Castle of Chenonceau, Chenonceaux, France

The Castle of Chenonceau (French: Château de Chenonceau) is a French château spanning the River Cher, near the small village of Chenonceaux in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France. It is one of the best-known châteaux of the Loire valley.

The Chateau is also called "The Ladies' Castle" (French: Château des Dames), because it was almost always women who determined its story and its fate:"this feminine imprint is everpresent, shielding it from conflicts and wars to make it always a place of peace."

Property of the Crown, then royal residence, Chenonceau Castle is an exceptional site not only because of its original design, the richness of its collections, its furniture and its decorations, but also because of its destiny, since it was loved, administrated and protected by women, who were all extraordinary and who, for the most part have marked history.

For the historical background, the “Château des Dames” was built in 1513 by Katherine Briçonnet, and successively embellished by Diane de Poitiers then Catherine de Medici. Chenonceau was protected from the hardship of the revolution by Madame Dupin.

The iron, but very feminine, fist in the velvet glove has always preserved Chenonceau during times of conflict and war in order to make it forever a place of peace.

At Chenonceau Castle, the flower display in every sumptuously furnished room adds to its elegance. The room of Five Queens, the living room of Louis XIV, the grand gallery overlooking the River Cher, fabulous kitchens constructed in the piers of the bridge, the Green Cabinet of Catherine de Medici...Step by step, Chenonceau takes you back in time to share its dreams and reveal its secrets.

Chenonceau Castle has an exceptional museum collection of the Old Masters’ paintings: Murillo, Le Tintoret, Nicolas Poussin, Le Corrège, Rubens, Le Primatice, Van Loo... as well as an extremely rare selection of Flanders Tapestries from the 16th century.

History
The Marques family
In the 13th century, the fief of Chenonceau belonged to the Marques family. The original château was torched in 1412 to punish owner Jean Marques for an act of sedition. He rebuilt a château and fortified mill on the site in the 1430s. Jean Marques's indebted heir Pierre Marques found it necessary to sell.

Thomas Bohier
Thomas Bohier, Chamberlain to King Charles VIII of France, purchased the castle from Pierre Marques in 1513 (this leads to 2013 being considered the 500th anniversary of the castle: MDXIII–MMXIII.) Bohier demolished the castle, though its 15th-century keep was left standing, and built an entirely new residence between 1515 and 1521. The work was overseen by his wife Katherine Briçonnet, who delighted in hosting French nobility, including King Francis I on two occasions.

Diane de Poitiers
In 1535 the château was seized from Bohier's son by King Francis I of France for unpaid debts to the Crown; after Francis' death in 1547, Henry II offered the château as a gift to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who became fervently attached to the château along the river. In 1555 she commissioned Philibert de l'Orme to build the arched bridge joining the château to its opposite bank. Diane then oversaw the planting of extensive flower and vegetable gardens along with a variety of fruit trees. Set along the banks of the river, but buttressed from flooding by stone terraces, the exquisite gardens were laid out in four triangles.

Diane de Poitiers was the unquestioned mistress of the castle, but ownership remained with the crown until 1555, when years of delicate legal maneuvers finally yielded possession to her.

Catherine de' Medici
After King Henry II died in 1559, his strong-willed widow and regent Catherine de' Medici forced Diane to exchange it for the Château Chaumont. Queen Catherine then made Chenonceau her own favorite residence, adding a new series of gardens.

As Regent of France, Catherine spent a fortune on the château and on spectacular nighttime parties. In 1560, the first ever fireworks display seen in France took place during the celebrations marking the ascension to the throne of Catherine's son Francis II. The grand gallery, which extended along the existing bridge to cross the entire river, was dedicated in 1577. Catherine also added rooms between the chapel and the library on the east side of the corps de logis, as well as a service wing on the west side of the entry courtyard.

Catherine considered an even greater expansion of the château, shown in an engraving published by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau in the second (1579) volume of his book Les plus excellents bastiments de France. If this project had been executed, the current château would have been only a small portion of an enormous manor laid out "like pincers around the existing buildings."

