Château de La Ferté-Imbault
[2] The seigneurie (lordship) of La Ferté-Imbault was the largest in the south of Sologne, whose lands included the parishes of Salbris, Saint-Genou (now Selles-Saint-Denis), Marcilly, Loreux and Souesmes.
[3] It comprised more than one hundred farms spread over tens of thousands of hectares, stretching from Loreux to Souesmes and from Saint-Viâtre to Theillay.
Hervé I, lord at Vierzon, a descendant of Humbold, on his return from the Crusades, had a collegiate church built in honor of Saint Taurinus.
Their sister, Catherine de Montmorency, inherited the vast estate of La Ferté-Imbault after the deaths of her two brothers.
A full-length portrait of the Maréchal d'Estampes de La Ferté-Imbault was painted in 1835 by Jean-Léonard Lugardon for King Louis-Philippe.
The marquise, whose magnificent portrait by Jean-Marc Nattier is exhibited at the Fuji Art Museum in Tokyo, enjoyed La Ferté for "the freshness of large chestnut trees that extend their shade".
She never remarried despite her early widowhood and several marriage proposals, including one from Stanisław Leszczyński, King of Poland, father of the Queen of France Marie Leszczyńska, who called the marquise "my Imbault".
[12][13] Queen of the "Sublime Order of Lanturelus", she resisted the intrigues of the court and won the friendship of the royal family (including Madame Elizabeth, who wrote to her, "You must love, said a princess.
In the French Revolution the House of d'Estampes fell, and the Château de La Ferté-Imbault lost influence.
The marquis de Pierrecourt, son of Sophie d'Estampes, owner of the château, was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror but later released.
In May 1824, a rich English family, the Lee-Kirbys from Leeds, acquired the estate of La Ferté-Imbault and moved into the château.
They modernized local agriculture by adopting English innovations (forage plants and improving crops, such as clover and alfalfa) in their many farms, spread over 5,000 hectares.
In the Revolution of 1830, the people of La Ferté-Imbault invaded the château armed with pitchforks and spades, and sought to lynch the fleeing owner.
The Protestant family's forceful proselytism led to serious opposition in the village community throughout the nineteenth century, as in 1868 during the construction of the new parish church of Saint-Taurinus, built in front of the main entrance to the château.
The Château de la Ferté-Imbault, sold in 1900 to Dr. Georges Bouilly, then to Henry-René Bertrand, was seized by the Kommandantur on June 17, 1940, and saw four years of German occupation.
In August 1960, a "sound and light" show tracing its millennial history was organized in the castle with the voices of actors Madeleine Sologne and André Le Gall.
[18] Several large windows of the eastern façade retain Renaissance grotesques and historical medallions representing Roman emperors and Francis I.
Two pavilions were built at the end of the moat: the guardhouse and the kitchens, with a well that still exists, and whose ground floor is vaulted by a series of powerful brick diaphragm arches.
[20] The bridge gives access to two large outbuildings which frame the forecourt of the château: they served as stables and cantonment for the company of gendarmes of the Duc d'Orléans that the Maréchal d'Estampes commanded.
The Maréchal d'Estampes had French formal gardens designed (transformed in the nineteenth century to the English style[3]), built an orangery, and dug a vast 600-meter canal, fed by the river, which survives.
