Château d'Étampes

A first castle at Étampes was built in the reign of Robert the Pious, king of France, west of the collegiate church of Notre-Dame, and comprised both a palace proper and a motte. The site is what made it matter: the edge of the Hurepoix plateau, on a steep fall above the town, commanding the Paris to Orléans road that ran along the Juine valley at its foot and formed the backbone of the royal domain.

Between about 1130 and 1150 a new castle was raised overlooking the valley, culminating in the strong keep since known as the tour de Guinette, built at the behest of Louis VII. Its quatrefoil plan, four circular lobes set like a four-leaf clover, was the product of mid-12th-century tactical experimentation meant to improve a tower's defence against missiles and to reduce dead ground, the lobes deflecting shot and allowing defenders to cover the foot of the walls from the summit. The keep resembles those of Ambleny and of nearby Houdan, and Clifford's Tower at York Castle in England is believed to have been inspired by Étampes.

At the end of the 12th century Philip II raised a square enceinte around the keep, joined to it by a footbridge, and then a second enceinte beyond that. From 1201 to 1213 the keep served as the place of enforced residence of Queen Ingeburge.

On 16 January 1358 the English seized both the town and the castle, which was immediately retaken by Charles V. On 28 January 1387 Jean de Berry made a gift of Étampes to Philippe le Hardi. On 15 December 1411 town and castle were besieged by Jean sans Peur and annexed to the duchy of Burgundy. Around 1416 the castle served as the model for Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, and it is from contemporary images of that kind that its complete form is known: the keep stood at the centre of a square curtain wall defended by four corner towers, that enclosure ringed in turn by a second square wall with four more towers, and the whole closed by a roughly hexagonal outer circuit with a battery to the south and gates to the north-east and north-west reached by drawbridges.

The tower was also used to hold people. Gillette La Mercière, daughter of rich merchants of Bourges, was imprisoned at the château d'Étampes at the age of eight at the request of Pol de Limbourg, one of the illuminators of the Très Riches Heures. Her family had not consented to the union, which Jean de Berry wanted in order to secure the prosperity of his favourite illuminator. Pol de Limbourg married her when she was twelve years old and he was twenty-four.

From 19 to 31 July 1465 Charles the Bold installed himself at the castle after the battle of Montlhéry. Anne of Brittany stayed there in 1513, and Claude of France in 1516. On 13 December 1562 the castle was taken by the prince de Condé, and it was not freed until 2 January 1563.

In 1589 Henri IV allowed the inhabitants of Étampes to dismantle the castle and take its stone for their own use. Only the keep was left standing. The tour de Guinette was besieged once more on 4 May 1652.

During the Revolution the ground of the tour de Guinette was sold off as a national asset. The buyer razed what remained of the castle buildings and turned the tower itself into an open-air quarry, after which it was abandoned until the Restoration. In 1821 Louis-Philippe, duc d'Orléans, sold on what still survived of the castle.

In 1859 the town of Étampes bought the ruined keep to make a place of public promenade, and the tour de Guinette was classified a historic monument on the list of 1862. Damage from pollution and from pigeons has brought the town council to open a public appeal for donations towards its restoration.