2 - 6 Juillet - Château de Goulaine, Haute Goulaine, FRANCE
In 1492, a decade after the setting of Victor Hugo’s novel, the Marquis de Goulaine began to
2 - 6 Juillet - Château de Goulaine, Haute Goulaine, FRANCE
In 1492, a decade after the setting of Victor Hugo’s novel, the Marquis de Goulaine began to build his chateau. Construction lasted until 1533 resulting in two architectural styles being melded together, as at Notre-Dame Cathedral. This was a pivotal time, at the transition between high Gothic and Renaissance with this change clearly displayed in the country residences of the aristocracy in the Loire Valley. In fact Louis XI who features in Notre-Dame de Paris as a learned but fearful and heartless monarch spent time in one of these chateaux, now the hotel, the Relais Louis XI. The Chateau de Goulaine is the best preserved example of this transition between styles while Notre-Dame is the strongest example of the development of the Gothic style, including evidence of the Romanesque architecture that came before.
After the 15th century wars of Brittany there was no longer a need to show power through fortification and the Chateaux were part of a vast rebuilding of the Renaissance that demonstrated supremacy through beauty with the creation of magnificent country houses and vast gardens giving to the Loire Valley, the nickname the ‘Garden of France’. During this revolution in architecture, Christophe II de Goulaine replaced the old medieval castle at Haute-Goulaine with something more sensitive to the newly emerging Renaissance style that maintained elements of flamboyant gothic.
The Chateau at Haute-Goulaine is one of the best prese