This almost regal property belonged before the Revolution to the family of Simeuse.
Ximeuse was a feudal estate in Lorraine; the name was pronounced Simeuse, and in course of time it came to be written as pronounced.
The great fortune of the Simeuse family, adherents of the House of Burgundy, dates from the time when the Guises were in conflict with the Valois.

Richelieu first, and afterwards Louis XIV.

remembered their devotion to the factious house of Lorraine, and rebuffed them.

Then the Marquis de Simeuse, an old Burgundian, old Guiser, old leaguer, old _frondeur_ (he inherited the four great rancors of the nobility against royalty), came to live at Cinq-Cygne.

The former courtier, rejected at the Louvre, married the widow of the Comte de Cinq-Cygne, younger branch of the famous family of Chargeboeuf, one of the most illustrious names in Champagne, and now as celebrated and opulent as the elder.