Château de Menars

Towards 1646, Guillaume Charron, adviser of the King and general treasurer of extraordinary levies supplying French forces in the Thirty Years' War[1] built his château on a superb site overlooking the river Loire at Menars.

His son, Jean-Jacques Charron, président à mortier of the Parlement de Paris and brother-in-law of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, inherited the estate in 1669.

[2] The king's mistress charged the architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel with constructing two new wings on both sides of the two pavilions, which replace those built in the seventeenth century.

In spite of the successive additions, the Château de Menars preserves a simplicity of planning and of construction, with a certain austerity reflecting the original spirit of the châteaux of the seventeenth century.

The main building still presents three large parts - the old hall in the center, room with a dais on the left and salon for company on the right - ornate woodwork designed by Gabriel as well as chimneypieces surmounted with mirrors.

Below, around a small fountain, Soufflot created a magnificent nymphaeum with Serlian windows on the façade and, inside, the use of the Doric order reveals an Italianate inspiration.