Bed & Breakfasting with the French Aristocracy by Andrew Eames

The Comte Bernard de Jouffroy Gonsans, sallow, stooped and deeply courteous, had the air of someone who knew his Baudelaire; he may have been born with the proverbial silver spoon, but his back had been bent by life's ups and downs. He commiserated with our difficult journey, to the dead centre of France on a hot and busy August weekend.

"La folie" he exclaimed, and graciously excused himself once he had shown us the way up with winding stone staircase, into the tower; he had a couple of racehorses to feed.

It is surprisingly easy to invite oneself to stay with the French aristocracy. No society contacts, funny handshakes or certificates of pedigree required - only a certain cheek and a thick handbook called 'Le B&B'. Being an outrageous social climber I'd scanned the book for hosts who a) had a title, b) lived in a castle and c) didn't actually say they objected to children.

The Chateau de la Commanderie, besides matching all those criteria, has to rank as one of the most impressive B&Bs in the world. This huge, imposing turreted mansion south-east of the Loire Valley was founded in the 11th century as a base for Knights Templar - crusader mercenaries. The Comte's family had been in residence for 300 years, but his daughters had lost the taste for castle-dwelling, so Comte Bernard was to be the last of the line, and it plainly made him sad.

Nor did his eyes exactly light up as our two tumbled, wittering, out of the car and mucked up the gravel on his driveway, which had obviously just been carefully raked. But if he had any misgivings he was far too well bred to let them show.

The B&B idea was intended to help meet the chateau running costs. At 74 the Comte, after several nasty falls from the saddle, had found himself unable to maintain a big racing stable, so his wife had redecorated seven rooms in the north wing with velvets, copies of Paris Match and books about Queen Elizabeth and Genghis Khan.

Very few of his visitors were French. In the evening, he and the Countess usually sat down to dinner with the assembled company, for which English would be the lingua franca. And what was usually discussed? "Oh, politics, wine, the economy, the world". Not much, then.

Our two, at four and six, are still under-informed on politics and wine, not to mention the economy and the world - I blame the parents - so I asked that we be excused from the formal part of the evening. Could we, perhaps, have a picnic in his garden instead?

There can't have been many occasions when tomato ketchup has been so liberally applied to hotdogs in the shadow of those crusader turrets. Fortunately, it wasn't a public display; our picnic table had been strategically positioned behind a bush so that we could be heard but not seen by the other guests, taking their aperitif on the terrace. M. le Comte had the consideration to appear from behind the bush carrying an ice-bucket and two glasses of champagne, and thus sozzled we felt no need to move until the hooting of owls close at hand scared the children off the lawn.

The following day, armed with the Count's instructions on how to avoid the holiday traffic, we set course for the home of a Viscount, on the Normandy coast near St Malo.

Vicomte Fou de Kerdaniel turned out to be a small, terrier-like man who looked rather like a French Colombo but without the raincoat. His Chateau de Bonabry was a clutch of handsomely decaying 16th century buildings gathered around a courtyard full of sleeping dogs. There were several horses in the stable, and an old Citroen van for the dogs' overnight accommodation. Hunting was the Kerdaniel passion.

The Vicomtesse had a certain air of refinement, but it was the Vicomte who was descended from 500 years of Fou de Kerdaniels. He had been born, educated (by a priest), and married (presumably also by a priest) in the Chateau, and as it wasn't possible to secure such a large building against burglars, he also stayed here all year round to defend it.

Happily he wasn't in the least bit bothered by the children's lack of etiquette, although when I turned up in a jacket for dinner, he nipped upstairs and put one on too, to make me feel at ease. How did the British aristocracy survive? he wanted to know. Did they also do B&B?

Of the three guest rooms, ours was the pink suite, all escritoires, canopied beds, paintings of ancestors, parquet flooring that smelled of linseed oil, and windows that looked out over a walled garden of lawn, dahlias and tomato beds.

Various paths headed off through the chateau woodlands towards the beach at Bonabry, which dissolved into the distance just like those watercolours of northern France that grace my parents' sitting room. In fact the sea retreated so far - four kilometres - that it was only with the aid of the occasional very distant basket-carrying shellfish-gatherer that we could be sure where the heat haze ended and the water began.

We spent a couple of happy days here, meandering down through the grounds to the beach, and wandering out to find the tide. The Vicomtesse introduced the children to a set of terrier puppies living in the stables, and after that it was hard to lure them away even with bucket and spade.

"Don't turn it into a hotel", I said when the time came for us to go. And as the gravel crunched under our wheels, the Vicomte agreed that he never would.