Photo : ℍenry Salomé / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Château des Mesnuls
In 1230 Ernaut des Mesnuls laid the first stone of a manor on the present site of the Château des Mesnuls, in the Yvelines. Later lords of Les Mesnuls included Jehan Gautier, Robert Duport, Jehan Dumor, Simon de Maintenon (1460), Jehan Niard and Pierre Chapillard (1480).
In 1540 Christophe de Refuge, steward to the Duke of Alençon, built on the site of the first manor a two-storey building with a low wing and a postern with two turrets (the present postern), and had the moats dug. In a deed of 1556 he is described as one of the hundred gentlemen of the household of King Henri II. In the 1570s he acquired the fiefs of Les Essartons, La Millière and Le Jardin, and a few years later his son Charles acquired the lordship of Grosrouvre. In 1575 Robert de Combault, gentleman of the chamber of Henri III and captain of the Queen's guards, acquired the château with his wife, Louise de La Béraudière.
