Key Dates

1483–1498 Reign of Charles VIII
1492 Amboise château started
1513 Chenonceau started
1516 Da Vinci comes to Amboise
1519 Chambord started
1525 Battle of Pavia
1560 Amboise conspiracy
1562 Start of wars of religion
1572 St. Bartholomew’s day massacres
1589 Death of Henri III
1598 Edict of Nantes

The Loire is the longest river in France (640 miles), flowing east to west, and until the advent of the railway in the 19^th century, it was the principal commercial waterway in France. Its salient features are its whirlpools, quicksand, currents and its propensity to flood, which has led to the French often referring to it as “le dernier fleuve sauvage de France” (“the last great wild river in France”).

Loire Valley wine is predominantly white and there is substantial production using the champagne method, which makes it sparkling. Signs to wine caves are plentiful, especially around Vouvray. These are long galleries carved out of tuffeau rock, a local sedimentary limestone. Many of the Loire’s chateaux were built out of this soft stone, which was favoured for its bright white colour and easy malleability. Troglodyte dwellings are also cut into the tuffeau, and can be seen in between Tours and Vouvray.

The Valois kings loved to come to their châteaux along the Loire valley, sometimes to hunt, to organise splendid festivities or to withdraw from Paris to a fortified castle when times were unsettled and dangerous. This golden age of the Loire châteaux was a fashion which lasted approximately a hundred years, specifically from the reign of Charles VIII to the death of Henry III. During this period the influence of the Italian Renaissance greatly modified the aspect of the châteaux and the style of court life.

History Renaissance court

The Loire Valley was the backdrop for many events during the Middle Ages – Bishop Grégoire of Tours, the Plantagenet Kings and the Hundred Years War, Charles VII and Joan of Arc at Chinon – but it is the time of the Renaissance that is most visibly stamped on its history. As well as being a time of cultural explosion, it was a time of corruption, intrigue and murder.walls of the house! If they can’t spot the lean, they’ll certainly see the beams and ropes sticking out of the roofs that were used for this purpose.

Charles VII and Louis XII

The Italian Wars occurred during the reigns of Charles VIII, Louis XII and François I, and all three kings brought back a taste for Renaissance art and architecture. Charles VIII was the first of the Valois kings to bring back a taste for Italian culture, and this is reflected in the architecture of the

The Kings

1483-1498 Charles VIII (m Anne of Brittany)

1498-1515 Louis XII (m Jeanne de France/Anne of Brittany)

1515-1547 Francois I (m Claude de France/Eleanor of Austria)

1547-1559 Henri II (m Catherine de Medici)

1559-1560 Francois II (m Mary, Queen of Scots)

1560-1574 Charles IX (m Elizabeth of Austria)

1574-1589 Henri III (m Louise de Lorraine)

Francois I’s main building projects:

Louvre
Fontainebleau
Blois
Chambord

Château of Amboise. He died young at the age of 28, having hit his head on a low doorway. His cousin, Louis XII, preferred the Château of Blois and made many Renaissance-inspired changes.

François I

François I spent his childhood at the Château of Amboise. He grew up a capricious man, with a chivalrous imagination but an acute lack of realism in the political arena. He became king of France at the age of twenty, with a sumptuous coronation at Reims cathedral. The lavish feasts and the pomp surrounding this affair pleased the people of Paris, who had tired of a succession of ailing and solemn monarchs, and he became known as le grand roi François. The young king returned triumphant from the Battle of Marignano, and brought back with him inspiration from Renaissance Italy. He formed a scholarly court of musicians, poets and artists. In triumph, he undertook the huge building enterprise of the Château of Chambord, which was soon to empty his treasury.

