Chateau de Sache Review

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Château de Saché

Fodor's Review:

A crook in the road, a Gothic church, the centuries-old Auberge du XIIe Siècle, an Alexander Calder stabile (the great American sculptor created a modern atelier nearby), and the country retreat of novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850)—these few but choice elements all add up to Saché, one of the prettiest (and most undiscovered) nooks in the Val de Loire. If you're heading in to the town from the east, you're first welcomed by the Pont-de-Ruan —a dream sequence of a flower-bedecked bridge, water mill, and lake that is so picturesque it will practically click your camera for you.

Two kilometers (1 mi) farther, you hit the center of Saché and the Château de Saché, which contains the Musée Balzac. If you've never read any of Balzac's "Comédie Humaine," you might find little of interest here; but if you have, and do, you can return to such novels as Cousine Bette and Eugénie Grandet with fresh enthusiasm and understanding. Much of the landscape around here, and some of the people back then, found immortality by being fictionalized in many a Balzac novel. The present château, built between the 16th and the 18th century, is more of a comfortable country house than a fortress. Born in nearby Tours, Balzac came here—to stay with his friends, the Margonnes—during the 1830s, both to write such works as Le Père Goriot and to escape his creditors. The château houses substantial exhibits, ranging from photographs to original manuscripts to the coffeepot Balzac used to brew the caffeine that helped to keep him writing up to 16 hours a day. A few period rooms are here and impress with 19th-century charm, including a lavish emerald-green salon and the author's writing room. Be sure to study some of the corrected author proofs on display. Balzac had to pay for corrections and additions beyond a certain limit. Painfully in debt, he made emendations filling all the margins of his proofs, causing dismay to his printers. Their legitimate bills for extra payment meant that some of his books, best sellers for nearly two centuries, failed to bring him a centime.

  • Cost: EUR 4.50
  • Open: Apr.-June. and Sept., daily 10-6; July and Aug., daily 10-7; Oct.-Mar., Wed.-Mon. 10-12:30 and 2-5
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