Château de Navarre

The medieval structure was built for Queen Joan II of Navarre and later came into the possession of the House of La Tour d'Auvergne.

In 1750 a new Chateau was built, possibly incorporating part of the medieval structure and two towers dating from the seventeenth century.

[1] In the 16th century, Queen Joan ruled with her husband Antoine of Navarre for many years, during this time they were called to the King of France.

In the period following his divorce of Josephine, Napoleon showed many acts of kindness and gestures of respect to her - bestowing this property with its income was one of these.

However, it also enabled him to make sure she was not in Paris during the marriage celebrations to his second wife Marie-Louise and on any subsequent occasion when her presence might have been awkward.

She was not very impressed with the inconvenient layout of the house, which was arranged around a three storey high circular salon lit by windows beneath the dome.

Arriving as she did in the depths of winter the garden was not shown to advantage as the bare trees exposed vast areas of water.

Josephine established plantations, caused the marshes to be drained, erected public buildings and provided the peasants with work opportunities.

[2] Today there is little evidence of the property's past; apart from the forest reserve much of the landscape is now unrecognisable - the suburbs of Evraux are encroaching on much of the surrounding farmland and the site of the castle itself has been a racecourse since 1905.