About

In 1461, a young poet named François Villon was thrown into a pit-dungeon beneath this castle on the orders of the Bishop of Orléans. He had already been convicted of manslaughter and robbery in Paris. Here at Meung, there was no trial — just a cell in the dark, somewhere beneath the Loire Valley countryside.

He survived. And when King Louis XI passed through Meung that October and ordered a general pardon, Villon walked out and wrote what became the greatest French poem of the Middle Ages. The opening stanzas of his "Testament" are a direct reckoning with the bishop who imprisoned him, the cold of the dungeon, and the nearness of death. He never mentions Meung by name. He doesn't need to.

You can visit that dungeon today.

The Château de Meung-sur-Loire is one of the oldest and most unusual historic monuments in the Loire Valley — a UNESCO World Heritage site too often bypassed in favour of the famous royal châteaux downstream. Unlike Chambord or Chenonceau, Meung was never a royal palace.…