Château de Vincennes

The Château de Vincennes holds the tallest medieval keep in Europe, and its walls enclose seven centuries of French history on the eastern edge of Paris. Louis VII founded a royal hunting residence in the forest here in 1178, and Saint Louis used it often; he said farewell to his family at Vincennes before leaving on the crusade from which he did not return. After the disasters of the Hundred Years' War and the Paris uprisings of the 1350s, John II and his son Charles V decided they needed a safer residence close to the capital. The result was a keep 52 metres high, completed around 1369 to 1370 as the tallest fortified structure in Europe, followed by a rectangular enclosure more than a kilometre long.

Charles V also laid the foundations of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes to house relics acquired by Saint Louis. Begun in 1379 and finished only in 1552 under Henry II, it is an outstanding example of Flamboyant Gothic, and some of its Renaissance stained glass depicting the Apocalypse survives in the apse. In 1422 Henry V of England, then master of northern France, died in the castle. In the 17th century Louis XIV had the royal architect Louis Le Vau build a new classical residence, the King's Pavilion, finished in 1658, before the court left for Versailles.

After the royal departure Vincennes became a porcelain works, an arsenal and above all a prison. Nicolas Fouquet, Denis Diderot, the Marquis de Sade and Mirabeau were all locked up here. In 1804 the Duc d'Enghien was shot in the moat on Napoleon's orders; in 1814 General Daumesnil, who had lost a leg at Wagram, refused to surrender the fortress to the allies, saying he would give it up when they gave back his leg. The spy Mata Hari was executed in the château's moat in 1917, and in 1940 the French high command under Gamelin directed the defence of France from a bunker beneath the queen's pavilion. Retreating German troops blew up munitions stores here in August 1944.

Since 1948 the château has been the headquarters of France's Defence Historical Service. Visitors can enter the keep, which houses a museum, walk the enclosure and see the Sainte-Chapelle; the chapel has been a listed historic monument since 1853 and the keep since 1913.

Getting there

The château is on the border of the town of Vincennes and the Bois de Vincennes, just east of Paris. Château de Vincennes station, the eastern terminus of Paris Métro line 1, has an exit at the château. Paris-Orly Airport (ORY) is about 14 km away and Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) about 20 km.