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The next step down in France is a maison de campagne, a "country house" with the usual English connotations of the word. There is a distinction in French between a maison de campagne and one that is merely a maison à la campagne, a "house in the country," perhaps a weekending retreat. The urban counterpart of "château" is palais (palace).
If a château is not old, then it must be grand. A château is a "power house" as Sir John Summerson dubbed the English (and Georgian Irish) " Stately homes" that are social counterparts of châteaux. It is the personal (and hopefully hereditary) badge of a family that represents the royal authority at some rank, locally. Thus this word is often used to refer to a residence of a member of the French royalty or the nobility, but some fine châteaux, such as Vaux-le-Vicomte were built by the essentially high bourgeois, but recently ennobled , tax-farmer s and ministers of Louis XIII and his successors.
A château is supported by its lands (terres), comprising a demesne that renders the society of the château largely self-sufficient, in the manner of the historic villa system of Rome and the Early Middle Ages. (Compare manorialism and hacienda.) The open Roman villas of the time of Pliny, Maecenas or emperor Tiberius began to be walled in, then fortified in the 3rd century, and evolved into castellar "châteaux." Even in modern use a château still retains some enclosures that are the distant descendants of these outworks: its fenced-off forecourt, with gates that could be closed and perhaps with a gatehouse or keeper's lodge, and its supporting outbuildings, like stables, kitchens, brewery, bakehouse, and lodgings for menservants in the garçonnière. Aside from the entrance cour d'honneur, the château may have an inner cour ("court"). Beyond, on the private inner side, the château faces a park that is enclosed, no matter how simply or discreetly. (If you doubt whether it is a château, ask to see the chapel.)
The original châteaux of the LouvreThe Louvre Museum Musee du Louvre , located in Paris, is one of the largest and most famous museums in the world. The building, a former royal palace (see below), lies in the centre of Paris, between the Seine river and the Rue de Rivoli. Its central cour (originally fortified) and LuxembourgThe Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (also Luxemburg is a landlocked state in the north-west of the continental European Union, bordered by France, Germany and Belgium. Grand-Duche de LuxembourgGrossherzogtum LuxemburgGroussherzogtum (Grand-Duche) Letzebuerg ( I (originally in the suburbs) have lost their château name and have becomes "palaces" as the growing city enclosed them.
In England, the word "château" never took root: even the utterly châteauesque Rothschild Waddesdon ManorWaddesdon Manor is a mansion at Waddesdon in Buckinghamshire, built between 1874 and 1889 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild ( 1839- 1898) of the Rothschild banking dynasty, who was Member of Parliament for nearby Aylesbury. It is owned by the National Tru is not a "château."
In the U.S., "château" took root selectively. In the Gilded AgeThe Gilded Age (approximately 1876-1900) is the era of the robber barons, the age of unrestricted capitalism in the late 19th century United States. The term was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of resort of Newport, Rhode IslandNewport is a city located in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is the largest city on Aquidneck Island in Narragansett Bay. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 26,475. It was founded in 1639 and incorporated as a city in 1784. It was, even the châteaux were always "cottages." But north of Wilmington, DelawareFor other places called Wilmington, see Wilmington Wilmington is a city located in New Castle County, Delaware. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 72,664. It is the county seat of New Castle County 1. This city is an anchor city for, in upscale rural "Château Country" centred on the powerful DuPontdu Pont de Nemours and Company ( NYSE:DD) was founded in July 1802 as a gun powder mill by Eleuthere Irenee du Pont on Brandywine Creek, near Wilmington, Delaware. Du Pont later evolved into one of the world's largest chemical companies, and in the 20th c family, some of the châteaux are really just McMansionMcMansion is a pejorative term for a particular style of housing that, as its name suggests, is both large like a mansion and cheap and ubiquitous like McDonald's fast food restaurants. McMansion is used as a pejorative term because they are seen to be chs.