Château de Champtocé (château de Gilles de Rais)

Champtocé-sur-Loire

At Champtocé, on the Loire, only remains survive of a château linked to Gilles de Rais. According to the Wikipedia biography, he was born around 1404 or 1405 in a room called the “Black tower”. After his father's death at Machecoul, at the end of October 1415, his grandfather Jean de Craon, lord of Champtocé, raised him here with his brother René. Jean de Craon died in November 1432 and Gilles inherited Champtocé and Ingrandes, rich in the revenues of the Loire trade. Under Jean de Craon, the fortress also served violence: Béatrice de Montjean is said to have been held there and threatened with being sewn into a sack to make her give up her dower, and the garrison is said to have plundered the convoy of Yolande of Aragon. According to a chronology of the 1440 trial, Gilles, having sold Champtocé to John V, had some forty children's skeletons removed from the tower in June 1438 to burn them: this is a trial deposition, to be verified. Arrested at Nantes on 15 September 1440, he was hanged on 26 October. Popular tradition made him the model for Bluebeard, a connection of legend and not an established fact.

Getting there: Remains in Champtocé-sur-Loire. The status of the remains, their visibility and accessibility have not been verified. The Monumentum entry is titled “Château de Gilles de Rays (restes)”, reference PA00109016 (entry not read, site closed to robots). Coordinates: OpenStreetMap (Nominatim) “Château de Gilles de Rais”.

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

Ambient sound