François I was a contemporary of Henry VIII of England and of Charles Habsburg, who was soon to become Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. François had always aspired to hold this title and so this event paved out a great rivalry and hatred between the titanic rulers, and almost three decades of savage warfare ensued. At the Battle of Pavia in 1525, the king was wounded and taken prisoner in Madrid. Conditions of his release included the delivery of his two eldest sons as hostages. François’ marriage to his captor’s sister, Eleanor, sealed a supposed treaty between the two leaders. In reality, François did not abide by the treaty’s terms, and it was with great difficulty that he was able to regain his sons: he had to yield all claims to Italy, and pay a large ransom out of the already depleted royal coffers.

Henri II, his wife and his mistress

Henri II carried on with his father’s building work at Chambord but he is mostly associated with the Château of Chenonceau, which he gave as a gift to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Twenty years his senior, she held great influence over him, even convincing him to wear the same mourning colours she wore for her late husband. Henri’s wife, Catherine de Medici of Florence, suffered the affair patiently while he was alive, but when he was killed suddenly in a jousting tournament to celebrate the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis (1559), she took her revenge, forcing Diane de Poitiers to leave her beloved Chenonceau.

Wars of Religion

The Reformation was seen as a huge threat to the stability of the Catholic Church and thus of France’s legitimate Catholic royal family. Tensions between the Protestant Huguenots and the Catholics were already being felt during the reigns of François I and Henri II, but they reached their zenith during the time of Henri II’s three sons. These three kings – Francois II, Charles IX and Henri III – were all three young, weak and

The Amboise Conspiracy

In 1560, a Protestant gentleman, Renaudie, hatched a plot to put and end to the all-powerful Catholic Guise family and to kidnap the young François II. The conspiracy was leaked and 1200 Huguenots ultimately met an untimely end at the Château of Amboise, many hung from the balcony overlooking the Loire, many thrown into the river in sacks and left to drown. This event paved the way for subsequent bloody massacres during the Wars of Religion.

Medieval vs. Renaissance

Medieval château features

strategic location
keep and towers
drawbridge
battlements and ramparts
moat

Renaissance château features

comfort
open galleries and façades
double spiral staircases
ornamental turrets
elaborate gardens

impressionable, and they vacillated between methods of appeasement and bloody repression against the Protestants.

The Wars of Religion were not only a religious struggle, but also about the battle for power between great French personalities of the time, most notably the ultra-Catholic Guise family and the Protestants, Condé and Coligny. Through François II’s marriage to Mary Queen of Scots (a Guise niece), the Guise family assumed great power over the weak and sickly king.

The Wars of Religion got under way in 1562 and were to last thirty-six years, tearing France apart. Several treaties were made, but each time they were revoked, leading to more intrigue and massacre. The St. Bartholmew’s Day massacres of Protestants took place all over France in 1572, and the Seine river in Paris was said to have run red with blood.

Henri de Guise rose to prominence during the reign of Henri III, who had lost respect due to his effeminate ways and notoriety for transvestite parties. So threatened did the king feel by Guise’s power, that he conspired to have him murdered in 1588. He himself would meet his death a year later, murdered by the Dominican monk, Jacques Clément.

The Wars of Religion only came to an end in 1598, with Henri IV’s Edict of Nantes, which allowed for freedom of religion for Protestants.

Arts Architecture

The Loire valley is principally associated with its 16^th century Renaissance châteaux, but this region is also testimony to the glories of the Middle Ages. Romanesque and Gothic styles are mainly highlighted in religious buildings. Medieval châteaux – like those at Angers and Saumur – were sombre fortresses, often strategically situated on impregnable promontories and outfitted with defensive features. As the threat of invasion and siege weakened, the architecture of the châteaux began to display new priorities, primarily those of comfort and beauty.

Renaissance architecture flooded into France as successive kings returned from their military campaigns in Italy. The movement revived and enhanced the work of the ancient Greeks and Romans and breathed new light into French architecture. As the kings began to favour the Loire Valley over Paris, château-building flourished to accommodate the innovative styles. Italian Renaissance architects were welcomed, two of the first being Domenico da Cortona and Fra Giocondo, but the most famous import of the time was Leonardo da Vinci, brought over to Amboise by François I (see Science).