Louise de Lorraine
On Catherine's death in 1589 the château went to her daughter-in-law, Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont, wife of King Henry III. At Chenonceau Louise was told of her husband's assassination in 1589 and she fell into a state of depression, spending the remainder of her days wandering aimlessly along the château's corridors dressed in mourning clothes amidst somber black tapestries stitched with skulls and crossbones.

Duc de Vendôme
Henri IV obtained Chenonceau for his mistress Gabrielle d'Estrées by paying the debts of Catherine de' Medici, which had been inherited by Louise and were threatening to ruin her. In return Louise left the château to her niece Françoise de Lorraine, at that time six years old and betrothed to the four-year-old César de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme, the natural son of Gabrielle d'Estrées and Henri IV. The château belonged to the Duc de Vendôme and his descendants for more than a hundred years. The Bourbons had little interest in the château, except for hunting. In 1650, Louis XIV was the last king of the ancien régime to visit.

The Château de Chenonceau was bought by the Duke of Bourbon in 1720. Little by little, he sold off all of the castle's contents. Many of the fine statues ended up at Versailles.

Louise Dupin
In 1733 the estate was sold for 130,000 livres to a wealthy squire named Claude Dupin (fr). His wife, Louise Dupin, was the natural daughter of the financier Samuel Bernard and the actress Manon Dancourt, whose mother was also an actress who had joined the Comédie Française in 1684. Louise Dupin was "an intelligent, beautiful, and highly cultivated woman who had the theater in her blood." Claude Dupin, a widower, had a son, Louis Claude, from his first wife Marie Aurore of Saxony, who was the grandmother of George Sand.

Louise Dupin's literary salon at Chenonceau attracted such leaders of the Enlightenment as the writers Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Fontenelle, the naturalist Buffon, the playwright Marivaux, the philosopher Condillac, as well as the Marquise de Tencin and the Marquise du Deffand. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was Dupin's secretary and tutored her son. Rousseau, who worked on Émile at Chenonceau, wrote in his Confessions: "We played music there and staged comedies. I wrote a play in verse entitled Sylvie's Path, after the name of a path in the park along the Cher."

The widowed Louise Dupin saved the château from destruction during the French Revolution, preserving it from being destroyed by the Revolutionary Guard because "it was essential to travel and commerce, being the only bridge across the river for many miles."

Marguerite Pelouze
In 1864 Marguerite Pelouze, a rich heiress, acquired the château. Around 1875 she commissioned the architect Félix Roguet to restore it. He almost completely renewed the interior and removed several of Catherine de' Medici's additions, including the rooms between the library and the chapel and her alterations to the north facade, among which were figures of Hercules, Pallas, Apollo, and Cybele that were moved to the park. With the money Marguerite spent on these projects and elaborate parties, her finances were depleted, and the château was seized and sold.

Recent history
José-Emilio Terry, a Cuban millionaire, acquired Chenonceau from Madame Pelouze in 1891. Terry sold it in 1896 to a family member, Francisco Terry. In 1913, the château was acquired by Henri Menier, a member of the Menier family, famous for their chocolates, who still own it to this day.

During World War I Gaston Menier set up the gallery to be used as a hospital ward. During the Second World War the château was bombed by the Germans in June 1940. It was also a means of escaping from the Nazi occupied zone on one side of the River Cher to the "free" zone on the opposite bank. Occupied by the Germans, the château was bombed by the Allies on 7 June 1944, when the chapel was hit and its windows destroyed.

In 1951, the Menier family entrusted the château's restoration to Bernard Voisin, who brought the dilapidated structure and the gardens (ravaged in the Cher River flood in 1940) back to a reflection of its former glory.

Main entry
Walk of Honor
The grand avenue of honor leading to the castle is planted with plane trees for almost 1 km. On each side of the alley of honor: the sixteenth century farmhouse on the right, the Labyrinth and the Caryatids on the left.

