If not notable for its fine suggestive feudal nomenclature, Ancy-le-Franc certainly claims that distinction by reason of the memories of its chateau, which dates from the reign of Henri II. Nearly three-quarters of a century were given to its inception. Of a unique species of architecture, presenting from without the effect of a series of squat façades, ornamented at each corner with a two storied square pavillon, it is sober and dignified to excess. The interior arrangements are likewise unique and equally precise, though not severe. The whole is a blend of the best of dignified Italian motives, for in truth there is little distinctively French about it, and nothing at all Burgundian. [Illustration] The structure was begun by the then ruling Comtes de Tonnerre in 1555, and became in 1668 the property of the Marquis de Louvois, the minister of Louis XIV, and already proprietor of the countship of Tonnerre which came to him as a _dot_ upon his marriage with the rich heiress Anne de Souvre. The gardens and park, now dismembered, were once much more extensive and followed throughout the conventional Italian motives of the period of their designing. Enough is left of them to make the site truly enough sylvan, but with their curtailment a certain aspect of isolation has been lost, and the whole property presents rather the aspect of a country place of modest proportions than a great estate of vast extent. The Chateau de Ancy-le-Franc is commonly accredited as one of the few edifices of its important rank which has preserved its general aspect uncontaminated and uncurtailed. No parasitical outgrowths, or additions, have been interpolated, and nothing really desirable has been lopped off. With Chambord and Dampierre, Ancy-le-Franc stands in this respect in a small and select company. Ancy-le-Franc is even now much the same as it was when Androuet du Cerceau included a drawing of it in his great work (1576), "Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de France." He was an architect as well as a writer, this Androuet du Cerceau, and he said further: "For my part I know no other minor edifice so much to my liking, not only for its general arrangements and surroundings, but for the dignified formalities which it possesses."