French Renaissance architecture did not replace flamboyant Gothic entirely, but rather complimented it, with many of the new châteaux juxtaposing the two styles. Many defensive elements became ornamental features: moats evolved into pools of reflection; watchtowers became elegant turrets… Chambord is a fine example of this as it

combines the architecture of medieval romance with that of the classical Renaissance. Its layout is that of a neat medieval fortress, with its central keep in the form of a Greek cross with four turrets at each corner, and a further defensive wall. The roof terrace, with its towers, turrets and chimneys looks like something out of a gothic fairy tale. The details, however, are essentially Renaissance; the open façades and galleries and the Italian-style double spiral staircase. It is a feat of meticulous mathematical and geometrical complexity and symmetry as it allows two people to pass without meeting.

Literature

Many writers over the centuries have drawn inspiration from the Loire Valley and the river. To different writers, the river had a different hue: to La Fontaine it was crystal, to Baudelaire it was green, to Flaubert silver and to Balzac gold. Rabelais, the humanist and satirist born in Chinon in the 15^th century, became world famous upon the publication of Pantagruel and Gargantua. Ronsard was the chief French Renaissance poet of the 16^th century. He was court poet to Charles IX and his sister, Marguerite, and was determined to revolutionise French poetry through classical study.

Rousseau, Voltaire and Montesquieu were all welcomed at Chenonceau in the 18^th century by the then owner, Madame Dupin. Rousseau was the tutor to her son, and it was here that he wrote his famous treatise on education, Émile, ou de l’éducation.

Balzac was one of France’s most prolific 19^th century writers, having revolutionised the interpretation of “the novel”. He favoured Touraine as a province, and Tours and Saumur feature in his work.

Lifestyle The Itinerant Court

In the 16^th century, the French court was itinerant. That is, it moved from place to place. The king owned too many châteaux for them all to be furnished, and so a visit to one would be accompanied by a huge number of servants, who carried the furnishings ahead of the king’s arrival in large carts. On arrival, furniture would be unloaded, tapestries hung and fires lit. On departure day, this would all be reloaded and the château would then perhaps lie dormant once more, depending on the king or queen’s caprices, for several years. (This is the origin of the French word meubles for furniture or that which is mobile, whereas immeuble means a building).

Women

François I was a great admirer of women and revolutionised the way that they were seen at court. Until his time, they had been relegated to the Queen’s service, expected to dress modestly and devote their time to religion and needlework. He gave vast allowances to them, so that they might dress sumptuously and show off their beauty, and demanded that

they be treated with the utmost respect and courtesy (see The Visit for the particular influence of women on the history of Chenonceau).

Entertainment

Renaissance castles were all about pleasure and so life at court reflected this. One of the fundamental reasons for building Chambord in the heart of the Boulogne forest, was to assuage François I’s’ passion for hunting and hawking. It was an art which demanded the best equipment and finely-designed costumes, and it was the favourite subject of artists and tapestry makers, who would then adorn palaces and hunting lodges with their works. The huge rooftop terrace at Chambord enabled the women of the court to watch the sport in safety.

Chenonceau was renowned for its festivities during the time of Catherine de Medici and her three sons. Sumptuous masquerade balls were held at the castle: whole naval battles on the Cher, women dressed up as nymphs and mermaids, and not forgetting Henri III’s transvestite parties.

During Louis XIV’s reign, the playwright Molière first performed Monsieur de Pourceaugnac and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme at Chambord, in 1669 and 1670. The king even had one of the arms of the Greek cross keep converted into a theatre for the performances.

