Once Upon a Time
May 2008
On October 16, 1793, Marie Antoinette, the most visible symbol of the excesses of the French aristocracy, was guillotined in the Place de la Révolution in Paris. Although the Queen’s death was cheered by the crowds, there were mourners, among them her trusted friend and governess of her children, the Duchesse (then Marquise) de Tourzel. After she heard the sentence of death pronounced, Marie Antoinette pressed a treasured pendant—a spider embedded in a prehistoric oval of amber—into Tourzel’s hands, saying, "It has always brought me luck." Tourzel herself narrowly escaped the guillotine, and this rare charm survived to be handed down through generations. It is just one of thousands of objects bookmarking the pages of French history housed in a unique collection at the Château d’Ainay-le-Vieil.The overseers of the 13th century Château in the Loire Valley are direct descendants of Tourzel, Princess Marie-Sol de La Tour d’Auvergne (née d’Aligny) along with her brothers Jean-Baptiste, Michel, Auguste and Jean-Pierre, who passed away in 1996, and sister Marie-France de Peyronnet. Marie-Sol and her siblings bear the heritage of an illustrious family that flows from three principal and prestigious names in French history: Bigny, Villefranche (Tourzel) and Colbert. Marie-Sol, who is president of French Heritage Society, heads the organization "to help preserve French heritage, particularly private châteaux, churches, gardens and everything which has meaning in France, and the expression of this heritage in the United States." This year marks the society’s 25th anniversary.
Rising gently over the small village of Ainay near Bourges in central France, the Château looks like the fabled castle of children’s books with its nine towers, wide, calm moat, and its entrance bridge leading up to an imposing door. The oldest part of the structure, consisting of its towers, protective walls and parapets, dates from the late 1200s. In medieval times, the Château maintained its own small army to protect the fiefdom—archers who manned the meutrières (spaces in the wall where archers can aim and shoot) to protect the nobles and repel attackers—as well as a dungeon in the center of the main courtyard, now covered by a lawn and crisscrossing path.
"My great ancestor, the Marquis de Bigny, bought the Château in 1467 from the King of France, Charles VII, and paid, I believe, in écus, the gold coin of the realm at the time," explains Marie-Sol. "There might have been more land at the time, as the Marquis was essentially landlord of other villages, and all the farmers would have had to pay taxes to him in the form of work, wheat or corn and percentage of sales of the grain." The Château’s ownership issues from Baroness d’Aligny, Marie-Sol’s mother.
Ainay once belonged to the powerful nobleman Jacques Coeur, Charles VII’s finance minister, who raised money for the Crown during the Hundred Years’ War. "The King was jealous of Jacques Coeur’s power, though," says Marie-Sol, "and conspired against him, accusing Coeur of poisoning his mistress." Stripped of his possessions and sentenced to life in prison, Coeur escaped to Rome, where the Pope sent him to fight the Turks. He died on the Greek island of Chios some 10 years after the Marquis de Bigny had taken over the Château d’Ainay.
"While our family’s activity is collecting art, we’re mainly focused on preserving the nearly 700 years’ worth of objects we have," says Marie-Sol. These include paintings, sculpture, jewelry and objects, furniture and hundreds of rare books, as well as many Louis XV and XVI pieces. "There are as many as 30,000 castles in France, and ours is one of the few with historical objects in them that are in constant use," she says.
Around Ainay nature teems with activity: Swallows dart over the moat as leaves drift down to its surface and feisty carp and goldfish snap after insects. There are several acres of ponds, canals and a series of themed gardens of ancient roses, pears and apples, lavender and exotic topiary, all separated by a labyrinth of tall hedges and walls of brick and stone. Along one of the canals, Marie-Sol has installed a budding collection of contemporary art, including a life-sized painted cow by local artist Natacha Mercier. At the end of one path stands a bronze piece by Daniel Hourdé, "Abracadabra," an acrobat juggling enormous letters.The Renaissance building, which served as the central living spaces for the Bignys, is dominated by the Tour du Dragon, a central entrance that leads to the escalier d’honneur, a wide spiral stone staircase. From here, the Grand Salon, library, sitting rooms, an enormous kitchen and upper chambers are accessible; off the Tour du Dragon, the loggia with its large vaulted windows and balconies painted in royal blue and stenciled with the fleur-de-lis, emblem of the King of France, look out onto the courtyard.
Of note is the detail on the main tower’s façade, recalling the Bignys’ relationship to king, country and God, with the central coat of arms—a lion on a shield surrounded by five fish and supported by two mermaids.
