Diane de Poitiers (1500-1566) was without doubt one of the greatest mistresses in the history of France, not only for her beauty and the fact that her lover (King Henri II of France, r. 1547-1559) was about 20 years younger than her, but also for her wisdom and refined taste. The château most associated with Diane de Poitiers throughout history is Chenonceau, yet Château d’Anet, her private château where she lived for a large part of her life, has somehow managed to fly under the radar for most travelers, and that’s a shame. Today I’ll tell you the story of this château, which has hosted quite a few extraordinary people over the centuries.
The Story of Château d’Anet
The first château on this site was built in the 12th century and served as a feudal fortress, which hosted, among others, King Philip Augustus of France (r. 1180-1223). This château was destroyed in 1378, following a conflict with King Charles V of France (r. 1364-1380). The next person to enter Anet’s history is Jacques de Brézé (1450-1494), who built a somber manor house there in 1470. Monsieur de Brézé married Charlotte, daughter of King Charles VII of France (r. 1423-1461) and his mistress Agnès Sorel (1422-1450). However, her royal lineage didn’t help her: in 1477 her husband caught her in the act with her lover and killed them both with a hundred blows of his sword.
King Louis XI of France at that time (r. 1461-1483) was furious over the murder of his half sister and was about to have Jacques de Brézé executed. In the end, though, the king was persuaded to commute the sentence, and Jacques was sent to a long imprisonment and lost all his property, including Anet, to his son Louis de Brézé (1463-1531). That same Louis, a widower, was 52 when he married Diane de Poitiers, who was more than 30 years younger than him. Despite the age gap, their marriage was actually quite successful (at least by the standards of the time), and when Louis died in 1531, Diane de Poitiers decided from that moment on to wear only black and white in mourning for his death. A few years later, Diane de Poitiers met Henri, who at the time was heir to the French throne, and their romance began, one that would end more than 20 years later with his tragic death. One result of this romance was the transformation of Anet from a modest, somber manor house into a magnificent palace.
A year before Henri II came to power, Diane decided to build herself a new, modern palace next to the outdated manor house standing on the site. The task was entrusted to Philibert de l’Orme (1510-1570), one of the great architects of the French Renaissance. The result was a magnificent palace with gardens and a beautiful chapel, where the recurring motif throughout the complex is Diana, goddess of the hunt (for example, you can see the deer, one of Diane’s symbols, at the entrance gate).
At this château Diane de Poitiers hosted her lover, and you can find quite a few monograms made of the letters DD, which when joined together form the letter H, creating the initials of the lovers’ names (Henri and Diane). Speaking of monograms, in ancient Greek the letter D is delta, which looks like a triangle. Just like her monogram made of two D’s, Diane loved to create monograms of her name using two delta letters, or two triangles, which together form… a Star of David! And so, when touring the château, you can find the Star of David symbol on the threshold of several doors, in the rooms and in the garden courtyard.
When Henri died in 1559, Diane decided to move permanently to Château d’Anet, after being forced to hand over Château de Chenonceau to Catherine de’ Medici. After 7 relatively quiet years, Diane de Poitiers died in this château in 1566. Her son decided to build an impressive mausoleum in her honor, which was completed in 1576, where you can find her magnificent tomb (her grave was desecrated during the French Revolution and her body was moved elsewhere, and only in recent years, thanks to DNA testing, was she returned to her original burial place).
In 1623 the palace passed to César de Vendôme (1594-1665), the illegitimate son of Henri IV of France (r. 1589-1610) and his mistress Gabrielle d’Estrées (1573-1599). His grandson Louis Joseph (1654-1709), one of the brilliant army commanders of Louis XIV, decided to renovate and expand the palace. He called in the famous garden designer André Le Nôtre, who created the gardens of the palace as we know them today. At the same time, he built a grand and magnificent staircase hall, which you can visit during the guided tour of the château. It is said that the Duc de Vendôme demanded that the architect make the stairs wide enough for him to climb them on horseback, something he indeed did to impress the women invited to one of his balls. During Louis Joseph’s time, Louis XIV visited the palace along with his retinue, and the celebration held for the occasion went down in history as one of the most magnificent of the Sun King’s reign (fortunately for the Duc de Vendôme, fate was kind to him, and he came out of it with only a financial hole of 100,000 gold francs, unlike Nicolas Fouquet, whose similar celebrations ruined his life).
Since the Duc de Vendôme had no male heir, the palace passed to the Duc de Maine, the illegitimate son of Louis XIV and the Marquise de Montespan (1640-1707). I imagine you’re already noticing the historical pattern of this palace, which almost from the moment it was built belonged to royal bastards or the mistresses of French kings… And so, during the 18th century, the palace remained in the hands of Louis XIV’s descendants, first the sons of the Duc de Maine, and after they had no descendants of their own, the palace passed into the hands of the Duc de Penthièvre, a descendant of the Duc de Toulouse, another royal bastard of Louis XIV and the Marquise de Montespan.
That duke was very beloved by the people of the town of Anet and its surroundings because of his charitable deeds, and thanks to them he managed to save both his head and the palace from the French revolutionaries. However, the duke died (a natural death) in 1793, and the revolutionaries nationalized the palace and sold off many of its belongings. During the 19th century the palace passed from hand to hand, and during that period a large part of it was destroyed, leaving in fact only one wing of the original palace. At the same time, Le Nôtre’s original garden was completely transformed into an English garden, in keeping with the fashion of the time. The palace continued to pass from hand to hand until, in 1884, it came under the control of the Comte de Leusse and his wife, and their descendants have managed the palace to this day.
Visiting the Château
The town and Château d’Anet are located about an hour and a half’s drive west of Paris. If you arrive in spring, as I did, you’ll enjoy beautiful green and yellow blossoms and pastoral scenery along the way. The town itself is quite small and sleepy, and when you visit the local tourist office, you’ll discover that it relies entirely on the château for tourism. The church where Diane de Poitiers is buried can be visited for free and is located outside the château grounds. However, the château itself can usually only be visited on a guided tour, so it’s worth checking in advance on the château’s official website when the guided tours take place. The visit to the château takes about an hour, during which you see the single surviving wing of the château and the lovely chapel built by de l’Orme.
Like quite a few châteaux in the Loire Valley and Île-de-France, here too you’ll get the usual “mix” of portraits, furniture and art objects. But what gives this château its added value are the stories of the very colorful characters who lived here, some of which I’ve shared briefly in this post. The tour is guided by a man named Patrick, who seems to have dedicated his life to studying the château and knows nearly every stone in it. There’s no doubt it’s a real pleasure to tour with someone who’s truly in love with the place he works at, rather than just a regular guide reciting what he’s been told. After you finish visiting the château and the chapel, feel free to stroll leisurely through the park and try to imagine Diane de Poitiers riding a horse there, or bathing in the lake with ice-cold water nearby to preserve her eternal youth…
How should you fit Château d’Anet into your next trip to France?
I recommend visiting the château as part of a trip through Île-de-France, or on a trip toward the Loire Valley and/or Brittany (as I did). My conclusion from the visit is simple. Château d’Anet is without doubt a hidden gem well worth discovering. I highly recommend it to any advanced Francophile who has already seen the must-see châteaux (Versailles, Chambord, Chenonceau, and so on) and wants to discover something different.
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