The pair of eighteenth-century sphinxes flanking the aisle of honor installed by Count René de Villeneuve comes from the Château de Chanteloup at Amboise, the former estate of the Duc de Choiseul, which was cut up in the nineteenth century; we see - among other places - a pair of stone sphinxes from the main staircase of Château-Margaux in Gironde (1810).

The forecourt
After having taken the large avenue lined with plane trees and past the two sphinxes at the entrance of the castle, here is the forecourt of the estate. Right and bordering the forecourt, the Domes Building and the Wax Museum. In the center, in front of the castle, the Cour d'Honneur with the Marques Tower. On the left, the Chancery built in the sixteenth century that leads to the Garden of Diana.

The Domes Gallery
A space in the Domes gallery has been dedicated since July 14, 2014, to the military hospital installed in the monument during the First World War, from 1914 to 1918. This reconstruction is a tribute to the memory of the wounded and caregivers, who lived through the war years at Chenonceau Castle.

The tow bar
The Attelages gallery was created in January 2014 inside the sixteenth century farm and exhibited a collection of horse-drawn carriages from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth century.

Sixteenth century farm
The ensemble dating from the sixteenth century includes the stables of Catherine de Medici, a vegetable garden and a floral workshop where today work two florists for the blooming parts of the castle. The vegetable garden hosts several varieties of vegetables and plants, including more than 400 roses.

Orangery
Located opposite the green garden, the orangery housed at the time orange and lemon trees. Today it serves as a tea room and gourmet restaurant.

Gardens
There are two main gardens: that of Diane de Poitiers and that of Catherine de Medici, located on either side of the Marques Tower, a vestige of the fortifications preceding the construction of the present castle.

Diane's Garden
The garden of Diane de Poitiers, whose entrance is commanded by the house of the Regisseur: the Chancery, built in the sixteenth century; at the foot of which is a pier, embellished with a vine, essential access to any walk on the Cher.

At its center is a jet of water, described by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau in his book, The Most Excellent Buildings of France (1576). Surprisingly designed for the time, the jet of water springs from a large pebble cut accordingly and falls "in sheaf" to a pentagonal receptacle of white stone.

This garden is protected from the floods of Cher by raised terraces from which one has beautiful points of view on the flower beds and the castle.

Garden of Catherine of Medici
The garden of Catherine de Medici is more intimate, with a central basin, and faces the west side of the castle.

The floral decoration of the gardens, renewed in spring and summer, requires the installation of 130,000 flowering plants grown on the estate.

Green garden
This garden was designed by Lord Seymour in 1825 for the Countess Vallet de Villeneuve who wanted an English park. The garden faces that of Catherine de Medici north side. It is a grassy enclosure bordered by a collection of trees, plane trees, blue cedars, Spanish fir, catalpa, chestnut, Douglas firs, redwoods, black locust, black walnut and holm oak. Catherine de Medici had previously chosen this place to build her menagerie and aviaries.

Labyrinth
Desired by Catherine de Medici, the labyrinth of Italian style is composed of 2000 yew on more than one hectare. A gazebo is located in the center. Its elevated position allows an overview. It is surmounted by a statue of Venus. The labyrinth is surrounded by a bower where we find the Caryatids of Jean Goujon who once adorned the facade of the castle.

Outdoor Architecture
The castle actually has two parts:

A medieval dungeon erected on the right bank of the Cher which was remodeled in the sixteenth century.

A Renaissance building built on the river itself, constituting the main part of the castle.

The Marques Tower
The Marques tower is the only visible vestige of the old medieval castle of the Marques family, razed by Thomas Bohier in 1515. It corresponds to the dungeon of the old building, consisting of a round tower, as well as a turret housing the stairwell. Bohier will rehabilitate the tower by giving it a more modern aspect, in the Renaissance style, thanks to the piercing of large mullioned windows, a carved door, white stone dormers, and the addition of a steeple, whose bell is dated 1513. It also has small consoles on the walkway, and covers the old mortar masonry, hiding the old archers, but there are nevertheless traces.