Inside, the Château’s rooms open up onto the history of France. In the Grand Salon, an immense gothic fireplace in carved painted stone depicts the King’s coat of arms, the three fleurs-de-lis, along with their symbolic guardian deer. "It was built just after the Château was purchased at the end of the 15th century," says Marie-Sol. "It’s one of the wonders of the Château and we use it all the time, especially at Christmastime for friends and family."
Across the Grand Salon and above a 17th-century Dutch-made secrétaire made of dense, Indonesian ironwood ("It will not float!" says Marie-Sol) is the large 17th-century portrait of foreign minister, Charles de Colbert-Croissy, brother of Jean-Baptiste de Colbert, finance minister under Louis XIV. The Colbert family was prominent in the military history of France and an extremely capable and powerful clan (three Colberts were generals, one was Napoleon’s godson). A full-length portrait of General Auguste de Colbert in uniform by Gérard hangs just to the left of the hearth and underneath the rich hand-painted and gold-leafed beamed ceiling. The large dining room (once the kitchen) is dominated by a portrait of the Duchess of Luxembourg, the granddaughter of Jean-Baptiste de Colbert.
Ainay also has its own chapel, a small but magnificent structure one enters through a monumental portal off the Grand Salon, guided by two medieval sculpted stone figures of Venus and Vulcan; inside are frescoes of the Bigny family by Jean Boucher and his school depicting the life of Christ and a stained-glass window showing the passion of Christ by Blaise Lécuyer, a Renaissance master whose work for the Duc de Berry was widely acclaimed; the ceiling is an exceptional Renaissance example of plafond à caissons, with the earth spinning on its axis in the hands of God in the center of the relief. Marie-Sol and her brothers and sister all attended Mass in the chapel as children, as did their ancestors. During World War II, Baroness d’Aligny offered the Archbishop of Bourges a shelter for the nuns from Metz, and the chapel took on a new life.
Upstairs are bedrooms, among them the King’s Room, where King Louis XII reportedly slept. Next to the bed is the chaise à porteurs, a royal coach carried by servants; the Marquise de Bigny used it to escape from Bigny when the revolutionaries began hunting down aristocrats. The Marquis de Bigny was not as fortunate: He was arrested and guillotined in nearby Bourges.
Stored in locked glass cases are some of the family’s rarest pieces: Marie Antoinette’s prehistoric amber pendant and tiny gold music box, miniatures of Napoléon and Josephine, gold signets, a collection of carved gold-handled swords, pistols and medals earned by the illustrious Colberts and other military leaders in the family, as well as rare and one-of-a-kind books. (These handmade, leather-bound Colbert books are indeed rare, and a portion of the collection formed the basis for the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.) One book in particular is the Terrier, which recounts the legal history of the Château—essentially the daily accounting of the castle’s land acquisitions and sales over the centuries. This unique, immense volume, which dates from the 15th century, was one of the first targets of French revolutionaries in their abolishment of the aristocracy and its symbols. Burn these books, they reasoned, and the deeds and legal rights of the noblemen to the lands disappear. "Luckily, this copy was spared," says Marie-Sol. "I don’t know how."Letters written in a florid script from Auguste de Colbert to his mother, the Marquise, are also assembled in a single volume, recounting his life during the Napoleonic wars. Of note is the address on many of them "Citoyenne" instead of "Marquise," a title that would have undoubtedly put her life in jeopardy.
Down the main staircase and through a series of stone passageways is the immense wine cellar, with bottles dating from the 19th century and perhaps well before. "My husband loved wine," says Marie-Sol, pointing out several cases of premier-cru Bordeaux and Sauternes. "But I haven’t really been down here since he died in 1997."
"People who are happy don’t have stories to tell," laughs Marie-Sol, who is often moving from room to room and across the inner courtyard with a ring of some 20 keys to open and lock each door as she passes through. Imagine being a child here, she says: "It was fabulous, and it still is." Indeed, she and her brothers and sister would scramble over the walls, hide in the passageways or the barracks above the main gate, or romp over the acres of forest and farmland, the gardens and even circle the Château’s moat in small wooden boats.
"We had a very particular childhood, educated at home during the war," says her brother, Michel, vicar-general of the Diocese of Bourges. "Our home even served at one point as a religious school. My mother, by her character a strong individual, was someone who really built France."
These days, with some 25,000 visitors annually, the safeguarding of the collection and the Château is a constant focus and effort. "The renovations are never-ending," says Marie-Sol. "But we would never part with a single piece from the collection." A new generation numbering some 14 will inherit the château and work to ensure the future of the past. "It’s another world, and a unique responsibility, not just for our family, but for all of France."
Matthew Rose is an artist and writer based in Paris.