The Great Châteaux

Chenonceau

The first initials of Henri II and his queen, Catherine de Medici, when interlaced, can form the letter D, as in Diane de Poitiers. And indeed there were three in that royal marriage. Henri had been in thrall to the beautiful Diane since he was a boy, and she—20 years older—was a lady-in-waiting in the court of his father, François I. When Henri acceded to the throne in 1547, he gave Chenonceau to Diane, who remained his confidante for the rest of his life, much to Catherine’s distress.

Chenonceau was built in the early 16th century, on the site of an earlier medieval château fort, by Thomas Bohier, treasurer to François I, and his wife Katherine Briçonnet. With her husband constantly away, Katherine was the first of the many women who left their mark on Chenonceau, but it was Diane de Poitiers who later built the château’s signature bridge across the river Cher, and created the lovely east-side garden.

When Henri II was killed in a jousting tournament, Catherine exacted revenge by taking Chenonceau for herself. She put her own monogram—an interlocked double C (later used by Chanel)—on the immense mantelpiece in Diane’s bedroom, and as regent she governed France from the small study on the main floor. Catherine created the smaller garden and built the splendid two-story gallery atop Diane’s bridge, with 18 windows overlooking the river—a spectacular ballroom for her elaborate fêtes.

Today the privately owned Chenonceau’s interior is as enchanting as the exterior, exquisitely furnished, impeccably maintained and filled with bouquets of fresh flowers, from the sumptuous bedrooms to the kitchens in two of the bridge’s pillars. The walls are hung with tapestries and paintings by Primatice, Tintoretto, Rubens, Murillo and Rigaud. On the grounds there is an idyllic “farm”, a maze, a vegetable garden, boats for rent, and picnic and children’s play areas as well as a cafeteria, a tea salon and a pretty restaurant, L’Orangerie, all with outdoor terraces. In summer the gardens are open for evening candlelight walks, with music by Baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli. website

Villandry

Completed in 1536, charming Villandry was built by Jean Le Breton, François I’s finance minister, who supervised the construction of Chambord. In 1754 it was sold to the Marquis Michel-Ange de Castellane, who redesigned the interior for 18th-century comfort. Since 1906 it has belonged to the Carvallo family, originally from Spain, and today, in the hands of Henri Carvallo, it has the welcoming atmosphere of a gracious country home. The salons, dining room, library, art gallery and several bedrooms are open to the public, including delightful children’s rooms and an Oriental room with a magnificient polychrome marquetry ceiling from a Spanish palace.

When Joachim Carvallo bought the château, its Renaissance gardens were long gone. Carvallo devoted his life to patiently and painstakingly re-creating them, using a descriptive book by a 16th-century French architect and archaeological surveys that revealed vestiges of the original. The result is the astonishing three-level expanse of formal gardens that are among the most beautiful in France. The four ornamental jardins d’amour symbolize tender, passionate, fickle and tragic love. There is a water garden, a medieval herb garden, colorful ornamental vegetable gardens, a labyrinth and the most recent addition, the Sun Garden, with a blue-and-white “cloud” garden, an orange-and-yellow garden around a star-shaped pond, and a children’s play area in an apple orchard. website

Cheverny

The Château de Cheverny may be almost too perfect. Built in the early 17th century by Comte Henri Hurault, whose father was the chancellor of Henri III and Henri IV, it has remained in the same family ever since, except for two brief periods. The architect was Jacques Bougier, who also worked at Blois and Chambord; the original interior decoration was done by Jean Monier, a favorite of Queen Marie de Medici, who sent him to Italy to perfect his trade.

Behind the château’s strictly symmetrical, rather severe facade, much of Monier’s sumptuous original interior is intact, including magnificently beamed and painted ceilings and ornate mantelpieces. In the dining room, painted panels illustrate the Cervantes novel Don Quixote; in the King’s Chamber, ancient Greek myths and tales. Rooms are hung with vibrant tapestries and fine paintings. Smaller bedrooms and a child’s room upstairs are quieter, but meticulously appointed. (The current owners, the Marquis and Marquise de Vibraye, live in the opposite wing.) Surrounded by gardens and a park, Cheverny is a hunting center, and has kennels housing some 100 hounds. It also inspired the Château de Moulinsart in Hergé’s comic Tintin, and there’s a permanent Tintin exhibition on the grounds too. website

Chambord

It was meant to be a hunting lodge and became a precursor of Versailles—royal grandeur on a colossal scale, begun by the 25-year-old François I in 1519, after he returned victorious from a battle near Milan much influenced by Italy’s Renaissance architecture. He also met Leonardo da Vinci in Italy and invited him to France, giving him the manor house Clos Lucé in nearby Amboise. It’s thought that the aging artist helped to plan Chambord, in particular its spectacular, three-story double-spiral staircase. Chambord is laid out like a medieval château fortress—a massive square enclosure with corner towers surrounding a central keep—but the rest is Renaissance, including the coffered ceilings carved with François’s fire-breathing salamander emblem. The king had his quarters in the keep and later moved to the east wing, but he spent little time at Chambord—the 16th-century French court was itinerant, moving from castle to castle—and the château was unfinished when he died in 1547.

Now owned by the French state, Chambord has 426 rooms, 77 staircases and 282 fireplaces, most of them enormous and many with giant log
fires going in winter. Several royal apartments are now furnished in the 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century styles of their various occupants, including Louis XIV, the Maréchal de Saxe and the last of the Bourbons, the Comte de Chambord. The entire forested domain covers some 13,450 acres—about the same as central Paris—enclosed by 20 miles of walls. The best views are from the immense rooftop terraces. website

Originally published in the May 2011 issue of France Today