Château de Montreuil-Bellay

Montreuil-Bellay

Perched above the Thouet, the château de Montreuil-Bellay is said to have originated in a fief held by the Berlay family. According to English Wikipedia, Fulk Nerra seized it in 1025 (the page is then inconsistent on the chronology) and built a first keep there. Giraud II Berlay then resisted Geoffrey Plantagenet during a three-year siege, whose years the sources read do not give. In 1208 Philip Augustus definitively subdued the barony and had a stone keep rebuilt. A great reconstruction followed, with powerful walls and thirteen towers. Under the d'Harcourt family, the Renaissance made it a pleasure residence. In the 17th century the estate passed to Henri II d'Orléans, duke of Longueville. After the Fronde, his second wife, Anne Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé, is said to have been placed under house arrest there for two years by Louis XIV: the “gilded prison” mentioned by Paris ZigZag. The Revolution imprisoned women suspected of royalism there. In 1822 Adrien Niveleau, of Saumur, bought the château and divided it into flats; in 1860 his daughter settled there and had it restored. In the vaulted cellars, the baron de Grandmaison is said to have founded the first wine brotherhood, the Sacavins: the anecdote is reported without a date.

Getting there: In the town of Montreuil-Bellay; private château open to visitors, opening hours to be checked. Coordinates: OpenStreetMap (Nominatim) (position of the château in the database). No protection date was found in the sources read.

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

Ambient sound