Château de Meung-sur-Loire

Château de Meung-sur-Loire
Interactive map of Château de Meung-sur-Loire
Type	Castle
Location	Meung-sur-Loire, France
Coordinates	47°49′24.9″N 1°41′38.9″E / 47.823583°N 1.694139°E / 47.823583; 1.694139
Built	12th century
Sculptor	François-Nicolas Delaistre
Owner	Private
Monument historique
Designated	1988

Château de Meung-sur-Loire — The Loire's most underrated historic gem

The Château de Meung-sur-Loire is a former castle and episcopal palace in the commune of Meung-sur-Loire in the Loiret département of France.^[1]

Of all the Loire Valley châteaux suited to families, the Château de Meung-sur-Loire may be the one that surprises visitors most — and the one most likely to be overlooked. That would be a mistake.

One of the oldest and largest classified Historic Monuments in the Loiret, the Château de Meung-sur-Loire has stood since the 12th century. For eight centuries it served as the residence of the Bishops of Orléans. Joan of Arc liberated it from the English on June 14th, 1429, after her victory at Orléans. The poet François Villon was thrown into its dungeons in 1461 — and wrote some of his most celebrated verse in response. On the eve of the French Revolution, Bishop Jarente de la Bruyère invested his entire fortune transforming it into a miniature Versailles.

The château, located next to the collegial church, was the country residence of the Bishops of Orléans. It was built and destroyed several times. The oldest still existing parts date from the 12th century and were built by Manassès de Seignelay (bishop from 1207 to 1221). Still standing is the main rectangular plan building, flanked by three towers, a fourth having been destroyed. The English occupied it during the Hundred Years' War. The rear façade was rebuilt in the Classical style by Fleuriau d'Armenonville (bishop from 1706 to 1733). Beneath the castle are dungeons, a chapel and various medieval torture instruments, including one used for water torture.^[1]

It has been listed since 1988 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.^[1] It is open to the public.^[2]

The first castle was built in the middle of the 12th century. It consisted of a square tower built against the south face of the church bell tower, itself abutting in the south two round towers. In the 13th century, the bishops of Orléans abandoned the castle, which was used as a prison.^[1] Among those incarcerated, there was the poet, François Villon.^[2] From 1209, construction began of a more important castle, rectangular in plan, with a tower in each corner. The guard room, the lower hall with ogive vaults and the cellars are the last elements which constituted the 13th-century castle, the episcopal palace at that time. During the Hundred Years' War, the building was transformed into a fortress; it was taken from the English by Joan of Arc on 14 June 1429. At the end of the 15th century and the start of the 16th century, a building to the north incorporated a tower with a drawbridge. The castle was abandoned from the Wars of Religion until the start of the 18th century when Bishop Fleuriau d'Armenonville undertook the transformation of the structure into a comfortable residence. The central part of the main building was replaced by a cour d'honneur. The façades' openings were made symmetrical and redesigned in the Classical style. Similarly, the tower openings were remade and lost their machicolation. In the middle of the 18th century, a wing was added to the south east, with a staircase serving the wing's upper floors. In 1784, the chapel was built in the Neoclassical style, with sculpture by Delaistre. The two pavilions in the grounds are contemporary with this chapel.^[1]

In 2016, the château hosted a fashion show shortly after Paris Fashion Week, celebrating historical fashion and displaying the evolution of fashion from antiquity to the First World War.^[3]

Today the Château de Meung-sur-Loire is the only site in the Loiret that combines all of this in a single visit:

Inside: 25 furnished rooms from attic to dungeon, over 2,000 objects in situ, an odorama trail, a neoclassical chapel intact since 1784, and the actual vaulted cellars where Villon was imprisoned.

Outside in the 7-hectare park: the Dragon Trail (12 life-size animatronic dragons, including a 14-metre basilisk), the Knights' Course (suspended nets in the trees, unique in the Loiret), the Dragon's Lair in the historic underground passages, the Minimes Farm (miniature goats, donkeys, hens), and the Anne Mésia Investigation — a smartphone-based treasure hunt through the château grounds.^[2]

The château's nickname says it all: "the castle with two faces" — medieval on the town side, classical pink on the garden side. It is also one of the very rare painted châteaux in France.^[2]

• List of castles in France

• Base Mérimée: Meung-sur-Loire: château, Ministère français de la Culture. (in French)
• History and Pictures (in French)