Science Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, the illegitimate son of a nobleman of Vinci and a servant. When he was about five years old, he was taken in by the nobleman’s wife and lived with the family, first in the country and later in Florence (1469-1481). The young man showed an early aptitude for drawing and painting and studied with Verrocchio. At the same time he developed his interests in science and inventions. In 1481, at the age of forty, he wrote a famous letter to the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, as a result of which he was invited to the Court of Milan as painter, sculptor, musician and civil and military engineer.

In his “CV” he outlines the various technological processes which he had mastered and their military applications. Only in the last paragraph does he mention his skill in architecture, sculpture and painting. On his deathbed he apparently regretted that he had not devoted more time to his art, but nonetheless he always believed that it would be as a scientist and inventor that he would be remembered. This despite the fact that in the 15th century, the scientist was looked on with mistrust and suspicion. In later life Leonardo made no secret of the fact that he had dissected human bodies, both male and female. He wrote a treatise on anatomy, with detailed drawings of muscles, nerves, joints etc, which was considered curious if not downright scandalous.

Artists depended on the patronage of noblemen and royalty. Accordingly, Leonardo, having left the service of the Duke of Milan, spent a brief period with Cesare Borgia before returning to Florence to complete a

Key dates – Amboise

1492 Charles VIII starts building

1516 Leonardo da Vinci arrives

1560 Amboise conspiracy Amboise Conspiracy

commission for the Palazzo Verrocchio, which he won in competition with Michelangelo. During a second period in Milan he entered the service of the King of France as a painter and engineer. This was followed by three years in Rome, where the Pope did not make as much use of him as he did of Raphael and Michelangelo. In 1516 Leonardo accepted the invitation of Francis I to come to Le Clos Lucé, where he was received with great kindness and respect. Francis took a personal interest in his discoveries and paid him a modest allowance which enabled him to live in comfort.

Leonardo brought with him the notes and manuscripts of a lifetime’s work, together with the paintings he wanted to keep with him, including the Mona Lisa, the Virgin and Child with St Anne, and St John the Baptist. All three paintings hung on his walls at Le Clos Lucé and are mentioned in contemporary accounts.

During his last three years he studied geography, architecture and town planning as well as organising festivities for the court. It is thought that he was instrumental in the architecture of Chambord. He was fascinated by hydrology, and planned out ways to link the châteaux of the Loire by waterways, going as far as to suggest the diversion of the Loire river.

After his death in 1519 he was buried in the cloister of St Florentin in the château. After this was demolished his bones were recovered and reburied in the Chapel of St Hubert.

Medicine

The Loire Valley was at the forefront of medical progress in France. During the Renaissance, the worthy surgeon Amboise Paré (1517-90) laid the foundations to modern surgery, perfecting the technique of ligaturing arteries

The Visit Amboise

King Charles VIII began work on the Château of Amboise in 1492, after having returned fresh with inspiration from Renaissance Italy. It then became a sort of tradition to send royal children to grow up here, and François I and his sister, Marguerite, lived here, amid masquerade parties and balls. A dominant feature of the château is the Tour de Minimes, which was the original entrance and was wide enough to allow cavalry to ascend from the banks of the Loire. The Clos Lucé, situated a good 10 minute walk from the château, was where Leonardo da Vinci spent the last three years of his life, and now houses some forty models of his inventions (see Science). Leonardo is buried in the chapel of St. Hubert, a masterpiece of flamboyant gothic, high on the castle ramparts.

Key dates – Chambord

1519 Construction of Chambord begins

1685 Chambord completed by Louis XIV

1930 Chambord becomes state property

Principal inhabitants of Chambord

16th C Francois I, Gaston d’Orléans, Louis XIII’s brother

17th C Louis XIV

18th C Stanislas Leszcynski, Louis XV’s father-in-law and the deposed king of Poland; Maréchal de Saxe, victor at Fontenoy, under Louis XV

19th C Maréchal Berthier, victor at Wagram under Napoléon; Duke of Bordeaux, “Count of Chambord”, last in line for crown

Key dates – Chenonceau

1513-21 First château built

1547 Henri II gives château to Diane de Poitiers

1599 Henri dies, château passes to Catherine de Medici

Chambord

The largest of the Loire Valley castles, Chambord is a lavish example of the vain expenditure of its chief builder, Francois I. Set in what is today a national wildlife reserve, it is surrounded by the longest wall in France, which is 20 miles in length. In its 500 years of existence, it has only been lived in for a total of 20 years – François I only spent 42 days of his 32 years as king here – and this history of “inoccupation” proves what a highly impractical castle it was, impossible to heat and furnish adequately.

