History of Chinon

emained faithful to him and he made lengthy stays with his court there. In 1429, Joan of Arc came to Chinon to meet and to acknowledge him as the rightful heir to the throne. With the men and arms accorded to her, she would go on to break the siege of Orleans and open the way for Charles to be crowned. This meeting is the turning point of the war, helping to establish both firmer national boundaries and sentiment.

Chinon also served Louis XII as he waited for the papal legate Caesar Borgia to bring the annulment papers from Jeanne de France, enabling him to marry Anne of Brittany in 1498, and thus solidify an even more coherent French territory

At the end of the 15th century, the commune of Chinon was the birthplace of the writer, humanist, philosopher and satirist François Rabelais, author of Gargantua and Pantagruel amongst other works, which figure in the canon of great world literature. The region is the scene of these fantastic, critical and observant adventures.

From the sixteenth century, Chinon was no longer a royal residence, and in 1631 it became part of the estates of the Duke of Richelieu, who neglected the fortress. Apart from townhouses and convents that were built, the city changed little up to the Revolution. In the 1820s, however, the fortifications were pulled down and the banks of the Vienne River were opened up to the outside.

In the late 19th and 20th centuries, Chinon grew to the east, towards the railway station, and to the north on the hill. The historic centre was registered as a conservation area in 1968, and since that time has been undergoing restoration in order to respect and preserve its historic, natural and architectural identity