Château de Mehun-sur-Yèvre

Mehun-sur-Yèvre

On the banks of the Yèvre, two slender towers still rise above the public garden of Mehun: the remains of one of the most admired palaces in Europe. After 1367, John of France, Duke of Berry, lavish patron and brother of King Charles V, had the old 13th-century fortress transformed by his architect Guy de Dammartin, assisted by the sculptor André Beauneveu: the austere castle became a palace bristling with pinnacles and pierced with great windows. The chronicler Froissart held Mehun to be "one of the finest houses in the world", and the castle appears, chased like a reliquary, in the illuminations of the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Yet it was the history of France that was played out here in the following century. Charles VII, the "King of Bourges", made it one of his favourite residences. Joan of Arc stayed here several times in 1429–1430, between the coronation at Reims and her capture; local tradition holds that she recovered here from the wound she received before Paris, in a house in the town long known as the "hôtel de la Pucelle". At the end of December 1429, it was at Mehun that the king signed the letters ennobling Joan and her whole family. And it was again at Mehun that Charles VII died, on 22 July 1461, weakened, it is reported, by a dental infection that prevented him from eating. From the top of the restored tower, which today houses the Charles VII museum, the eye takes in the valley where the Duke of Berry dreamed his paradise of stone.

Getting there : Castle in the town centre, place du Général-Leclerc, reached through the public garden on the banks of the Yèvre. Mehun-sur-Yèvre railway station a few minutes' walk away; car parks in town.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound