Photo : Thor19 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Château de Sigy
On 13 August 1445 Denis de Chailly ceded Sigy, in the Seine-et-Marne, to Antoine du Roux. Since the 15th century the château's plan has stayed almost the same: an elongated quadrilateral with four defensive corner towers, the largest completed under Henry IV. The whole is surrounded by moats up to 30 metres wide. Under Henry IV the drawbridge was replaced by a stone bridge guarded by two turrets, and a staircase with wooden balusters was built in an Italian-style vaulted stairwell. The watchtowers were later turned into dovecotes and a swan tower. In 1988 the moats, covering a hectare, were cleaned out.
The buildings were extensively altered in the 16th and 18th centuries, when the large salon was fitted out with wide windows, framed in brick in the 19th century. A tower beside the main building houses two bedrooms: the 'Louis XIV' room, hung with tapestries, and Diana's room, with trompe-l'œil painted panelling from the Château de Montigny-Lencoup. In 1868 a new farm building outside allowed part of the farm outbuildings to be given up, and the château became purely residential.
