We walk past it when leaving the metro without really looking up. And yet, the Château de Vincennes is one of the most fascinating and least-known monuments in Île-de-France— a nearly intact medieval fortress just a ten-minute walk from Line 1, whose walls conceal some of the most scandalous stories in French history.
The Château de Vincennes: a royal castle 15 minutes from Paris
Nestled between Versailles to the southwest and the Sainte-Chapelle in the heart of Paris, the Château de Vincennes attracts far fewer visitors than its illustrious rivals, even though it has nothing to envy them. A royal residence from the 12th to the 18th century, it has seen Louis VII, Charles V, Henry IV, and Louis XIV pass through its walls. Its 1.1-kilometer-long fortified enclosure, flanked by nine towers, is one of the best-preserved examplesof medieval military architecture in France. Its keep, meanwhile, holds a special place in the history books…
16 June 2026 10:00 + more dates
The tallest keep in Europe and a royal prison that once housed the high and mighty
At the center of the fortress stands the keep. Construction began in 1340 and was completed under Charles V around 1370; it rises to a height of 50 meters, making it the tallest in Europe at the time—a record it still holds today alongside the Crest Tower in the Drôme. Its form is austere: a five-story square tower, walls over three meters thick, four corner turrets, and a top terrace capable of housing catapults. Charles V had made it his personal residence and kept his precious manuscripts there. But by the 17th century, the keep changed its purpose and became a state prison.
A very unique prison, reserved for people of high birth, with a capacity of only fourteen inmates at a time. Among them are some of the most famous names in French history: Henri of Navarre, Voltaire, Diderot, the Marquis de Sade, Mirabeau… These men were imprisoned there without trial, by the king’s mere will, via a lettre de cachet that allowed him to imprison whomever he wished without any recourse. Today, one can still see graffiti carved by the prisoners on the walls of the keep—one of the most captivating details of the visit.
Fouquet, the man who dared to outshine Louis XIV
It is one of the most fascinating anecdotes from the Ancien Régime. Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s Superintendent of Finances, was the most powerful and wealthiest man in France after the king. To cement his greatness, he had theChâteau de Vaux-le- d, bringing together for the first time three geniuses: the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter-decorator Charles Le Brun, and the landscape architect André Le Nôtre.
On August 17, 1661, Fouquet invited Louis XIV to a party of unparalleled splendor. Molière performed, La Fontaine recited, fountains gushed, and candles illuminated the French gardens. The king, humiliated (his own Palace of Versailles was then merely a simple hunting lodge), left the party before it ended. Three weeks later, on September 5, 1661, he orderedd’Artagnan to arrest Fouquet. The superintendent would end his life in the fortress of Pignerol in the Alps in 1680. But before this transfer, he was held in the dungeon at Vincennes. As for the three geniuses of Vaux-le-Vicomte—Le Vau, Le Brun, and Le Nôtre—Louis XIV immediately enlisted them to build what would become Versailles.
