Photo : Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Château de Rambouillet
The Château de Rambouillet, in the Yvelines, stands in the heart of the Rambouillet forest, in a park of 980 hectares. In 1368, Jean Bernier, provost of Paris, bought the estate and had it fortified in 1374. The d'Angennes family owned it from 1384 to 1699. According to tradition, Francis I died there on 31 March 1547, and the tower that bears his name survives. The Count of Toulouse acquired the estate in 1706 and enlarged it considerably, before the Duke of Penthièvre laid out English-style gardens, with canals and islands.
Louis XVI bought the castle in 1783 and had the Queen's Dairy and the national sheepfold built there, founded in 1785 to raise merinos. Napoleon restored it between 1804 and 1807, and Charles X abdicated there in 1830. An official presidential residence since 1896, it hosted in 1975 the first G6 summit. It has been managed since 2009 by the Centre des monuments nationaux.
