Chateau

For people who check facts

A chateau or chÃÂÃÂ¢teau (plural chateaux or chÃÂÃÂ¢teaux - French for castle) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of gentry, usually French.

The next step down in France is a maison de campagne, a "country house" with the usual English connotations of the word. There is a distinction in French between a maison de campagne and one that is merely a maison à la campagne, a "house in the country," perhaps a weekending retreat. The urban counterpart of "chateau" is palais (palace).

If a chateau isn't old, then it must be grand. A chateau is a "power house" as Sir John Summerson dubbed the English (and Georgian Irish) "Stately homes" that are social counterparts of chateaux. It is the personal (and hopefully hereditary) badge of a family that represents the royal authority at some rank, locally. Thus this word is often used to refer to a residence of a member of the French royalty or the nobility, but some fine chateaux, such as Vaux-le-Vicomte were built by the essentially high bourgeois, but recently ennobled, tax-farmers and ministers of Louis XIII and his successors.

A chateau is supported by its lands (terres), comprising a demesne that renders the society of the chateau largely self-sufficient, in the manner of the historic villa system of Rome and the Early Middle Ages. (Compare hacienda.) The open Roman villas of the time of Pliny, Maecenas or emperor Tiberius began to be fortified in the third century and evolved into castellar "chateaux." Even in modern use a chateau still retains some enclosures that are the distant descendants of these outworks: its fenced-off forecourt, with gates that could be closed and perhaps with a gatehouse or keeper's lodge, and its supporting outbuildings, like stables, kitchens, brewery, bakehouse, and lodgings for menservants in the garconniÃÂÃÂ¨re). Aside from the entrance cour d'honneur, the chateau may have an inner cour. Beyond, on the private inner side, the chÃÂÃÂ¢teau faces a park that is enclosed, no matter how simply or discreetly. (If you doubt whether it's a chateau, ask to see the chapel.)

The original chateaux of the Louvre (originally fortified) and Luxembourg (originally in the suburbs) have lost their chateau name and have becomes "palaces" as the growing city enclosed them.

In England, the word "chateau" never took root: even the utterly chateauesque Rothschild Waddesdon Manor is not a "chateau."

In the U.S., "chateau" took root selectively. In the Gilded Age resort of Newport, Rhode Island, even the châteaux were always "cottages." But north of Wilmington, Delaware, in upscale rural "Chateau Country" centered on the powerful DuPont family, some of the chateaux are really just McMansions.

Table of contents

1 French chateaux

1.1 Chateaux of the Loire valley

2 Bordeaux

French chateaux

The chateaux of France's Loire Valley, represent a nation of builders starting with the necessary castle fortifications in the nine hundreds to the splendor of those built a thousand years later. When the French kings began constructing their huge chateaux here, the nobility, not wanting or even daring to be far from the seat of power, followed suit. Their presence in the lush, fertile valley with its moderate climate, began attracting the very best landscape designers. Before long, and to this day, the valley of the Loire is known as the "Garden of France".

By the middle of the 16th century, King Francois I, had shifted the center of power in France from the Loire back to the ancient capital of Paris. With him went the great architects, but the Loire Valley continued to be the place where most of the French royalty preferred to spend the bulk of their time. The ascension of King Louis XIV in the middle of the 17th century made Paris the permanent site for great royal chÃÂÃÂ¢teaux when he built the Palace of Versailles. Nonetheless, those who gained the king's favour and the wealthy bourgeoisie, continued to renovate existing chÃÂÃÂ¢teaux or build lavish new ones as their summer residence in the Loire.

The French Revolution saw a number of the great French chateaux destroyed and many ransacked, their treasures stolen. The overnight impoverishment of many of the deposed nobility, usually after one of its members lost their head to the guillotine, saw many chateaux demolished.

Today, these privately owned chateaux serve as homes, a few opening their doors to tourist visits, while others are operated as hotels or bed and breakfasts. Many have been taken over by a local government authority or the giant structures like those at Chambord are owned and operated by the national government and are major tourist sites, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

Chateaux of the Loire valley

The Loire Valley (Val de Loire) is home to more than 300 chateaux. Some of the most spectacular chateaux of France are:

Bordeaux

There are many estates with true chateaux on them in Bordeaux, but it is customary for any wine-producing estate, no matter how humble, to prefix its name with "Chateau". This is true whether the building itself is a magnificent palace or a shack. If there were any trace of doubt that the Roman villas of Aquitaine evolved into fortified self-contained chateaux, the wine-producing chateaux would dispell it.