Dangeau

A tiny once-fortified town, noted for its Romanesque church.

Châteaudun

This walled town retains its magnificent castle, despite considerable destruction in every war since the Hundred Years.
Charles d'Orléans, comte du Dunois (the area around Châteaudun) was captured at Agincourt and spent the best part
of his life as a prisoner in England. That's the trouble with a Hundred Years War, prisoners don't get home much.
While he was away, he confided the town to his illegitimate half-brother, known to history as the Bastard Dunois,
famous for his association with Joan of Arc. During the revolution the churches of the town were thoroughly pillaged,
and in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 Châteaudun so distinguished itself (and was so badly damaged) that it was
awarded the Légion d'Honneur.   Lastly (we hope) bombing in World War 2 scarred the town considerably.

Chartres

Lovely town, world-famous Cathedral. Must go back and take some more photos.

Cathedral

Alluyes

An ancient town (Julius Caesar camped here), Alluyes retains the keep of the castle from which a contingent marched,
at the orders of the Bishop of Chartres, to join William the Conqueror in the invasion of England.

Alluyes

Anet

When Henri II first saw Diane de Poitiers, he fell in love. He was five at the time, so nothing came of it until he was King,
at the age of 14. Diane was 34. She remained his mistress for the rest of his life, though he was married to Catherine de Médicis,
a distant cousin of Diane and not a good person to have as an enemy. Henri gave Diane the Château de Chenonceaux,
arguably the most beautiful of the castles of the Loire, but when the King was killed in a tournament, Catherine took it away again.
Diane retired to her late husband's property at Anet, which she decorated with sculptures related to hunting;
Diana the huntress was her favourite goddess, and she loved the chase all her life.

Maintenon

Dear me, another royal mistress. Françoise d'Aubigné had a life full of incident, which makes the phrase 'rags to riches' seem inadequate.
Left a penniless Protestant orphan, she was sent to live with relatives in Martinique and sent to a convent where she fell madly in love with
one of the nuns and became an ardent Catholic. Returning, still penniless, to France, she accepted marriage with the playwright Scarron,
who was already old and twisted with rheumatism, but who did have a royal pension on which they could live comfortably.
On Scarron's death the Queen Mother let her keep the pension, but when she in turn died, Louis XIV cut off the money. Penniless again,
Françoise was on the point of leaving France when she made friends with Louis' current mistress, Madame de Montespan. She got the pension
reinstated, and recommended Widow Scarron to be nursemaid to her (and the King's) son. She did this so well and so discreetly that the King
rewarded her generously. She bought the estate of Maintenon (below), and Louis made her a Marquise in her own right. Now, as
Madame de Maintenon and one of the ladies of the Court, she came more and more under the King's eye, and eventually replaced
Madame de Montespan as his favourite, though not necessarily his mistress. The Court approved this liaison – she was evidently a very
lovable person – and even the Queen said that she had never been so happy. After the death of the Queen, Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon
were married – secretly and morganatically – and she moved into a sumptuous set of apartments next to the King's at Versailles.
After his death, she retired to a property at Saint-Cyr with a vast pension, and died four years later, beloved by all.

Nogent-le-Rotrou

The old capital of the Perche, a district which lies partly in Eure and partly in Orne, Nogent is most notable
for the Château Saint-Jean, built in the 10th century, expanded in the 12th and 13th, destroyed in the 15th
(by the English, who else?), reoccupied in the 16th and restored in the 20th.