Loire Valley Chateau d'Usse

Loire Valley - The Château d’Ussé - Sleeping Beauty's Castle

The Château d’Ussé in the Loire Valley (la Vallée de la Loire) is a private estate belonging to the seventh Duke of Blacas. It is famous as being the castle that inspired Charles Perrault's children's story La Belle au Bois Dormant known in English as Sleeping Beauty and is immediately recognizable as such.

It is open to the public for visits and has been a listed building since 1931. It is located on the banks of the River Indre, a tributary of the Loire, near the Chinon Forest, 33 km from Tours and 14 km from Chinon. The nearest village, the village of Rigny, and the village of d’Ussé were merged in the XIXth century to become the Commune of Rigny-Ussé.

The site has been inhabited since prehistoric times and is said to have belonged to Uccius a gallo-roman landowner. In 1004, the first Lord of Ussé was the Guelduin the First (known as the Devil of Saumur), the Viking Chief of Saumur. Gueldiun built the first wooden fortress on the site, but it was his son Guelduin II who set out to build a stone castle.

In 1424, towards the end of the Hundred Years' War, Jean V de Bueil, the Lord of Ussé, Count of Sancerre and King's Captain built the base of the present castle. His son Antoine, who married Jeanne de Valois daughter of King Charles VII started the rebuilding of the castle in the XVth century style, but, deeply in debt, he was forced to sell it in 1485 to Jacques d’Espinay. His grandson Rene d'Espinay was also forced to sell the chateau due to debts, caused partly by the works carried out on the chateau, in 1557 to Suzanne de Bourbon.


After having many different owners, the château was bought in 1659 by Thomas Bernin Marquis of Valentinay, King Louis the Fourteenth’s secretary. In 1664 the Marquis created the gardens based on drawings by Le Nôtre. In 1700, the estate became a Marquisate. Louis II Bernin de Valentinay who was a friend of Charles Perrault invited him to the château several times and the author was inspired by the castle to write the well-known children’s story La Belle au bois dormant (Sleeping Beauty).

French writer and philosopher Voltaire is said to have lived at the castle while writing a part of La Henriade, a poem dedicated to the King Henry IV of France and published in 1713.

In 1780, the descendents of Louis Bernin de Valentinay sold the château.

The castle was transferred to the Duras Family in 1807. Châteaubriand is said to have written some of his Mémoires d’Outre-tombe there. Châteaubriand was a friend of Claire de Kersaint, wife of the Duke of Duras and made her a gift of a number of cedars of Lebanon which he had brought back in from the Holy Land in 1817, and which can still be seen near the chapel. The Duke of Duras’s daughter gave the estate to her great nephew the Duke of Blacas, and the current owners of the castle are his descendants.

The chapel situated inside the castle compound is called the Collégiale Sainte Anne d’Ussé and was built by Jacques d’Espinay and his wife Lucrèce de Pons in 1521. Locally it is known as Notre Dame d’Ussé and dedicated to the Virgin’s mother. It serves as a private oratory and the stalls from the XVIth century, decorated in an Italian style, are by Jean Goujon.

The white Truffeau stone used in the building and the combined medieval, gothic and Renaissance style give the castle its beautiful enchanting shape, a perfect set for a beautiful sleeping princess. The gardens à la française were designed by Le Nôtre, who also designed the gardens at Versailles for Louis XIV.

Inside the château, the entrance hall dates back to the XVth century, while the staircase is from the XIXth century. The guards room was the entrance in the XVth century, which contains a collection of arms and oriental objects (most of them Indian) brought back by Count Stanislas de Blacas.

The Salon Vauban, contains Regency-style furniture that can all be taken apart, allowing the fabric to be changed according to the season and also a XVIth century Italian cabinet in blackened and ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl and lapis lazuli which has 49 secret drawers.

The old kitchen now contains tapestries from the XVIIth century. It is the oldest room in the château. It used to open onto an underground passage dug directly into the foundations of the château, that came out again in the middle of the Chinon Forest. This passage is now blocked.

There are also the Grande galerie, the Grand Escalier, the Antichambre and the Chambre du Roi all of which are beautifully furnished with various collections of portraits

The battlements are the backdrop for a scene from Charles Perrault’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ using wax figures.

The King's Bed Chamber


This room was restored in 1995. All the furniture dates back to 1770, the salon and the four-poster bed are in Louis XVI style. The Venice mirror is from the XVIIth siècle. The four chests of drawers are in different styles - two being Regency, one Louis XV and the last Transition. The oak floor dates back to the XVIIth century.

Visiting times for the château (inside the château and the gardens)
From February 18 to March 31 10.00 to 18.00
From February 1 to June 30 10.00 to 19.00
From July 1 to August 31 9.00 to 19.00
From September 1 to November 11 10.00 to 18.00

Address :
Château d’Ussé
37420 Rigny Ussé
Tel : 02 47 95 54 05
Fax : 02 47 95 43 58