Qualla: Château of Blois

Château of Blois: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MFSG, CC BY-SA 2.0 de. On the morning of December 23, 1588, Henry I, Duke of Guise, walked through the corridors of the Château de Blois to answer a summons from the king. He never left the building alive. Henry III's bodyguards killed him in the royal apartments, and the next day they murdered his brother, Cardinal Louis II of Guise, within the same walls. The château had been a seat of power for centuries by then, but those two December days fixed its reputation: this was a place where the business of governing France was conducted with both elegance and violence, sometimes in the same room.

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Image: MFSG | CC BY-SA 2.0 de

Château of Blois: Four Styles, One Courtyard

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cussenot, CC0. What makes the Royal Château de Blois architecturally extraordinary is not any single wing but the collision of four. Construction began in the thirteenth century with a medieval fortress, and each subsequent era added rather than replaced. The Louis XII wing, built around 1500 i...

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Image: Cussenot | CC0

Château of Blois: Vikings, Counts, and a Library That Became a Nation's

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Władysław Bakałowicz, Public domain. The site's recorded history begins in 854, when the Viking chieftain Hastein attacked the castle then known as Blisum castrum. Over the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Counts of Blois -- who also controlled Chartres and Champagne -- rebuilt the fortress. Count Theobald I raised...

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Image: Władysław Bakałowicz | Public domain

Château of Blois: Murder in the Royal Apartments

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit xorge, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Wars of Religion brought the château its darkest chapter. Driven from Paris after the Day of the Barricades in May 1588, Henry III retreated to Blois and summoned the Estates General. His chief political rival, the Duke of Guise, arrived confident in his popular support and h...

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Image: xorge | CC BY-SA 2.0

Château of Blois: The Chamber of Secrets

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Stevage assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. Visitors to the château are shown a small wood-paneled room known as the Chamber of Secrets, traditionally identified as Catherine de' Medici's hiding place for poisons. The panels concealed small cupboards opened by pressing hidden pedals in the baseboard -- a mechanism that has...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Stevage assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY 2.5

Château of Blois: Born and Buried Within These Walls

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tango7174, CC BY-SA 4.0. The château's guest register is written partly in births and partly in deaths. Louis XII was born here in 1462 and ruled France from these rooms. Charles of Blois was born within the walls in 1319. Anne of Brittany, the last independent Duchess of Brittany, died here in 1514 afte...

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Image: Tango7174 | CC BY-SA 4.0