It also carries a stone steps, of the type visible in the castles of Bury and Nantouillet or the first castle of Chantilly, corresponding to a certain staging of the entrance, fashionable in the sixteenth century. Finally, Bohier carved the letters TBK on the tower, meaning Thomas Bohier-Briçonnet Katherine.

On the side, we can still see the well, adorned on the edge of a chimera and a double-headed eagle, emblem of the family of Marques. This tower, which for a while housed the souvenir shop, is no longer accessible to the public.

The Renaissance house
It consists of a nearly square (22m by 23m) two-storey main building (plus a basement) flanked by corner turrets, built on the powerful stone foundations of the old mill that once lined the shoreline right.

It is extended by a two-storey building and a roof that leans on the south facade of the house, built by Philibert Delorme in 1560 in an almost classic style, and resting on a bridge of five arches spanning the Cher. The lower floor is occupied by a gallery.

Access to the ground floor of the main building by a staircase followed by a small bridge.

Interiors
The entrance opens onto a central vestibule opening onto four rooms on either side. On one side: a room of the Guards, by which one reaches a chapel, the "room of Diane of Poitiers" and the "office of work of Catherine de Médicis". On the other side is a staircase giving access to the kitchens in the basement, the "François I room" and the "Louis XIV lounge". At the end of the vestibule, access to the lower gallery.

The staircase, with double straight flights, is accessible behind a door that is in the middle of the entrance vestibule. It provides access to the upper floors each opening on a vestibule:

The first floor is constituted by the "Catherine Briçonnet vestibule", around which are four rooms: "the room of the Five Queens", the "room of Catherine de Médicis", that of César de Vendome, and that of Gabrielle d'Estrees (favorite of Henry IV). At the bottom of this vestibule, there is also a door giving to the rooms located above the gallery.
The second floor comprises, in addition to the vestibule, four rooms of which only "the room of Louise of Lorraine" is visitable.

Ground floor
Vestibule
The vestibule on the ground floor is covered by a vaulted ceiling whose keystones, offset from each other, form a broken line. The baskets, made in 1515, represent foliage, roses, angel heads, chimeras, and horns of plenty.

Above the doors, in two niches, are carved St. John the Baptist, patron of Chenonceau, and an Italian Madonna in the style of Lucca della Robia. The furniture is composed of an Italian marble hunting table. Above the front door, a modern stained glass window, made in 1954 by Max Ingrand, depicting the legend of Saint Hubert.

The Guards Room
Above the oak door of the sixteenth century, in the form of their patrons, St. Catherine and St. Thomas, the former owners, and their motto: "If it comes to a point, I will remember" (to understand: will make that one will remember me). The ceilings exposed joists, said "French" carry the two C interlaced Catherine de Medici. The floor is partially covered with polychrome faience tiles from the end of the 19th century, made by the Parisian studio of Léon Parvillée. This majolica pavement is a reproduction of the sixteenth century pavement of the Brou church.

The chimney bears the arms of Thomas Bohier while the walls are decorated with a suite of Flemish tapestries of the sixteenth century representing the life of a castle, a proposal for marriage, or a hunting scene. The chests, Gothic and Renaissance, contained the silverware with which the court moved.

The chapel
We enter the chapel from the Guards Hall, through an oak door surmounted by a statue of the Virgin. Its leaves represent Christ and Saint Thomas and repeat the words of the Gospel according to Saint John: "Move your finger here", "You are my Lord and my God".

Madame Pelouze opened the coupled windows, which were fitted with glass windows, according to the drawings of a certain Steinheil. The stained glass windows destroyed in 1944, were replaced by works by Max Ingrand in 1954. We see in the loggia on the right, a Virgin and Child in Carrara marble by Mino da Fiesole. To the right of the altar, an ornate credenza adorned with the Bohier's motto.

In 1890 the ceramist Edouard Avisseau (1831-1911) made a bas-relief for the castle, La Vierge aux poissons.

