FRENCH CASTLES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 July 1938, Page 8

FRENCH CASTLES

MANY WELL PRESERVED. France has more ancient castles and palaces than any other country in the world. 'With single towers and keeps they total 761. Of these, 33 palaces and 539 castles are in good state of preservation, 113 are more or less in ruins. The largest number of castles are in the department, or county, of the Cote d’Or which boasts 20, and Dordogne comes next with 19. France has thirteen fortified churches,, and one fortified cathedral, that of Palavas-les-Flots (Herault). There is also one ancient fortified mill, at Nerac (Lot-et-Garonne). Most palaces and chateaux abound in Touraine, the “garden of France,” where castles lost their ugly aspect of war and became more the residences of princes, and while still built for defence, their narrow loopholes gave place to wide windows, and sentry walks grew into broad terraces. One of the castles, that of Pierrefonds, a few miles from Compiegne, might be termed an object lesson in medieval castles, for it has been completely restored in every detail, and in walking through its halls and rooms and on its battlements an exact, idea is obtained of what an ancient castle looked like to those who defended its walls in the days when knights were bold and minstrels sang their love songs. The castles of Dordogne are all of the ancient medieval type, built to receive and give hard knocks. Many of them were built by the English in the days of the Edward 111. and the Black Prince, and to travel in Dordogne is to wander back into “the history of France and England when both countries were exchange blows instead of bouquets.