In the midst of a great flowered and shady park sits this admirable edifice belonging to the descendants of the family of Coligny. It was here, to be precise, that the Coligny and the Prince de Condé leagued themselves together against the wily Catherine de Medicis and her crew, and much bad blood was shed on both sides before they got en rapport again. The Chateau de Tanlay is perhaps the finest, certainly one of the most monumental, chateaux of Burgundy. Frankly Renaissance, the best of it dating from 1559, it was begun by Coligny d'Andelot, the brother of the "Admiral." One of the most notable of its constructive features is the imposing Tour de la Ligue where, previous to that dread Saint Bartholomew's night, the Colignys and the Prince de Condé and their followers plotted and planned their future actions, and those of their associated Ligueurs. The Marquis de Tanlay, the present owner of the ancient lands of the Courtneys of royal race, graciously opens the portal of the chateau that the world of curiosity-loving folk who pass by may enter if they will, and marvel at the delights within. The "Terre de Tanlay" in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries belonged to the de Courtneys, by whom, it was sold to Louise de Montmorency, the mother of the Huguenot Admiral of Henri IV. This latter, in 1559, ceded it to another of her sons, François d'Andelot, the Coligny who began the work of construction of the chateau forthwith. In 1574 d'Andelot bequeathed the unachieved work to Anne de Coligny, the wife of the Marquis de Mirabeau, who, still working on the original plans, left it uncompleted at his death in 1630. His daughter Catherine fell heir to the property, but sold it five years later to Porticelli d'Hémery--Mazarin's Surintendant des Finances, who called in the architect Lemuet to carry the work to a finish. This he did, or at least brought it practically to the condition in which it stands to-day. 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.