Half a dozen kilometres out from Tonnerre, on the road to Châtillon-sur-Seine, is the Chateau de Tanlay, not known at all to the travellers by express trains who are whisked by to Switzerland with never as much as a slow-up or a whistle as they pass the little station but a short distance from the park gates.
The Chateau de Tanlay is a superb relic of a sixteenth century work. This was a period when architectural art had become debased not a little, but here there is scarcely a trace of its having fallen off from the best traditions of a couple of centuries before. It is this fact, and some others, that makes Tanlay a sight not to be neglected by the lover of old chateaux.
In the midst of a great flowered and shady park sits this admirable edifice belonging to the descendants of the family of Coligny. It was here, to be precise, that the Coligny and the Prince de Condé leagued themselves together against the wily Catherine de Medicis and her crew, and much bad blood was shed on both sides before they got en rapport again.
The Chateau de Tanlay is perhaps the finest, certainly one of the most monumental, chateaux of Burgundy. Frankly Renaissance, the best of it dating from 1559, it was begun by Coligny d’Andelot, the brother of the “Admiral.”
One of the most notable of its constructive features is the imposing Tour de la Ligue where, previous to that dread Saint Bartholomew’s night, the Colignys and the Prince de Condé and their followers plotted and planned their future actions, and those of their associated Ligueurs.
The Marquis de Tanlay, the present owner of the ancient lands of the Courtneys of royal race, graciously opens the portal of the chateau that the world of curiosity-loving folk who pass by may enter if they will, and marvel at the delights within.
The “Terre de Tanlay” in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries belonged to the de Courtneys, by whom, it was sold to Louise de Montmorency, the mother of the Huguenot Admiral of Henri IV. This latter, in 1559, ceded it to another of her sons, François d’Andelot, the Coligny who began the work of construction of the chateau forthwith. In 1574 d’Andelot bequeathed the unachieved work to Anne de Coligny, the wife of the Marquis de Mirabeau, who, still working on the original plans, left it uncompleted at his death in 1630. His daughter Catherine fell heir to the property, but sold it five years later to Porticelli d’Hémery—Mazarin’s Surintendant des Finances, who called in the architect Lemuet to carry the work to a finish. This he did, or at least brought it practically to the condition in which it stands to-day.
The name of Hémery did not long survive as chatelain of the property, and the lands passed by letters patent to the Thévenin family, its present owners, who were able to have the fief made into a marquisat. The chateau fortunately escaped Revolutionary destruction and to-day ranks as one of the most beautiful examples of the Renaissance-Bourguignonne style of domestic architecture to be seen.
The edifice in its construction and exterior decoration shows plainly its transition between the moyen-age manner of building and that which is considerably more modern. It is towered and turreted after the defensive manner of the earliest times, and moat surrounded in a way which suggests that the ornamental water is something more than a mere accessory intended to please the eye. Entrance is had by a bridge over this moat and finally into the Cour d’Honneur through a fortified gateway, as pleasingly artistic in its disposition as it is effective as a defence.
Chiefly, the chateau shows to-day d’Hémery’s construction of the seventeenth century, paid for, says one authority, by silver extorted from the poor subjects of his king in the form of general taxes. This may or may not be so, but as d’Hémery’s wealth was quickly acquired only when he had need of it to build this great chateau, it is quite likely that some of it came from sources which might never otherwise have produced a personal revenue.