At the Castle de Chambord in the Loir-et-Cher département of the Centre région, of central France

 A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.

Moliere
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(in the Loir-et-Cher département of the Centre région, of central France) The Centre région is bounded by the régions of Normandy and Île-de-France to the north, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté to the east, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes to the southeast, Nouvelle-Aquitaine to the south, and Pays de la Loire to the west.

The village of Chambord lies on the left bank of the Cosson River, east of Blois. It lies in the 13,600-acre (5,500-hectare) National Hunting Reserve and Breeding Park, which is surrounded by the longest wall (20 miles [32 km]) in all of France. Its famous Renaissance château, with 440 rooms, is the largest of the Loire Valley group. Originally a hunting lodge of the counts of Blois, it was completely rebuilt by Francis I and Henry II, beginning in 1519. Molière wrote Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (and some of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) at the château, where he also performed them for Louis XIV. Louis XV loaned the château to his father-in-law, Stanisław I Leszczynski, (from 1725 to 1733), and then rewarded Marshal Maurice de Saxe for the victory of Fontenoy by deeding the domain to him. Napoleon made a gift of the neglected property to Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier, from whose widow it was purchased by public subscription in 1821 for the duke of Bordeaux, who took the title of count of Chambord. The château was purchased by the state in 1930. One highlight is a double-helix staircase, at the heart of the château, allowing visitors to ascend and descend at the same time.

+ Featured here is the Château de Chambord in Chambord, with its surrounding moat, located in the eastern part of the Loire River valley. It was designed by architect Domenico da Cortona. Construction of the château began in 1519 and continued into the 17th century. It is the largest and most extravagant of the Loire châteaux and one of the finest examples of French Renaissance architecture. The château was constructed for King Francis I after his return from the French campaign in Italy, and its style can be directly linked to the monarch’s wish to adopt new Italian models. Domenico da Cortona, a Tuscan artist involved in other royal castle projects, supervised construction of the château and provided wooden design models.

+ The castle is constructed on an unprecedented scale -- a rectangular plan of 512 feet (156 meters) on its major facades, marked at each corner by round towers. The fantastic outline of the upper parts bristle with more than 300 chimneys, dormer windows, and turrets. The core of the building is its keep, or donjon, a centralized structure that measures 144 feet (44 meters) on each side, with a main hall built to a Greek-cross plan, which is said to have been derived from Donato Bramante’s original plans for St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. A motif of salamanders, Francis I’s emblem, appears throughout the castle.