Floating on the River Cher, this slate-capped tufa chateau raises its turrets and square chimneys to the sky. It rises up from a large avenue of trees, light, luminous and transparent.
The château is not on the water's edge, but built right into the current of the Cher. Sitting in a canoe, what a pleasure to pass under its arches! You have to see Chenonceau from the water. Tufa stone, turrets, flowerbeds and grace. It looks like a Venetian palace sailing through time.
This Renaissance masterpiece owes everything to women. Built in 1513 by Dame Katherine Briçonnet, wife of Thomas Briçonnet, notary and secretary to the King, the château was transformed by Diane de Poitiers, the Dauphin's mistress Henry II. He offered it to her after the death of her father, François 1er. Diane, 20 years younger, had long refused his advances. Her beauty and even more her wit had captivated Henri, who was married to Catherine de Medicis. Catherine, of Florentine origin, had the two galleries built over the Cher. The château survived the Revolution with some difficulty. It was acquired by the industrialist Henri Menier in 1913 and passed to his brother Gaston on his death in September of the same year. This most visited of private châteaux is still run by the same family.
This tufa stone structure is made up of three distinct parts: a two-storey main building, flanked by corner turrets. A 60-metre long gallery runs along the south façade of the dwelling and rests on five arches spanning the Cher river. The older dungeon has been renamed the Tour des Marques.
Diane came up with the idea for the bridge and the five arches. The architect Philibert Delorme had the garden raised to protect it from flooding. It is adorned with a labyrinth of greenery and fruit trees.
The arches had not even been completed when the king died in a tournament. She had to cede the château to Queen Catherine de Médicis in exchange for Chaumont-sur-Loire.
A reflection of today on yesterday
Let's go down to the kitchens, set in an archway over the bed of the Cher. The pantry is a low room with two cross vaults. There is a 16th-century fireplace, and next to it is the bread oven. You can imagine maids peeling vegetables, cooks at the stove and a chef orchestrating everything.
A two-storey fairytale gallery crosses the Cher. On the first floor, the Grand Gallery, 60 metres long and 6 metres wide, was built on the bridge of Diane de Poitiers and inaugurated in 1577 during the festivities given by Catherine de Médicis. It is lit by 18 windows and has a floor tiled with tufa and slate. It is part of twentieth-century history, having been converted into a military hospital during the 1914-18 war.
A small passageway leads from this gallery to the bedroom of Diane de Poitiers, the favourite of King Henry II. The focal point: a large four-poster bed in blue damask. Ah! Crossing the centuries with a laser and sleep in Diane de Poitiers' bed, even if it's empty! Flaubert dreamt of it when he visited in 1847.
Daydreaming can be a great source of melancholy. When we look at old portraits, we like to imagine all the beautiful ladies in their finery twirling around in ballets in front of gentlemen who, on occasion, "swung" their swords at each other. We would like their lips to open and tell us about their love affairs, their voluptuousness. But they remain mute in their wooden frames.
The châteaux of the Loire Valley all bear the image of one (or more) of the kings who made them famous. Chenonceau has its Salon François 1er, with a fine Renaissance fireplace and a sixteenth-century Italian cabinet, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory and engraved with a pen, that once belonged to the king of the same name.
The castle of the six women
The vestibule is covered by a series of rib vaults, the keystones of which, offset from one another, form a broken line.
Take, for example, the staircase covered with a rampant vault with ribs intersecting at right angles, decorated with human figures, fruit and flowers. This was one of the first straight staircases built in France on the Italian model.
We arrive at the Chambre des Cinq Reines, named after the two daughters and three daughters-in-law of Catherine de Médicis. The walls are hung with 16th-century tapestries from Flanders. The queens' coats of arms are inlaid in the coffered ceiling.
We'd like to know if these people had passions, anxieties and pleasures.
At Chenonceau, the charm of the days flows like the successive images of the kings, queens and favourites who have stayed there. Catherine de Médicis could return and find her own room. She had the walls covered with tapestries and gilded Cordoba leather and the windows decorated with stained glass. You can still see the carved fireplace, the painted and gilded square coffered ceiling and the four-poster bed adorned with friezes. History is revisited like a house you think you know.
Chenonceau also boasts the bedroom of another favourite, the beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrées: she was the great love of King Henry IV and the mother of his legitimate son César de Vendôme. The ceiling with its exposed joists, the floor, the fireplace and the furniture are all Renaissance.
Kitchen and Garden
Raised terraces protect the gardens from flooding by the Cher. The Potager des Fleurs is laid out in 12 squares bordered by apple trees and "Queen Elisabeth" stem roses. Over more than a hectare, the estate's gardeners grow around a hundred varieties of cut flowers: 400 rosebushes, tuberoses, agapanthus. Two old-fashioned greenhouses are used to grow hyacinth bulbs, amaryllis, narcissi and tulips, and to plant seedlings. And that's not all! In the formal gardens, 130,000 flower plants are grown. As for the Italian labyrinth, desired by Catherine de Médicis, it is planted with 2,000 yew trees, with a living wicker gazebo at its centre.
The Dome Building
The Château de Chenonceau has rediscovered its Cabinet des Sciences. Built by Catherine de Médicis, this building with its "imperial" roof houses the Queen's Apothecary and the Cave des Dômes. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was passionate about botany, stayed at the Château de Chenonceau in the autumn of 1747. "We had a lot of fun in this beautiful place. The food was very good and I became as fat as a monk", he wrote in his Confessions. A laboratory was set up there. It was possible to use all kinds of instruments: Archimedes' screw or "endless screw", used to lift water or powdered or granular solids. The experiments made the spectator think so that he could understand the laws of nature. In the middle of the 18th century, the taste for science and technology was surprising. With simple machines: levers, hoists, pulleys...
Advice
Since 2017, the Val de Loire area, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, includes the Chenonceau estate, château, gardens and park, the section of the Cher river spanned by the château, part of the village and the historic road linking Chenonceaux to Amboise.
www.chenonceau.com
Guided video tour with iPod
Read
Chenonceau, the castle on the water
J.P. Babelon , photographs by Benjamin Chelly
Albin Michel, 240 pp., 2018
This is the definitive reference book on this jewel of the Renaissance, with a wealth of information on the history of the building, its construction and its owners, plus 150 previously unpublished photographs and archive images.
Jean-Pierre Babelonis a historian and a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. He was awarded the Grand Prix National du Patrimoine in 1989.
Benjamin Chelly is an architecture and design photographer.
Text : Michèle Lasseur
Opening photo : Benjamin Chelly
