page_title: Château de Montsoreau
section_title: Alexandre Dumas
hierarchical_section_title: Château de Montsoreau / The Château de Montsoreau in the Arts / Literature / Alexandre Dumas
context_page_description: The Château de Montsoreau is a Renaissance style castle in the Loire Valley, directly built in the Loire riverbed. It is located in the small market town of Montsoreau, in the Maine-et-Loire département of France, close to Saumur, Chinon, Fontevraud-L'abbaye and Candes-Saint-Martin. The Château de Montsoreau has an exceptional position at the confluence of two rivers, the Loire and the Vienne, and at the meeting point of three historic regions: Anjou, Poitou and Touraine. It is the only château of the Loire Valley to have been built directly in the Loire riverbed.
  In 2015, the French contemporary art collector Philippe Méaille signed with Christian Gillet, president of the French department of the Maine-et-Loire an emphyteutic lease of 25 years of the real property of the Château de Montsoreau. The Château de Montsoreau became home for Méaille's collection of radical conceptualists Art & Language, and the museum has been named Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art.
context_section_description: Although Alexandre Dumas' novel, La Dame de Monsoreau, written between 1845 and 1846, does not depict the Château de Montsoreau, it has greatly contributed to its fame by putting the Seigneurie of Montsoreau in the foreground of its history. More broadly, this novel is part of a trilogy about the wars of religion in France with the other two novels, La Reine Margot and Les Quarante-cinq. Alexandre Dumas, as usual, develops the history of France in a free and romantic way. Montsoreau, written Monsoreau for the purposes of the story, does not appear in La Reine Margot, but is present in the other two parts of the saga. This trilogy on European wars of religion (French: Trilogie des Valois) allows Dumas to bring together a love story and history by introducing, starting with La Dame de Monsoreau, important figures from the French court, Louis de Bussy d'Amboise, Françoise de Maridor (Diane de Méridor, the Lady of Monsoreau), King Henri III, François de France, Duke of Alençon, the Duke of Anjou, and Charles de Chambes (the Count of Monsoreau), thus recalling the importance of the Seigneurie of Montsoreau in the middle of the 16th century and the central role that Jean IV de Chambes played in the execution of the Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre in Anjou. Indeed, this historical character is depicted in a terrifying way by Dumas. The love story between his wife Diane de Méridor and Bussy is an opportunity for Dumas to exhume this historical figure who was responsible for the massacre of Protestants in Angers and Saumur. His zeal, moreover, allowed the Seigneurie of Montsoreau, until then a barony, to be elevated by the King Henri III to the rank of County. He thus executed his wife's lover in an expeditious manner. The novel takes place mainly in Paris and Anjou.
  La Dame de Monsoreau is an historic novel mixing two intrigues :
  A love story between Louis de Clermont, lordship of Bussy d'Amboise and Diane de Méridor, the Count of Montsoreau's wife.
  A politic intrigue setting politics and religious troubles under the King Henri III, including the rivalry with his brother, François de France, Duke of Alençon and then Duke of Anjou, a fascinating character without honour.
caption: Gustave Flaubert
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