Château des Ducs de La Trémoïlle

As early as the 8th century, a fortress was built on a steep rock surrounded by a meander of the Thouet river, which was ideal for defense. It was taken and razed in 762 by Pepin the Short (accompanied by his son Karl, the future Charlemagne). Later on, Thouars played an important role in the wars between the kings of France and England from Henry Plantagenet and Philip Augustus until the end of the Hundred Years War. In 1619, Henry de La Trémoïlle married his cousin Marie de La Tour d'Auvergne, sister of Turenne. In order to remodel the ducal castle, she had a first pavilion built from 1635, then decided to raze the old castle in order to build a more grandiose one. The whole is sumptuous and of great dimensions. The architect was Jacques Lemercier, famous for his work at Versailles, the Louvre, the Sorbonne Church in Paris and the construction of the Château de Richelieu.