Ecouen by Annabel Simms

If you are interested in the French Renaissance, there is no need to travel as far as the Loire. One of the most elegant examples of this style in France, the 16th-century château of Ecouen, is the setting for the furnishings and objets d’art that make up the collections of the National Museum of the Renaissance, some of them from the Musée de Cluny. If you go on a Saturday afternoon, you can hear the music of the period played on the 16th-century organ in the chapel.

Although it is very close to Paris by train, the château, surrounded by a 17-hectare park covered with snowdrops in early spring, is gratifyingly under-visited. The full impact of its hill-top site overlooking the grain-producing Pays de France is only revealed when you approach it on foot from the Forest of Ecouen. I first went there by bus from the station and actually failed to recognise it as the same place when I went there again via the forest some years later, so different were the two impressions. The château gradually rises into view as you approach it from the woodland path and is suddenly revealed in all its stateliness as you emerge onto the vast flat lawn at the top. This back view, much more imposing than the front, includes a balustrade to the left overlooking a sharp drop. From here there is a sweeping view of the plain below, just like the hazy, stylised landscapes in medieval paintings.

The château was built for Constable Anne, Duke of Montmorency (1492-1567), the owner of over 130 châteaux and one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in France (see the chapters on Chantilly and Montmorency). Completed in 1555, it is in the High Renaissance style, a development of the Early Renaissance style of the châteaux of the Loire, built during the reign of François I. The architecture, the grounds and the decor all reflect the new taste for a château as a place for gracious living rather than a medieval fortress. Painted friezes decorate the windows and walls and dreamy Biblical or classical scenes are painted on the chimneypieces. From the upper floor windows there are superb views of the park, the roofs of the houses descending the steep hill to Ecouen and the rolling countryside beyond.

The château was saved from destruction after the Revolution by Napoleon, who turned it into a school for the daughters of members of the Légion d’Honneur in 1806. The rooms now contain a fine selection of furniture, tapestries, glass and china made in France, Italy and the Netherlands in the 16th and early 17th centuries, representative of the Renaissance taste for elegance and refinement. The most famous exhibit is a Brussels tapestry, woven c.1515, which extends over three rooms and tells the story of David and Bathsheba, dressed, of course, in 16th-century clothes.