Château de Vincennes

Yesterday I visited Chateau de Vincennes - a gorgeous castle just outside of Paris. It's history goes back to Louis VII (12th century). In addition to the chapel (modelled on the Sainte-Chapelle of the Palais de la Cite in Paris), the site includes a keep: 52 meters high and the tallest medieval fortified structure of Europe. At the start of the Hundred Years' War John II initiated work on this keep, which was completed in 1370. It's a very impressive construction.

The keep of Chateau de Vincennes.

The keep includes several dungeons. On the walls of these dungeons graffiti made by the prisoners can still be seen:

Indeed quite a bit different than the graffiti we think of these days. It is maybe not that strange though. The prisoners that were detained in the keep were people of (used-to-be) high standing. Some famous ones include Nicolas Fouquet (Louis XIV’s disgraced finance minister), Denis Diderot (French author and philosopher) and Donatien Alphonse François (the famous Marquis de Sade).

Talking about grafitti; hereby a must-listen-to song by Simon and Garfunkel: