Mourir au château

We have gradually become accustomed to confining death to a family setting that allows the parents of the deceased to share their grief and live their sorrow away from the outside world, in the sole presence of close friends. These funerals, both discreet and respectful, have little in common with the deaths and burials described in this book where we bring together the contributions of archaeology, history, history of art and literature which were, so to speak, invited to the bedside of great deceased characters in their châteaux, with a few exceptions that the readers will discover…

These famous dead persons make, throughout the centuries, a solemn procession where we meet in succession the Caumonts, Michel de Montaigne, the d’Ornanos, the Nasrid princess Fatima, Anne of Brittany, the Duke of Guise, Catherine de' Medici, Maria Theresa of Austria, Louis XIV, Marshal Saxe, Charles III of Monaco and great nobles of the Czech countries. We cannot forget the warm welcome we received from the owners of Le Château de Montréal, in Périgord, who allowed us to visit their beautiful funerary chapel and celebrate their ancestors with religious reverence. This privileged moment of familial remembrance also highlighted the fame of their family’s dead lords and ladies. A way to reconcile the funeral rites of past centuries and those of today.