On the wall, religious paintings: The Virgin with the blue veil by Il Sassoferrato, Jesus preaching before Alfonso and Isabella by Alonzo Cano, a Saint Anthony of Padua by Murillo, and an Assumption by Jean Jouvenet. The historian Robert Ranjard specifies: "The oratory preserves, engraved in the stone of its walls, sentences written in old Scots  mysterious graffiti left by unknown hosts in the time of Diane de Poitiers". On entering on the right, an award dated 1543: "The wrath of Man does not fulfill the justice of God", and another of 1546: "Do not be defeated by Evil".

Overlooking the nave, a royal platform overlooking the "Room of the Five Queens" on the first floor, dating from 1521.

This chapel was saved during the Revolution, Madame Dupin had the idea to make a reserve of firewood.

Chamber of Diane of Poitiers
The chimney by Jean Goujon and the ceiling bear the initials of Henry II and Catherine de Medici intertwined. The "H" and the "C" also maliciously form the "D" of Diane de Poitiers, King's favorite. The furniture is composed of a seventeenth-century canopy bed and leather armchairs from Cordoba. On the mantelpiece is a portrait of the 19th representative of Catherine de Medici, by Sauvage.

To the left of the window, a Madonna and Child, by Murillo. To the right of the fireplace, a canvas of the seventeenth-century Italian school, Christ stripped of his clothes by Ribalta.

Under this picture, a library with screened doors houses the estate's archives; a document exhibited bears the signatures of Thomas Bohier and Katherine Briçonnet.

On the walls are two Flemish tapestries of the sixteenth century, The Triumph of the Force, mounted on a chariot drawn by two lions, and surrounded by scenes from the Old Testament. In the upper border, the Latin phrase translates as "He who loves with all his heart the heavenly gifts, does not retreat before the acts that piety dictates to him"; the other piece is The Triumph of Charity, which, on a chariot, holds in its hands a heart and showing the Sun, surrounded by biblical episodes; the Latin motto is: "He who shows a strong heart in perils, receives at his death, as a reward, Salvation".

Green Cabinet
This is the former office of Catherine de Medici, during his regency. On the ceiling there are two intertwined Cs. In this piece is exposed a tapestry of Brussels called "the Aristoloche", both Gothic and Renaissance. Its original green color has faded to blue. Its theme is inspired by the discovery of the Americas, and represents an exotic fauna and flora: silver pheasants of Peru, pineapples, orchids, pomegranates, and plants unknown in Europe.

bookstore
This former small library of Catherine de Medici gives a view of the Cher; the compartmented oak ceiling of beautiful boxes dating from 1525, of Italian style, with small hanging keys, is one of the first of this type known in France; it bears the initials T, B, K, with reference to Bohier.

Above the door is a Holy Family after Andrea del Sarto95. In this play are preserved a scene of the life of St. Benedict, by Bassano, A martyrdom by Correggio, Heliodorus by Jouvenet, and two medallions, Hebe and Ganymede, the cups of the gods, taken to the Olympus of the school French of the seventeenth century.

Gallery of the Ground Floor
The gallery, 60 meters long, 6 meters wide, with 18 windows, has a tiled and slate tiled floor, and a ceiling with exposed joists, serving as a ballroom, it was inaugurated in 1577 during parties given by Catherine de Medici and her son Henry III. At each end, there are two Renaissance style chimneys, one of which is just a decoration surrounding the south gate leading to the left bank of the Cher.

The facade of the Levant was painted by the decorators of the Paris Opera for the second act of the Huguenots.

The series of medallions depicting famous people on the walls was laid in the eighteenth century.

House of Francis I
This room contains the most beautiful chimney of the castle (rebuilt in the nineteenth century, its three niches "with canopies" were adorned with statues); on his coat runs the motto of Thomas Bohier, echoing his arms represented on the door. The furniture consists of three French credenzas of the fifteenth century and an Italian cabinet of the sixteenth century, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory engraved with pen, offered to Francis II and Mary Stuart for their marriage.

