Back to the boat, lunch finished, we set off again towards Tanlay and its chateau. We leave aside the small village of Commisey, with its enchanting little wash house, and several beautiful fields of rapeseed in flower, and arrive at Tanlay, having gone through the lock with its impressive rate of water discharge.

The little harbour is nearly full and the “Vénarey” slides gently between a huge barge and a house-boat.

 

Everybody is looking round the town, through little streets and lanes so narrow that two bikes would have trouble passing, and we arrive at the chateau, shut at this late hour. We thread our way under the vault of the little castle (the Portal) which guards the entrance, so that we can enjoy the beautiful dusk light and admire the outside of this renaissance chateau. It used to belong to the Coligny family, then to a relation of Mazarin, Michel Particelli d’Hémery’s superintendent of finances. It was he who embellished and completed the chateau in 1642. At the end of the seventeenth century the estate passed to Jean Thevenin, counsellor to Louis XIV, who made him Marquis of Tanlay in 1705. Two pyramidal obelisks at the entrance are the work of the architect, Pierre Le Muet, who also created the moat, the right hand side of the grand courtyard, the stables and the canal which crosses the park.

We will come back tomorrow to visit the interior, but for now, it’s back to the boat. I cast an eye over the decoration on the portal overhang, and yet again I notice that the escargot takes the honours. I swell with pride in my shell. Decidedly, these guys visit places of noble lineage. I ask myself if they are not gastropode fanatics.
The little port is tranquil and serene. Everyone’s asleep, thinking about tomorrow.

By 9 o’clock the decks are cleared. We take to the same little streets and arrive just in time to explore the halls of the chateau under the menacing eye of an elk, hunting trophy of one of the owners. No photographs here, and we will gather explanations at the end of the visit, so we have to remember magnificent pieces of furniture, big fireplaces, and above all the little round room in the de la Ligue tower, whose ceiling is decorated with scantily clad personnages from the court of Henri III. Quite roguish, all that. One can imagine all that must have gone on behind these walls…