Château de Valençay  Château de Valençay was a residence of the d'Estampes and Talleyrand-Périgord families in the commune of Valençay, in the Indre "département" of France. Although it is part of the province of Berry, its architecture invites comparison with the Renaissance châteaux of the Loire Valley, notably the Château de Chambord. The manor was praised as "one of the most beautiful on earth" by George Sand, who also noted that "no king has owned a more picturesque park". It is at an elevation of 135 m. Château de Valençay is located at the edge of a plateau overlooking the Nahon river. In ancient times, the site of the château was home to a Gallo-Roman villa called "Valencia us", the domain of Valans. By the 10th or 11th century, a "heavy and massive tower" had been built, and between 1026 and 1047 a donation charter deeded Valençay to its first recorded lord, Bertrand. In 1220, the then-lord of Valençay, Gauthier, was reported to have built a feudal castle or house on the site, but it is unclear if this was an addition or an extension to the earlier tower. There are remains of the original structure buried under the courtyard. The modern château was built on a royal scale by the d'Estampes family of financiers over a period of some 200 years. Construction started in 1540 at the behest of Jacques d'Estampes in place of the demolished 12th-century castle and was not completed until the 18th century, when the south tower was added. The 18th century saw a rapid succession of owners, including the notorious Scottish banker John Law, who purchased the estate in 1719. Nearly a century later, in 1803, Napoleon ordered his foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand to acquire the property as a place particularly appropriate for reception of foreign dignitaries, notably Ferdinand VII of Spain, his brother Infante Carlos, Count of Molina and his uncle Infante Antonio Pascual, who would spend six years in Napoleonic captivity at Valençay. The treaty providing for their release in 1813 took the estate's name. The period of Talleyrand's occupancy was the golden age in the history of Valençay, with twenty-three communes reportedly administrated by the ruling prince.