Guillaume Tenon

Menestreau में Villiers के seigneur (जागीरदार), 1506 से

Guillaume Tenon was a finance officer active at the very beginning of the 16th century, described as trésorier de France (खज़ानची, फ़्रांस) and conseiller du roi (राजा के सलाहकार). In the history of Nivernais heritage he is known through a single milestone: in 1506 he became holder of the château de Villiers at Menestreau (Nièvre). This 15th-century fortified house, built on a fief associated with Nanvignes and controlling the former Roman road to Entrains, still belonged to the Chabannes in 1496. The transfer of the estate into the hands of a royal financier illustrates a common phenomenon at the end of the Middle Ages: the acquisition of rural seigneuries by servants of the monarchy drawn from the finance administration. The sources consulted do not say how Tenon acquired Villiers, nor how long he or his heirs kept it; the Mérimée notice moves directly from 1506 to 1697, the date when the fief was raised to a marquisate for François Menou de Charnisay. Most of the surviving structure — the logis, towers, chapel, filled-in moats, fixed bridge and 16th-century wooden partitions — dates from the 15th and 16th-century building campaigns, that is, partly from the period when Tenon owned the site, although no source explicitly attributes any works to him. The château has been listed as a monument historique since 2 March 2015.