The name of Hémery did not long survive as chatelain of the property, and the lands passed by letters patent to the Thévenin family, its present owners, who were able to have the fief made into a marquisat. The chateau fortunately escaped Revolutionary destruction and to-dayranks as one of the most beautiful examples of the Renaissance-Bourguignonne style of domestic architecture to be seen.
The edifice in its construction and exterior decoration shows plainly its transition between the _moyen-age_ manner of building and that which is considerably more modern. It is towered and turreted after the defensive manner of the earliest times, and moat surrounded in a way which suggests that the ornamental water is something more than a mere accessory intended to please the eye. Entrance is had by a bridge over this moat and finally into the Cour d'Honneur through a fortified gateway, as pleasingly artistic in its disposition as it is effective as a defence.
Chiefly, the chateau shows to-day d'Hémery's construction of the seventeenth century, paid for, says one authority, by silver extorted from the poor subjects of his king in the form of general taxes. This may or may not be so, but as d'Hémery's wealth was quickly acquired only when he had need of it to build this great chateau, it is quite likely that some of it came from sources which might never otherwise have produced a personal revenue.
Another distinct portion of the chateau is that arrived at through the Cour d'Honneur, and known as Le Petit Chateau, a sort of distinct pavillion, a beautiful example of late Renaissance work at least a century older than the main fabric.
Though non-contemporary in its parts, the chateau taken entire is intensely interesting and satisfying in every particular. Furthermore, its sylvan site is still preserved much as it was in other days, and its alleyed walks are the same through which strolled the Colignys and the de Courtneys of old. No sacrilege has been committed here as in many other seigneurial parks, where more than one virgin forest has been cut down to make firewood, or perhaps sold to bring in gold which an impoverished scion of a noble house may have thought he needed. One avenue alone of this great park runs straight as the proverbial flight of an arrow, only ending at the chateau portal after a course of two kilometres straightaway.