In the 10th century, Eudes I, Count of Blois, had a fortress built to protect the city of Blois against attacks by the Counts of Anjou. One of Eudes II's generals, Gilduin de Saumur - nicknamed the Devil of Saumur - fought the Count of Anjou Foulques Nerra and received Chaumont Castle as a reward. When his great-niece, Denise de Fougères, married Sulpice I of Amboise in 1039, the castle passed into the Amboise family for five hundred years.
In 1465, the Amboise family was authorized to rebuild the castle. It was his son Charles I of Amboise who undertook this task from 1469 to 1481, notably building the north wing, facing the Loire, which has now disappeared, and the west wing, which still exists. The entrance gate, preceded by a double drawbridge, is enclosed by two large, massive, round towers with machicolations and walkways. Contrary to custom, the central keep was abandoned in favour of the west tower, known as the Amboise tower, intended to plant the standard of the lord of the place. Traces in the interior wall of the west wing indicate that a frame gallery served the rooms on the first floor from the stairwell.
From 1498 to 1510, Charles II of Chaumont d'Amboise, assisted by his uncle, Cardinal Georges d'Amboise, minister of Louis XII, continued the reconstruction in the Louis XII style already marked by the Renaissance while retaining the same general appearance fortified. It is then that the east and north wings were raised, which close the quadrilateral.
On March 31, 1550, Queen Catherine de Medici bought the castle from the Amboise family for the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand livres..
At the end of 1559, shortly after the accidental death of Henry II, Catherine de Medici, who had owned the castle since 1550, exchanged it with her rival Diane de Poitiers, mistress of the late king, for that of Chenonceau.
On the death of Charlotte de La Marck, granddaughter of Diane (1594), the castle was inherited by her husband, Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, who sold it to a farmer general of the gabelles named Jean Largentier .
Taking advantage of Largentier's arrest for fraud and the lineage rights of his wife Isabelle de Limeuil, the Lucchese gentleman Scipion Sardini, becoming a baron of the place, then his sons, acquired the castle and kept it from 1600 to 1667.
On this date, the castle passed by marriage to the lords of Ruffignac, a Périgord family.
The Duke of Beauvilliers (who became Duke of Saint-Aignan on the death of his father) bought it from this family in 1699. The castle regained its past splendor and even welcomed in 1700 the Duke of Anjou who was traveling towards Spain, to sit there on the throne.
When the duke died, one of his daughters inherited it and gave it to Louis de Rochechouart, duke of Mortemart, prince of Tonnay-Charente, her husband. The latter, a big gambler, contracted debts and had to part with it.
It was sold in 1740 to a master of ordinary requests of Louis XV, Nicolas Bertin de Vaugyen, who made certain modifications, including the opening onto the Loire, by demolishing the main building which closed the courtyard.
In 1750, Chaumont passed to a master of water and forests, Jacques-Donatien Le Ray, future intendant of the Invalides, who founded a famous ceramic products factory there.
Benjamin Franklin stayed there and even obtained from his host the sending of a ship loaded with munitions intended for the American independence fighters. After his death, his son even tried, without success, to found a colony and a city on the banks of the Ohio which was named Chaumont. In 1810, Madame de Stael, exiled, moved to the castle during the adventures of Monsieur Le Ray, in the United States.
Mr. Le Ray had made Chaumont a factory, the castle became a farm after its sale in 1829 to a certain Mr. Etchegoyen.
Restorations began with the Earl of Aramon who acquired it in 1834 (died in 1847) and continued with Viscount Walsh who married his widow.
Marie Say became its owner in 1875 at the age of 17. Shortly after, she married Amédée de Broglie (son of Albert de Broglie). They built luxurious stables and an English landscaped park.
The construction in 1877 of these sumptuous stables was entrusted to the architect Paul-Ernest Sanson, also charged by Prince Henri Amédée de Broglie and his wife Marie with the complete restoration of the castle. The architect chose a brick and stone ensemble.
The Chaumont stables are representative of what the wealthy nobility had built at the end of the 19th century to house their horses. They were considered at the time to be the most luxurious in Europe, benefiting from electric arc lighting, at the same time as the Opéra Garnier and the Paris town hall.
For forty years, the castle experienced a sumptuous era during which the Broglies gave parties and receptions, leading a luxurious life. The “Crosnier crash” of 1905 reduced the income from the princess's assets, then widowed in 1917 by Henri Amédée de Broglie, she remarried Prince Louis-Ferdinand of Orléans, Infante of Spain. This fickle and unscrupulous husband ended up squandering the princess's fortune. In 1938, Chaumont Castle was sold to the State for 1,800,000 francs, which allocated it to the Historic Monuments service.
Courtesy of Wikipedia
The photo was taken from the opposite side of the Loire.
Tags: Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire Centre-Val de Loire France
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Tags: Château Royal d'Amboise Amboise Loire Valley France
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Seen in Amboise, France
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In 1107, Hugues I of Amboise, lord of Touraine, began construction of the current church to replace an oratory built by Martin of Tours. The choir and transept date from this construction campaign. The nave and its aisles were added at the end of the 12th century. The apse was remodeled in the 15th century by the addition of two side apsidals. The south aisle was doubled in the 16th century. The bell tower located at the crossing of the transept collapsed in the 18th century, but was immediately rebuilt.
Tags: Église Collégiale Saint-Denis St. Denis church Amboise France
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Tags: Château Royal d'Amboise Amboise Loire Valley France Leonardo da Vinci
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