From the road running along the right Loire embankment (N 152), there is a pretty view of this charming little town built in tiers up the hillside (only 12 kilometres from Tours).

Leaving town on D 49, which climbs through vine-clad hillsides, there is a good view looking back of the medieval castle above the town.

The large and austere medieval fortress of Luynes, perched on a rocky spur high above the little town, belonged to a crony of Louis XI, Hardouin de Maillé and was bearing the name of Maillé until 1619.

The first keep, demolished by Foulques IV 'le Réchin' ('the Harsh') [ external link: genealogy ], Count of Anjou, (1043 - death 14 Apr 1109, in Angers) in 1096 and rebuilt in the following ten years by Hardouin de Maillé, played an important role in the war of the Counts of Anjou against those of Blois, in that of the Capetians against the Plantagenêts and in the Hundred Years' War. Only three families have lived in the castle since the XIth century: the Maillés, the Lavals and the Luynes. The castle is now occupied by the 12th Duc de Luynes.

Built under the reign of Saint Louis, the castle forms a square, with four round corner towers and four round towers in the middle of the curtain wall, ensuring crossed flanking, without dead angles. The ancient descriptions of the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries mention a powerful central keep. There is nothing left of it. The north and east faces are separated from the plain by a wide dry ditch. The entrance opens near the northeast tower which covered it. The drawbridge was replaced by a fixed bridge in the nineteenth century.

After having sold les Montils to Louis XI to build le Plessis there, Hardouin de Maillé invested his 5500 gold crowns in building, against the west wall of his castle, a replica of the new royal castle, the same bond of brick and stone, the same fine and light windows, the same staircase tower, so that Luynes gave a more complete image of Le Plessis than Le Plessis itself...


The south part of the loggia was rebuilt at the end of the sixteenth century or the beginning of the seventeenth, then restored in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as was the whole of the castle.

The seigneury of Maillé, which in 1501 passed to the house of Laval had been sold in 1619 to Charles d'Albert, lord of Luynes, from the name of a small area in Provence. This gentleman was well-versed in the art of hawking. Chosen as the great falconer of the young Louis XIII, he gained his friendship and helped him to remove Concini and his wife, Italian adventurers who had won over the Queen Mother, Marie de Médicis. Luynes obtained permission from the King to give the name of Luynes to the land of Maillé, raised to a peerage duchy. He remained in grace for slightly less than five years then the King saw that the man no longer deserved his friendship.

From the delightful inner courtyard there is a fine panorama of the Loire Valley. | close window |