Blois

Blois rises above the right bank of the Loire, beneath the château that was first the seat of its counts and then a royal residence. The county, held by the Thibaldian house for centuries, passed in 1397 when Guy of Châtillon offered it to Louis of Orléans, and in 1498 it joined the crown when Louis II of Orléans became Louis XII. He had been born in the château, and the wing he built in brick and stone started the series of royal buildings that ended with François Mansart's wing for Gaston of Orléans in the 1630s.

In April 1429 Joan of Arc made Blois her base for the relief of Orléans, setting out on the 29th. During the Wars of Religion the town was looted by Catholics in July 1562 and by Protestants in February 1568. In 1588 Henry III called the Estates General to Blois; on 23 December royal guards murdered Henry, Duke of Guise, in the château, and his brother the cardinal was killed the next day. Catherine de' Medici died there in January 1589. Marie de' Medici lived there in exile from 1617 to 1619, and Gaston of Orléans, banished by Louis XIII, stayed until his death in 1660. Blois became a bishopric in 1697, and the Jacques-Gabriel bridge was opened in 1724 after the medieval bridge collapsed in February 1716.