On the walls are a portrait of Diane de Poitiers in Diane Chasseresse by Le Primatice, who made it here in 1556, paintings by Mirevelt, Ravenstein, a Self-Portrait of Van Dyck, the portrait of a noble lady in Diane Chasseresse by Ambrose Dubois96, Archimedes by Zurbaran, Two bishops of the German school of the seventeenth century, and The Three Graces by Carle van Loo representing the three sisters of Mailly-Nesles, who were successively mistresses of Louis XV.

This room was also that of Madame Dupin in the eighteenth century, where she gives her last sigh on November 20, 1799.

Louis XIV Salon
This red-lit lounge evokes the memory of Louis XIV's stay at Chenonceau on July 14, 1650. Rigaud's current ceremonial portrait replaces the one burned under the Revolution in 1793. The original painting was donated by the King to the Duke of Vendome in 1697, in recognition of the sending of statues to the park of the Palace of Versailles. The large carved and gilded wooden frame by Lepautre is composed of only four huge pieces of wood, as well as the furniture covered with Aubusson tapestry, and a "Boulle" style console.

The Renaissance style fireplace is adorned with Salamander and Hermine, in reference to King Francis I and Claude of France. The cornice surrounding the exposed joist ceiling bears the initials of Bohier.

Above the console The Child Jesus and Saint John the Baptist by Rubens was bought in 1889 for the sale of the collection of Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I and former King of Spain.

The salon has a series of portraits of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries French, those of Louis XV by Van Loo, a princess of Rohan, Madame Dupin by Nattier, Chamillard, Minister of Louis XIV, a portrait of a man by Netscher Philip V of Spain by Ranc, and that of Samuel Bernard by Mignard.

The staircase

The staircase with cradle vaults "antique"
An oak door of the sixteenth century gives access to the staircase, one of the first straight stairs, (ramp ramp) built in France on the Italian model. It is covered with a vault called "creeping", with ribs intersecting at right angles. The boxes are decorated with human figures, fruits and flowers (some motifs were hammered during the Revolution).

The carved leaves represent the Old Law in the form of a blindfolded woman with a book and a pilgrim's staff, and the New Law, with an open face holding a palm and a chalice.

The staircase is cut off from a landing forming two loggias with balustrades giving view on the Cher; on top of one of them, an old medallion representing a bust of a woman with scattered hair, a habitual symbol of madness.

Basement kitchens
The kitchens are installed in the basement which is accessed by a staircase located between the gallery and "the room of Francis I". Arranged in the stacks of the mill that preceded the castle which forms a huge basement, they are composed of several rooms, including the office, a low room with two arches crossed warheads with a fireplace, the largest of the castle. Next to it is the bread oven.

The office serves the dining room staff of the castle, the butcher shop in which are exposed the hooks to hang the game and logs to cut up, and the pantry. A bridge stands between the galley and the kitchen itself. The furniture of the sixteenth century was replaced during the First World War in a more modern equipment, to support the needs of the hospital.

An unloading wharf for bringing goods directly into the kitchen is called according to legend, the Bath of Diana.

First floor
Catherine Briçonnet's vestibule
The vestibule on the first floor is paved with small terracotta tiles marked with a fleur de lys crossed by a dagger. Ceiling is exposed joists. Above the doors is a series of marble medallions brought back from Italy by Catherine de Medici, representing the Roman emperors Galba, Claudius, Germanicus, Vitellius and Nero.

The suite of six Oudenaarde tapestries of the seventeenth century depict scenes of hunts and "picnics" based on cartoons by Van der Meulen.

Gabrielle d'Estrées House
The exposed joist ceiling, floor, fireplace and furniture are Renaissance. Near the four-poster bed is a tapestry of 16th-century Flanders.

The other walls are adorned with the hanging known as the Lucas Months, including June, the sign of Cancer - The shearing of sheep, July, the sign of Leo - The hawk hunt, and August, the sign of the Virgin - The pay of the reapers ; the cartoons of these tapestries are Lucas de Leyden or Lucas van Nevele.

