Château de Chaumont
The Château de Chaumont, officially Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire, is a castle in Chaumont-sur-Loire in central France. The name Chaumont comes from the French words for "bald hill."
The first castle on this site was built in the 10th century by Odo I, Count of Blois, to defend his lands from attacks by Fulk Nerra. The property passed into the Amboise family and stayed with them for about five centuries through marriages and transfers.
In 1465 Pierre d’Amboise rebelled against King Louis XI, and the king ordered the castle to be dismantled. It was rebuilt between 1465 and 1510 by Charles I d’Amboise and his son Charles II with help from Cardinal Georges d’Amboise. The rebuilt castle kept a medieval look but showed some Renaissance touches.
Catherine de Medici bought Chaumont in 1550 and hosted famous astrologers there, including Nostradamus. When Henry II died in 1559, Diane de Poitiers was given Chaumont in exchange for the Château de Chenonceau, which she received earlier. Diane did not live long at Chaumont. In 1594 the property passed to Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, who later sold it to a tax farmer. The castle then changed hands several times, ending up with families from Lucca and then the seigneurs de Ruffignac.
Paul de Beauvilliers bought Chaumont in 1699 and modernized parts of the interior. He hosted the future king of Spain, the duc d’Anjou, in 1700. Later the north wing built by the Amboises was demolished to improve views of the river.
In 1750 Jacques-Donatien Le Ray bought Chaumont and ran a glassmaking and pottery business there. During the French Revolution in 1789 his assets were seized. Madame de Staël acquired the château in 1810. The Comte d’Aramon bought it in 1833 and, with architect Jules Potier de la Morandière, carried out extensive renovations and established a medieval arts museum in the Tour de Catherine de Médicis. Tapestries from the Chaumont suite, dating to the early 16th century, were once in the château and later moved to the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Chaumont has been a Monument historique since 1840. In 1875 Marie-Charlotte Say, heiress to a sugar fortune, bought the château and married Prince Amédée de Broglie. He commissioned luxurious stables in 1877 and the park was redesigned in the English landscape style. The couple donated Chaumont to the government in 1938.
During World War II, the Jewish relief organization OSE brought more than 200 Jewish children to Chaumont for safety; only a few survived by 2023.
Today Chaumont is a museum. Each year it hosts a Garden Festival from April to October, where contemporary garden designers display their work in an English-style garden.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:24 (CET).