The story of this place
The royal Château de Blois, home to seven kings and ten queens, is a stone chronicle of French architecture, its wings ranging from Gothic to Renaissance to Classical, including Francis I's celebrated spiral staircase. Its darkest drama unfolded on 23 December 1588, when King Henry III, threatened by the over-mighty Duke Henry of Guise, leader of the Catholic League, summoned him to the royal apartments and had his guards stab the duke to death; his brother the Cardinal was killed the next day. Within months Henry III himself was assassinated, ending the House of Valois. Later Marie de' Medici was imprisoned at Blois and made a dramatic escape down a rope ladder.