In 1373 King Charles V of France purchased a plot of land for a secondary residence in a forested domain close to Paris, near a main road and the banks of the river Marne.

It was planned to be similar in form to the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, constructed by Louis IX between 1242 and 1248, to contain a collection of sacred relics which he purchased from the Emperor of Constantinople.

After the French defeat at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the chateau and unfinished chapel were occupied by King Henry V of England.

The chateau and chapel returned to French possession under Charles VII in February 1437, but the King spent little time in Paris or Vincennes.

Like Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, its single official function was, by continual services, to ask for divine protection for the King and the royal family.

After the death of Francis in 1547, Henry II took up the work: in 1547 and 1548, he finished the vaults, installed the carved woodwork in the interior and put in place the stained glass windows.

The chateau was removed from the list of official royal residences in 1754, and the College of Canons of the chapel, which prayed continually for the King's health and safety, was abolished in 1787.

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, where, according to rumours, the royalists were preparing to install political prisoners, and set about demolishing it with crowbars and pickaxes.

They also sacked the interior, destroying the furnishings and the stained glass windows of the nave and choir, but were unable to reach those in the apse.

Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien, who led a rebellion against Napoleon, was executed in 1804 in the moat of the Chateau and buried nearby.

The upper floor contained the treasury of the structure, while the lower level held the clerical garments and regalia of the canons.

Between 1547 and 1549, Henry II commissioned the redecoration of the choir to serve as the meeting place of the Order of Saint Michael, which had been created by Louis XI in 1468.

Henry invited Italian and French artists and craftsmen, particularly those who had been engaged in the redecoration of the Palace of Fontainebleau, to do the work, directed by the royal architect Philibert Delorme.

It also has been said to be a discreet reference to the King's mistress, Diane de Poitiers, Diana in mythology being the goddess of the Moon.

One notable survivor is the coat of arms and figures representing the Coronation of the Virgin, in the tympanum over the doorway to the sacristy.

[12] A later notable surviving work, from the 15th century, is found at the top of the voussures over the west portal: a representation of the Virgin and Child.

The exterior sculpture also includes numerous gargoyles, which had the practical function of collecting rain water from the roof and spouting it far away from the chapel walls.