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There was once, so they say, a delightful chateau somewhere to the east of Paris where travellers could always be sure of a warm welcome and a generous table d'hote. It stood on the edge of a village whose name it shared and was bounded by many acres of ancient woodland. Below a steep and patterned-slate roof, typical of the region, and behind ivy-covered walls, its guest rooms were grandly furnished with looming armoires and creaking four-poster beds, its passageways and halls hung with ruby-cheeked portraits, and its beamed dining room warmed by a log fire whose stone mantel bore the coat of arms of the family who had built the house and whose descendants now played host. It was, as the French would have it, un vrai bijoux. Today, sadly, it is long gone, lost somewhere beneath the concrete fastness of Euro-Disney.

Around Paris the countryside is changing fast. The Peripherique that rings the city like a tarmacadam moat has now been absorbed into a sprawl of trading estates, high-rise developments and anonymous sleeper suburbs. The once-majestic, arrow-straight royal roads that led to the capital are now fringed with garage showrooms and hangar-sized supermarkets, while the grand hunting estates of the Louis' are laced with pylons and increasingly threatened by earthmovers. There seems to be a consensus in government that so long as the centre of Paris remains untouched, it doesn't much matter what happens to the outskirts.

Fortunately there still remain exceptions to the rule. Within an easy drive of the Place Vendome, it is still possible to find real jewels in the Parisian "countryside", private family chateaux which have survived the developers' onslaught and which, while not strictly speaking hotels, are happy to accommodate guests. The rubric in the guidebook says it all: Ce chateau n'est pas un hotel, mais un chateau recevant des hotes.

Only 20 kilometres west of Paris, the eighteenth-century Chateau de Villepreux is one such jewel, standing in its own extensive grounds in a gently sloping valley that any developer would dearly love to get his hands on. As it is, the chateau remains the family home of the Comtesse Roland de Saint Seine, a delightful if unlikely hotelier whose classically elegant country retreat, with its grand salons and eleven exquisitely-furnished bedrooms, literally hums with history.

During the eighteenth century Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV, was a frequent guest here; now, her favourite room with its canopied bed is yours for the asking. The king, an avid hunter, preferred the pleasures afforded by Villepreux's grounds. In 1768 he even bought the property, not so much because his mistress loved it but because its considerable acreage, adjoining his own palace at nearby Versailles, greatly increased the range of his hunting grounds. Beneath a stand of trees, on a rise of land above the chateau, is a stone table and benches where Louis would breakfast while his hounds and huntsmen searched out a likely scent in the meadows below or brought some stag to bay. There is no reason, explains the Comtesse, why her guests should not do the same if they so wish - breakfast in the sunshine, at the table of a king, looking over a landscape that has changed hardly at all in the last two centuries.

A short drive west from Villepreux is the seventeenth-century Chateau de Villiers-Le-Mahieu, its ancient moat and turrets lending it a forbidding, fortress-like air that belies its history. Despite these impressive defences, little has happened here since the Marquis d'Attily, whose father, Claude de Bullion, served as Keeper of the Seals to the court of Louis XIII, ordered the chateau built in 1642. Nearly 360 years later, fully restored by Count Charles de Rohan-Chabot in 1965 and for 10 years the home of the figurative painter Bernard Buffet, the chateau now belongs to Parisian businessman Jean-Luc Chaufour.

Like Villepreux, the Chateau de Villiers-Le-Mahieu is a gem, its carp-filled moat, its witch-hat turrets and ivy-covered walls little changed in three centuries, the whole estate insulated from the outside world by a belt of rich farmland. Not surprisingly, this imposing property is a popular choice for wedding receptions and regularly used for corporate entertaining, conferences and seminars. Like many country estates within easy striking distance of the capital, it is these latter functions which provide Villiers-Le-Mahieu with the bulk of its business, and though the chateau's 19 bedrooms are a delight to stay in (Room 11 even has its own turreted chapel), its facilities seem increasingly tailored to a corporate clientele.

No such distinctions are made at the Chateau de Chaumontel, an eighteenth-century hunting lodge turned manor house tucked away in a 10-acre wooded park midway between Paris and the racecourse at Chantilly. Corporate clients, bridal parties, race-goers, tourists, travelling salesmen, tweed-suited ladies who lunch, all are warmly welcomed here. Thanks to Patrick and Madeleine Rigard, who have owned the chateau for the last nine years, their young and attentive staff, and the spoiling ministrations of their chef de cuisine, Alain Gouraud, Chaumontel fairly bustles with life.

Built by the Duc d'Aumale in 1728 on land once owned by the Princes of Conde and first opened as an hotel in 1956, Chateau de Chaumontel has a pleasing, provincial air. Public rooms are comfortably understated and open onto well-kept gardens, while its 20 bedrooms, some of them squeezed into extravagantly timbered loft spaces, are all cosily warm and well-equipped. And if it all seems vaguely familiar, don't be surprised: Chaumontel was a major location in the Woody Allen, Peter Sellars' film "What's New Pussycat?" If you've seen the film, you'll know well enough why Chaumontel is worth a visit. And if you haven't, hire the video or, better still, book in for a weekend.

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