Given the sheer size of Chambord – it has 440 rooms, 365 fireplaces and 84 staircases – it would be impossible visit the whole of the château, so it is a good idea to point out some architectural highlights for the group: double spiral staircase; roof terrace with its labyrinth of turrets, cupolas and chimneys; salamander, Francois I’s royal symbol appears 700 times; “F”: the royal monogram with a Fleur de Lys and Savoy knot.

Chenonceau

Chenonceau was built by the royal treasurer, Thomas Bohier, between 1513 and 1521 and replaced a fortified mill once owned by the Marques family. It is often considered to be the most beautiful château in the Loire Valley, tranquilly situated on the Cher river. It is elegantly furnished and decorated, adorned with roaring fires and flowers. Groups can decide for themselves if the monograms they can see throughout the building are an H and 2C’s, or 2 D’s, or one of each… (for Henri II, Diane de Poitiers, Catherine de Medici). Chenonceau is particularly interesting for its role in the two World Wars. In WWI, the gallery over the Cher was used as a hospital. In WWII, it served as a crossing point from the German-occupied north to the southern Vichy zone of Maréchal Pétain.

“The Château of Six Women”

It was the female occupants of Chenonceau who were the protagonists in the château’s history, and as a result, it is sometimes referred to as “The Château of Six Women.” Katherine Briçonnet (16^th century), Thomas Bohier’s wife, had an eye for comfort and introduced the innovative and more practical straight-flighted staircase. Diane de Poitiers (16^th century), Henri II’s famous mistress, added a gallery over the Cher and a formal garden. Catherine de Medici (16^th century) forced Diane de Poitiers from Chenonceau upon Henry’s death and built her own garden and another storey to the gallery. She was a formidable regent, who apparently surrounded herself with an entourage of beautiful noble women who acted as a network of spies, during this time of intrigue. Louise de Lorraine (16^th century), inconsolable upon Henri III’s death, always dressed in white (“the White Queen”), devoted her time to needlework and religion and adorned her room with black velvet. Madame Dupin (18^th century) welcomed Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Chenonceau (see Art). Madame de

Loire Valley Soundbites

“Chambord is a summary of what human endeavour can do.” Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, during his visit to Chambord in 1539.

“We had a good time in that beautiful place, we ate well, and I became as fat as a monk.” Rousseau, on his time at Chenonceau (from his Confessions).

“Chambord is truly royal; royal by its imposing scale, its grand air, its indifference to common concerns.” Henry James in A Little Tour in France.

“Paris is worth a mass.” Henri de Navarre, on converting to Catholicism.

“Ma sacrée toux!” An unwell Charles IX, possibly triggering the St. Bartholomew’s day massacres, by accident (purely anecdotal…).

Pelouze (19^th century) devoted her time to restoring the château to its former glory.

Tour Manager Notes: The Loire Valley

Key Dates

Further Reading

Overview

Wars of Religion

The Amboise Conspiracy

Medieval vs. Renaissance

Medieval château features

Renaissance château features

Science Leonardo da Vinci

Key dates – Chambord

Chambord

Chenonceau

Key Dates

Further Reading

Overview

Wars of Religion

The Amboise Conspiracy

Medieval vs. Renaissance

Medieval château features

Renaissance château features

Science Leonardo da Vinci

Key dates – Chambord

Chambord

Chenonceau

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