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Origin and history

The Château d'Agnou came into being in the 12th century, where a first fortified castle, the Château Saint-Vincent, belonged to the family of Boutigny on the fief d'Agnou in Maule. Built in the suburb and surrounded by walls covering the town, it was dismantled by order of Louis VI le Gros, and finally destroyed in 1357 by Charles le Bad de Navarre during the ruin of the city. The lords of Maule then resided in the city until the 16th century, marking the end of the medieval era for this site.

In the 16th century, the Harlay family of Sancy acquired fiefs in Maule. Nicolas Harlay de Sancy, Superintendent of Finance of Henry IV, in 1594 launched the construction of the castle of Agnu, after drying the marshes of the Bout d'Agnu. Although conceived as a quadrilateral flanked by towers, only a 60-metre wing and a cylindrical dove (which could house 6,000 pigeons) were completed. The project was interrupted when Sancy began the construction of Grosbois Castle in 1597, after his marriage with Marie Moreau.

The castle changed hands several times: sold in 1638 to Claude de Bullion (Superintendent of Finance), then confiscated during the Revolution to the Marquis de Boisse, exiled. The revolutionaries damaged the building, sold as national property in 1793 before being bought by the Marquis in 1812. In the 19th century he passed to the Maule Plainval and Balagny families. Transformed into a hospice during World War I and occupied by the Wehrmacht during the Second, it was abandoned in the 1960s before being restored in the 1970s. Today, it is a private condominium.

The dovecote, built in the 16th century, is an architectural masterpiece with 3,200 bolts, ranked among the oldest and largest in France. A symbol of seigneurial privilege (aboli in 1790), it now houses raptors like creceral falcons. The gardens, once decorated with ponds, artificial caves and vegetable gardens, have now disappeared. The preserved wing features a classic triangular skylight facade, ridge vaults and a stone staircase descending to the old gardens.

A famous anecdote links the castle to Nicolas Harlay de Sancy: in 1570, then ambassador, he acquired the diamond "Sancy" (55 carats), one of the largest in the world. Sold in 1604 to King James I of England, this jewel then decorated the crowns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, before joining the Louvre collections in 1979. The castle also served as a setting for the film "Listen to see" (1979) with Catherine Deneuve.

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