It was largely built between 1361 and 1369, and was a preferred residence, after the Palais de la Cité, of French kings in the 14th to 16th century.

It is particularly known for its "donjon" or keep, a fortified central tower, the tallest in Europe, built in the 14th century, and for the chapel, Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes, begun in 1379 but not completed until 1552, which is an exceptional example of Flamboyant Gothic architecture.

The site had the advantages of good hunting in the surrounding forest, proximity to two former Roman roads to Sens and to Lagny, as well as access by water on the Marne and Seine rivers.

He held meetings of the royal council there, and Queen Margaret of Provence and his children often resided there when he was absent from Paris.

The residence at the time was a sprawling manor with four wings located in the northeast corner of the present château walls, begun in the late 13th century.

[4] The defeats of the French and the capture of the King by the English in the Hundred Years War, as well as uprisings of the Parisian merchants under Etienne Marcel (1357–58) and a rural upraising against the crown, the Jacquerie (1360), persuaded the new French king, John II and his son, the future Charles V, that they needed a more secure residence close to, but not in the center of Paris.

The last project begun by Charles the V was laying the foundations of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes to hold a set of sacred relics obtained by Louis IX, but he died in 1380 in the Manoir de Beauté, a separate residence he had constructed in 1376–1377 southeast of Vincennes, when the work on the new Sainte-Chapelle had just begun.

It was the regular residence of Charles VI of France up until his madness, then was disputed by the two rivals of his succession, Philip the Good of Burgundy and Louis I, Duke of Orléans.

[4] An alliance between the Burgundians with Charles VII of France finally allowed the King to force the English out of the Île-de-France and to reoccupy the château.

His successor, Louis XI, also spent most of his time in the Loire Valley, but he made one major modification to Vincennes: He constructed a new royal residence within the walls, the first outside of the keep.

After his death in 1547, Henry II of France took up the work, finishing the vaults, and adding the woodwork and especially the stained glass.

[6] In the early 17th century, Marie De' Medici, the widow of the assassinated Henry IV of France, began a major project to replace the old pavilion of Louis XI and Francis I.

The ensemble was completed with a triumphal arch at the entrance, and was dedicated in August 1660, in time for the return of the King and his new bride to Paris.

[8] The Marquis de Sade was held there from 1777 to 1784, the writer Honoré Mirabeau from 1777 to 1784, and the famous swindler Jean Henri Latude, who escaped twice from the Vincennes and once from the Bastille.

[9] At the end of February 1791, a mob of more than a thousand workers from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, encouraged by members of the Cordeliers Club and led by Antoine Joseph Santerre, marched out to the château, which, rumour had it, was being readied on the part of the Crown for political prisoners, and with crowbars and pickaxes set about demolishing it, as the Bastille had recently been demolished.

[7] In 1814, after Napoleon's defeat in Russia, as the allied armies of the Sixth Coalition approached Paris, the château was commanded by General Pierre Daumesnil.

[11] Under Napoleon III, the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes was declared an historical landmark, and in 1854 restoration of the chapel was begun by Eugene Viollet-le-Duc.

A few weeks later, on 27 May, after the regular French Army had recaptured Paris from the Commune, the château was the last holdout where the red flag still flew.

[12] During the First World War, the Dutch-born German spy Mata Hari was executed by a firing squad on October 15, 1917, in the moat of the château.

Beginning in that year, a large underground bunker was dug beneath the Pavilion of the Queen in the southeast corner, to serve as the headquarters of the chief of staff.

The generals Maurice Gamelin and then Maxime Weygand directed the defense of France from there, until they were overwhelmed by the German Blitzkrieg.

[14] On 20 August 1944, during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, 26 policemen and members of the Resistance arrested by soldiers of the Waffen-SS were executed in the eastern moat of the fortress, and their bodies thrown in a common grave.

[15] On the evening of August 24, 1944, the same day that the 2nd Armoured Division of General Leclerc reached the centre of Paris, the German forces occupying the château set off explosives in the three storage areas of munitions, badly damaging the Pavilions of the King and Queen and opening a gap in the wall between the entry pavilion and tower of Paris, before they withdrew.

It has six towers and three gates, each originally 42 metres (138 ft) high, and is surrounded by a deep stone lined moat.

The towers of the grande enceinte now stand only to the height of the walls, having been demolished in the 1800s, save the Tour du Village on the north side of the enclosure.

[16] In the Middle Ages the only access to the Keep was on the first floor, by a bridge from the terrace of the chatelet, where the King's offices were located.

The west front is a good example of the late Gothic Flamboyant style, with three gabled arches one atop the other, framing and echoing the elaborate curling designs of the rose window.

[23] The outside walls are supported by enormous buttresses between the windows, each crowned by an ornate spire, giving them additional weight.

The summit of the vaults, where the ribs meet, are decorated with ornamental keystones, some with the coats-of-arms of Isabeau of Bavaria and Charles V of France.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the interiors fell into disrepair, then were almost totally destroyed, with the exception of some portions of the painted ceilings; the Germans had stored explosives in the two pavilions, and these exploded in fires set by the departing occupiers in August 1944.