The story of a family and a château

As far as history is concerned, the château is mentioned in the Cartulaire de Champagne as early as the end of the 11th century. The de Bourbon family, said to have descended from a brother of Charles Martel, was the first historically known. The château then passed to the powerful des Barres family. Pierre became lord in 1213, and his brother Guillaume distinguished himself by saving King Philippe Auguste at the battle of Bouvines in 1214. The de Sully family, originally from château de Sully-sur-Loire, owned Ainay-le-Vieil for over a century, using it as a bridgehead to harass the English during the Hundred Years' War.

château d'Ainay-le-Vieil is one of the best-preserved feudal fortresses in central France. The fortified enclosure, built in the second half of the 13th century, is a fine example of the "Capetian" architecture established under the reign of Philippe-Auguste, with a few peculiarities specific to the Bourbonnais region, since the seigneury depended on the Sires de Bourbon. The enclosure is octagonal, irregular, surrounded by wide water ditches, flanked by seven cylindrical towers with arches and a two-tower châtelet entrance. It stands on the site of an earlier moated castle built on a motte castrale. Like all lowland château, it had a second enclosure with a double moat and drawbridge. The second enclosure, which has now disappeared, covered an area of around three hectares. Its layout can still be seen on the Napoleonic cadastre of 1830.

During the Hundred Years' War, it was the only château in the region to remain French after the defeat of Poitiers in 1356.

At the end of the Franco-English wars, the château lost its military importance.

Around 1500-1505, Charles de Bigny had a magnificent flamboyant Gothic logis built within the walls, with strong Renaissance influences. His son Claude, governor of the Bastille in Paris, and his grandson Gilbert, maître d'hôtel to Queen Catherine de Médicis, completed the embellishments. Large windows opened onto the exterior and onto the courtyard, which had been cleared of its military buildings.

The interiors are decorated with monumental fireplaces.

The Renaissance oratory, built by Gibert de Bigny around 1525, is remarkable for its architecture, sculpted decoration, stained-glass windows and murals, some of which date from 1610 (attributed to Jean Boucher and his workshop) and are superimposed on those from 1525. They illustrate the life of Christ.

Around 1600, two Renaissance pavilions were built opposite the château on the site of the second enclosure, marking the entrance to the the "Renaissance water gardens" created by the Seigneur de Bigny who, being close to the king's court, gave in to the fashion of the time.

The French Revolution spared the fortress from destruction. The Marquis de Bigny was guillotined and his wife exiled to England; his son was killed in the Battle of Quiberon, which pitted aristocrats against the revolutionary army.

At nineteenth centuryhis nephew Anatole de Chevenon, who became the new Marquis de Bigny undertook the restoration of the château and gardens of Ainay, around 1855. The park was redesigned and transformed into a landscaped park around 1867, fruit gardens were created in the Chartreuses and a kitchen garden designed by botanist Léonce de Lambertye occupied the entire Renaissance "Grand carré en l'île".

Upon his death, his daughter the Countess de Villefranche inherited Ainay, which then passed to her daughter, the Marquise de Colbert, and finally to her daughter Baroness Géraud d'Aligny.

Baron and Baroness Géraud d'Alignyparents and grandparents of the current owners, decided toopen the château to the public in 1954. They initiated the Route du Cœur de la Francethe first of France's Historic Routes, with several privately-owned châteaux. It later became the Route Jacques Cœur. A "Son et Lumière" show is created a year after Chambord.

An active cultural policy has been pursued since 1982. Exhibitions are held every summer, and their themes are generally linked to those of the National Celebrations.

A storm devastated the park in 1984, setting the stage for major restoration work.

In 1988, the Route des Parcs et Jardins de la Région Centre was created, under the auspices of Demeure Historique, to develop garden tourism in the region. L'Association des Parcs et Jardins de la Région Centre, created from the Route, becomes the organization that brings together and represents all the gardens in the Centre Region.

Three Colbert brothers, enlisted as private soldiers in the revolutionary army, became generals under the Empire. The names of two of them, Edouard and Auguste, are engraved on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Paintings commissioned by the Marquis de Colbert from Lalauze, a pupil of Detaille, the famous history painter, recall their feats of arms and the events in which they took part. General Comte Edouard de Colbert is shown with Napoleon at the Tuileries during the Cents Jours and, on another canvas, leading the last charge at Waterloo, at the head of the Imperial Guard lancers. A watercolor shows his brother, General Alphonse de Colbert, greeting Madame Dupin, holding hands with his granddaughter Aurore. Now George Sand, she recounts the general's stay in Nohant in her Memoirs .

The château also preserves pieces of Edouard's uniform: his chapska, arms and decorations, and his silk tunic, lined with chain mail, from the uniform of the red lancers he wore at Waterloo. He had been wounded the day before in the battle of Quatre-Bras on June 16, 1815; this did not prevent him from leading the attack with his arm in a sling: the silk is still stained by the wound. Auguste, the youngest of the three brothers, was a favorite of Napoleon Bonaparte, who presented him with a pair of pistols during the Egyptian campaign in 1799 , accompanied by a superb compliment: " I am sending you, citoyen, a pair of pistols to replace the one you lost. I can give them to no one who would make better use of them. I salute you. Bonaparte."

A full-length portrait by Baron Gérard depicts General Auguste de Colbert, killed in Spain at Calcabellos in 1809 at the age of 32. His brutal death (he was shot in the forehead) is symbolized by a broken column, a horse frightened by a dark stormy sky and a young oak struck by lightning. His son, Napoléon-Joseph de Colbert as a child, is painted by Chaudet in the scarlet uniform of the Red Lancers, a regiment commanded by his uncle Edouard. His godfather was the Emperor. A display case houses the gifts he gave to his godson: a box of sugared almonds with a christening scene, two miniatures of the two empresses, Josephine and Marie-Louise, painted on ivory by Isabey, and a Roman cameo of the emperor Augustus that bears an astonishing resemblance to Colbert's profile of Augustus. He has written a remarkable biography of his father, General Auguste.

This marriage brought to Ainay two objects that Queen Marie-Antoinette gave to Madame de Tourzel to thank her for her devotion. Her sense of duty, in fact, put her through the worst dangers: she was the only non-royal in the sedan stopped at Varenne, and the only one to be locked up with the royal family and Madame Elisabeth in the Temple prison. As a token of her gratitude, the Queen gave her a music box: a tiny gold lyre playing Bon voyage Monsieur Dumollet; and an amber medallion containing a fossilized spider, considered a good-luck charm, which was one of the last pieces of jewelry Marie-Antoinette carried with her to the Temple.

The reading of Marie-Antoinette's last handwritten bill to her children on the morning of her death is particularly moving.

Another later object testifies to the family's constant loyalty to the Bourbons: a small ivory boat, the work of Dieppois canotiers, shows the Duchesse d'Angoulême, daughter of Marie-Antoinette, leaving for England in exile, accompanied by her lady-in-waiting, the Comtesse de Béarn, daughter of the Duchesse de Tourzel, and whose grandson, the Marquis Edmond de Villefranche, married Jeanne de Bigny, heiress of Ainay.