Conrad and Marcel.

 
Born in Alsace, it was nevertheless in the Pays d’Auge that these genius inventors carried out their research which was to revolutionize mineral prospecting and the exploitation of oil deposits throughout the world.

Why Normandy ?
Why Crèvecœur ?

Photo taken by Marcel Schlumberger : Paul Schlumberger with his son Conrad, his daughter-in-law and several grandchildren.

In 1876, some of the Schlumbergers, a family of manufacturers from Alsace, forged ties with the Pays d’Auge through the marriage of Paul Schlumberger to Marguerite de Witt.
Marguerite, granddaughter of François Guizot, Minister for Louis Philippe, had close ties with Val Richer, the family home since 1836, located 10 kilometres from Crèvecœur-en-Auge.

Paul and Marguerite Schlumberger with their six children.

Paul and Marguerite had six children, including Conrad (1878) and Marcel (1884). When this great family left Alsace for Paris, Val Richer was even closer and they often went to stay there.

Summer 1912, Conrad Schlumberger continued his experiments on sedimentary iron deposits in Normandy, wearing a telephone headset.
In 1912, Conrad quite naturally chose the family home as the place in which to carry out his first in-the-field trials to test an electrical prospecting system he had invented.

Some years later, Conrad and his brother Marcel made this method the top technique worldwide for oil prospecting.

In 1970, not far from Val Richer, their families chose Crèvecœur castle as the site at which to set up a museum bringing together souvenirs of the two brothers'inventions.

In 1973, after three years of restoration, the Museum opened its doors to the public.

© Fondation Musée Schlumberger - Château de Crèvecoeur - 14340 CRÈVECOEUR-EN-AUGE - Tél. : 33 (0) 231 630 245 - Fax : 33 (0) 231 630 596 - Email - Legal notice