Above the cabinet is a painting of the seventeenth-century Florentine school depicting St. Cecilia, the patron saint of the musicians, and above the door, the Child of the Lamb by Francisco Ribalta.

House of Five Queens
This room pays tribute to the two daughters and three daughters-in-law of Catherine de Medici: Queen Margot, Elizabeth of France, Mary Stuart, Elizabeth of Austria, and Louise of Lorraine. The coffered ceiling of the sixteenth century bears the coat of arms of the five queens.

The furniture consists of a four-poster bed, two gothic credenzas surmounted by two women's heads in polychrome wood and a travel trunk covered with studded leather.

On the walls, we can see a suite of Flemish tapestries of the sixteenth century representing the Siege of Troy and the Abduction of Helen, the Circus Games in the Coliseum, and the Coronation of King David. Another evokes an episode in Samson's life. Are also exposed, The Adoration of the Magi, study for the painting of Rubens (Prado Museum), a portrait of the Duchess of Olonne Pierre Mignard, and Apollo at Admète argonaute, due to the Italian school of the seventeenth century.

Catherine de Medici's room
The room of Catherine de Medici is furnished with a set of the sixteenth century and tapestries Flanders sixteenth century retracing the life of Samson, remarkable for their borders populated with animals symbolizing proverbs and fables like crayfish and Oyster, or Skill is superior to Ruse. The fireplace and floor tiles are Renaissance.

Dominating the room, a painting on wood, Education of love by Correggio.

Cabinet of Prints
These small apartments, decorated with a fireplace from the end of the eighteenth century in the first room, another from the sixteenth century to the second, present an important collection of drawings and prints representing the castle dating from 1560 for the most old, of the nineteenth century for the most recent.

The first floor gallery
The High Gallery under Catherine de Medici is divided into apartments by partitions whose probable use is intended for servants of the castle. It is connected directly to the Main Gallery on the ground floor by two spiral staircases, located at the opposite end. The only decoration is that of the two carved chimneys of chained slaves, facing each other. The castle exhibits annually in this gallery since 1980, the works of contemporary artists.

Cesar Chamber of Vendome
The exposed joist ceiling is supported by a cornice decorated with guns. The Renaissance fireplace was painted in the nineteenth century with the arms of Thomas Bohier. The window opening to the west is framed by two large caryatids of wood of the seventeenth century. The walls are tense with a succession of three Brussels tapestries of the seventeenth century illustrating the ancient myth of Demeter and Persephone: The journey of Demeter, Persephone to the Underworld, Demeter gives fruits to humans, and Persephone returning to spend six months a year on Earth.

On the left of the window, in front of the sixteenth-century canopy bed, is a Saint Joseph by Murillo.

Second floor
Second floor vestibule
This vestibule, which retains traces of the restoration carried out in the nineteenth century by Roguet, disciple of Viollet-le-Duc, is a decorative document.

On the wall a tapestry of the manufacture (disappeared) of Neuilly nineteenth century symbolizing the Cher, on which appears a Venetian gondola, refers to the one that was transported to Chenonceau, Madame Pelouze to organize in 1886 the famous " Venetian feast "evoked by Paul Morand.

Both credence and floor paving are Renaissance.

Louise de Lorraine's bedroom
Louise de Lorraine's room reflects the mourning of Henri III's wife. The dominant black color of the paneling, the macabre paintings, the prie-Dieu turned towards the window and the religious decorations evoking mourning. Louise is then surrounded by nuns who live in Chenonceau as in a convent. Always dressed in white, as tradition dictates for a widow of King of France, she will be nicknamed "The White Queen".

Her room has been reconstructed from the original ceiling adorned with silver tears, widows' cords, crowns of thorns and the letter λ, lambda, initial of Louise of Lorraine, intertwined with the H of Henry III. The pious atmosphere of the room is emphasized by Christ with the crown of thorns and a religious scene painted on wood of the sixteenth century adorning the fireplace.