Chateau de Blois

Blois works as a lesson in French architecture because four wings around a single courtyard were built in four different periods: medieval Gothic, flamboyant Gothic under Louis XII in brick and stone, Renaissance under Francis I, and classical under Gaston d'Orleans. The Francis I wing carries the famous staircase, an octagonal spiral set into the facade and left open, so the stair is a carved stone cage you can watch people climb. Seven kings and ten queens lived here. The duke of Guise was assassinated in the royal apartments in 1588 on the orders of Henry III, and the rooms are shown with that story attached.

History

In 854 the Viking chief Hastein attacked the castle of Blisum, and over the 10th and 11th centuries the Counts of Blois, also lords of Chartres and Champagne, rebuilt it; its Hall of the Estates General, of the early 13th century, is one of the oldest seigneurial halls in France and the largest surviving secular Gothic hall, used for the Estates General of 1576 and 1588. In 1397 the castle passed to Louis I, Duke of Orléans, and later to his son Charles d'Orléans, the poet, who after 25 years as a prisoner in England following Agincourt came home and made it more comfortable; when his son became King Louis XII in 1498 it became the favourite royal residence and political capital of the kingdom. Louis XII rebuilt the entrance wing in red brick and grey stone, and Francis I added a Renaissance wing with its great open spiral staircase and one of the finest libraries of the age, later moved to Fontainebleau and the basis of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Wikipedia, Château of Blois).

What's there

• The four wings - Gothic, flamboyant, Renaissance and classical on one courtyard.
• The Francis I staircase - an open carved spiral on the facade.
• The royal apartments - restored painted rooms with the Guise story.
• The classical wing - Mansart's unfinished work for Gaston d'Orleans.

When to go

April to October; a sound and light show runs on summer evenings in the courtyard. Winter hours are shorter and the interiors are cold.

Practical notes

Interior decoration is heavily nineteenth-century restoration in strong colours, which some find garish. The town around is ordinary. The sound and light show is a separate ticket.

Nearby

Chambord lies east; Cheverny is south.

Key facts