Château-Neuf de Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Called in its day la maison du théâtre (the theater house), a succession of terraces and stairs gave access to the baignerie (from French baigner, "to bathe") on the Seine.

Quickly finished by executive architect Jean de Fourcy, with Guillaume Marchant conducting the masonry work, the job involved the installation of grottoes, with automated fountains made by Italians, the Francini brothers,[1] Thomas and Alexandre.

In August 1561, the year after the death of King Francis II of France on 5 December 1560, the Queen of Navarre arrived in Saint-Germain escorted by a grand cortège at the head of which rode her spirited second husband, the Duke of Vendôme.

During the Fronde, the French civil war in the mid-17th century, the "Grande Mademoiselle", Anne Marie Louise, Duchess of Montpensier, came to Saint-Germain seeking asylum and installed herself at Château-Neuf where "she lay in a wonderfully beautiful chamber in a ruined tower, well-gilded and large but with no glass in the windows and a meager fire."

Nothing remains today but the Pavilion of Henry IV, the Pavillon du jardinier, and a few vestiges of the cellars to be found in the neighborhood – 3 rue des Arcades, for example.