Grignan

Madame de Sevigne wrote to her daughter Francoise-Marguerite, who had married the count of Grignan and moved south, and the letters, published after her death, became one of the classics of French prose; she died at the chateau in 1696 and is buried in the church below. The building itself is a Renaissance facade set on a rock over the village, largely rebuilt in the twentieth century after the Revolution left it a ruin. The village around is stone, with a printing and book-arts tradition and a festival of correspondence each summer that plays directly on the letters. Lavender fields and truffle oaks surround it.

History

Excavations show the rock of Grignan was occupied from the Iron Age, with traces of the Bronze Age and of Roman times, and in 1035 a cartulary of the Abbey of Saint-Chaffre mentions a "castellum Gradignanum" and a Rostaing of the castle of Grignan. From 1239 the castle belonged not to the Grignan family but to the Adhémar de Monteil, who rose from barons to counts under Henry II and made it a great stronghold; when Louis Adhémar died without an heir in 1559 it passed to his nephew Gaspard de Castellane. The last count, François de Castellane-Adhémar, lieutenant-general of Provence, married as his third wife Françoise-Marguerite de Sévigné, and her mother, the Marquise de Sévigné, whose letters to her daughter made the castle famous, stayed here for 14 months from 1672 and again from 1690 (Wikipedia, Grignan).

What's there

• The chateau terrace - a Renaissance facade above the village roofs.
• The Sevigne connection - the letters, her grave and the summer festival.
• The village lanes - stone streets, bookbinders and printers below.
• The Drome Provencale - lavender and oak country around.

When to go

May to September; lavender flowers roughly late June to mid-July. The correspondence festival is in summer. The chateau closes some winter periods.

Practical notes

Much of the chateau is twentieth-century reconstruction rather than original. The village is small and quiet outside festival dates. Lavender timing varies by year and altitude.

Nearby

Montelimar lies northwest; Nyons is southeast.