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Chenonceau-Introduction and history

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Introduction and history

Visit of Chenonceau

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South of Amboise, this ravishing castle rests on arches to surmount the Cher, which peaceful waters reflect the perfect beauty of this Renaissance edifice. The enchanting site, the gardens a la française and green nature attract a lot of visitors to Chenonceau (the village has an “x” at the end: Chenonceaux).. It's the most visited site in the French province after Versailles. In 1997 850.000 visitors compared to the 550.000 for all the other chateaux de la Loire. It’s climbing up to nearly a million visitors a year.
Buying you tickets, don't forget to ask the free fascicle, very well done and giving you the opportunity to discover all these beauties in your own pace, better than following the compact mass of groups guided by someone who mumbles and blunders through the same text since 20 years!
The history of this chateau is connected to the history of six women: it was given by the son of Catherine Briconnet to François 1er to pay off some debts and he declared the chateau another hunting castle. The second lady was the beautiful Diane de Poitiers who received the chateau from her lover, king Henri II. She built the first beautiful gardens a la française and added a bridge connecting the chateau to the south shore of the Cher. But she had to exchange it with her great rival Catherine de Medicis for the chateau de Chaumont-sur-Loire (what a pity!!). Once the chateau in her possession, Catherine added a big park and built the gallery striding over the Cher, that gives the chateau de Chenonceau its so typical aspect. It remembered Catherine the image of the Ponte Vecchio of her childhood. So Chenonceau is a castle and a bridge at the same time.  Catherine being the third woman, Louise de Lorraine was the fourth. She received the chateau in legacy from Cathnerine de Medeicis and after the murder of her husband Henri III she retired in Chenonceau, and grieved the rest of her life. She did it for 11 years until the “white queen” died. The fifth woman was Madame Dupin. Who received writers, poets and intellectuals like Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire and Montesquieu at the castle. It’s for her son that Rousseau wrote “Emile ou l’éducation sentimentale”. In “Confessions” he admitted that the life in Chenonceau was very agreeable. “I was getting as fat as a monk”, he wrote.
The sixth and last woman was Madame Pelouze who bought the chateau in 1864 and began some serious restoration works during ten years.
The chateau was saved twice of destruction. First during the revolution, the peasants didn't want to raze the bridge that gave them passage over the Cher.  Second, during WW II all bridges in the Touraine were bombarded except the chateau, because there was unanimity to say that Chenonceau was more than a bridge, but one of the most admirable chateaux of France. The 60 meters long gallery of the chateau was often used by the French resistance as an escape route, since it crossed the “ligne de demarcation” (border line) between the German occupied zone and the southern  "zone libre" (free zone). The Cher was the frontier....

Bibliography

Guide du Patrimoine, Centre, Val de Loire , by Perouse de Montclos (ed.Hachette 1992)—Het dal van de Loire, by A.Sperber (Brussels, ed.Harenberg 1997)—Guide du Routard 1998 (ed.Hachette)—de kastelen van Frankrijk, by L.P.Boon (1956)-Six femmes qui firent Chenonceau, by G.Wolckowicz (ed. Dominicus 1993)-Chenonceau, visit guide (brochure)