Saumur

Saumur stands on the Loire beneath a castle whose towers rise above the river and the town. The crossing and river traffic made it a place of strategic and commercial importance between Anjou and Touraine. The castle served the dukes of Anjou as a residence as well as a fortress, overlooking the bridges and quays below.

During the Wars of Religion Saumur became a Protestant place of safety. Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, appointed governor in 1589, founded a college in 1599 and an academy in 1607. The academy attracted Protestant scholars and made the town a centre of learning as well as a fortified refuge. Louis XIII removed Duplessis-Mornay from the governorship in 1621, but the institution continued to shape Saumur's religious and intellectual life through much of the seventeenth century.