Chateau de Fere * * * *

HISTORY OF THE CHATEAU DE FÈRE

Fère-en-Tardenois was constructed between 1206 and 1260 as a fortified castle by Robert de Dreux, grandson of Louis VI, King of France. Little is know of it except that it belonged to the royal family Valois-Orléans-Angoulême from 1328 to 1528 when it was given by Louise of Savoy, mother of François I, to Anne de Montmorency, Governor Général of France and Chancellor to six kings from Louis XII to Charles IX. A warrior, diplomat,minister, devotee of the arts, Montmorency was the most powerful man in all France next to the king. He was in possession of six hundred feudal properties, one hundred thirty châteaux and baronies, four mansions in Paris and numerous other holdings. The château passed to the son of the great Connétable Montmorency and then to his grandson Henry II, whose plot to overthrow Richelieu lost him his head at Toulouse in 1632, as well as confiscation of Fère-en-Tardenois. Louis XIII returned the castle to Henry’s daughter, Charlotte de Montmorency. (Henry IV had once so passionately loved her that he almost fought the King of Spain to retrieve her when, on her wedding night, she fled to Belgium with her husband, Prince de Condé, in order to avoid the King’s advances). The castle was finally inherited by Philip Egalité. So anxious was he for the approval of Republicans that he ordered to demolish partially his own château at Fère. To further his political ambitions he sold the furnishings and fixtures. Those which remained were taken to public auction by his creditors in 1793. This ended the glorious era of Fère-en-Tardenois. In 1863, the present chateau, once a wing of the Royal castle, was restored and converted to a hotel in 1956.