The Main Building and the Original Keep

When Catherine Briconnet took over the running of the castle she cleared the land around it and demolished the old fortifications. She only kept the original castle keep - to the right. She came from a family of money so she started construction of most of the ground floor of what we see today. She and her husband died owing a great fortune in debt. The recently constructed building then passed on to the French kings who made it a hunting lodge. Diane of Poitiers gets credit for hiring a builder who extended the building to the opposite bank of the river. He created the arched bridge.