Caesar's Granaries

‘Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's’. Alas, for the romantics among us, the silos in Amboise, the Greniers (granaries) de César are in all probability not built by him.

Abbot Bosseboeuf (d.1928) from Tours thought the gigantic labyrinth was dug by Caesar but as nothing has yet come to light that he was ever in Amboise, Caesar’s Legionnaires makes more sense.

As they are almost directly under an Oppidum (fortified camp under Roman rule) it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Roman grain silos were excavated. The largest in Indre-et-Loire and among the twenty largest in the whole of France, the camp probably needed them. It was known as Ambacia, Latin for between two waterways because it overlooked the Loire and the Amasse rivers.

Four floors are connected by one hundred and twenty nine steps. Visitors don’t get to climb them to the upper gallery. If they did, they would gasp in surprise when they emerged on to the old Camp.

In 1548 Sir Jean Gastignon, Herbalist/Apothecary/Chemist By Royal Appointment to François I, was given the land in exchange for services rendered. It is thought he extracted tufa to build a quay on the Loire.

Gastignon financed the four amazing silos we see today. It’s thought that he asked prestigious architect engineer Domenico da Cortona (Cortona is in Tuscany) to design them. If so it was one of his last commissions as he died in 1549.

Walkway through the silos

The silos are of small flat bricks. The tops have an opening at ground level on the upper floor. These bell shaped vaults show such skilful workmanship, it’s impossible for anyone who has gazed up at the dome in Florence not to bring it to mind.

Inside Grain Silo looking up

It’s not hard to see why Caesar was credited. No-one could lay bricks like the Romans. Right? Wrong. The men who built these were French. If they were working to Cortona designs it is not surprising that Brunelleschi’s Dome tugs your elbow because Cortona worked in Florence and was weaned on Bruneleschi. He must have been exceptional because when Charles VIII returned home from his escapades in Italy, he asked Cortona to come with him. Charles was a huge fan of all things Italian. Cortona, after consulting with Leonardo da Vinci, drew the plans for Chateau Chambord.

Sir John renamed the site les Greniers de Gastignon but it never caught on. Caesar’s name lives on, Gastignon’s is all but forgotten.

François de Paule, an Italian hermit founded The Order of Minimes here in 1491. The monastery stretched between the hillside and the Loire. In 1588 after the death of Sir John, the monks of Les Minimes Convent next door bought a house called les Greniers which included the large underground cellars and grain silos.

A staircase linked the river to the plateau above and came out just beyond the Chateau grounds. Trapdoors allowed the grain to be dropped in from Chateau level, stored in the bottle shaped silos and dropped through to the ground level when the time came to take the grain away for use. The lowest level was accessed via a landing on the Loire so boats could transport it to chateaux and churches in the area.

The monks used the caves as a tithe barn. Peasants forced to give the tenth crop of the grain harvest to the Church took it to the plateau in carts where it was dropped into the silos from the top. The monks added wooden floors to store tithes of cereals. Some peasants paid the tithe/tax in the form of sheaves of wheat. The monks used the silos to dry grain.

Wooden floor viewed from below

During the French Revolution the religious community was evicted from les Minimes.

The granaries became part of the estate of the duke of Choiseul.

In 1802 when Napoleon Bonaparte appointed the gifted chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal Minister of Interior, Chaptal bought the Choiseul estate which included the granaries, Château de Chanteloup and its extensive grounds. He raised merino sheep and built a model farm for the cultivation of sugar beet. He revolutionised wine-making in France. His new procedure of adding sugar to increase the final alcohol content of wines became known as Chaptalisation.

A mover and shaker in the industrialisation of France he was the major producer of hydrochloric, nitric and sulphuric acids, so much sought after as a technical consultant for the manufacture of gunpowder. It was Chaptal who introduced the term nitrogen. Napoleon named him Count of the Empire in 1808 and Count of Chanteloup in 1810. The 1820s for Chaptal were clouded by the financial ruin of his son, Jean-Baptiste. To cover his son's enormous debts due to failed large-scale business speculations, he had to sell Chanteloup. Left with a small pension he lived and died in a small apartment in Paris.

Sugar beet loaf mould

The strange cone shaped objects in the granaries are sugar beet loaf moulds from Chaptal's factory. They bear the name of the manufacturer: L. GILBERT A ORLEANS.

The huge cathedral like room where visitors are gathered was built between 1818 and 1830 to connect to the base of the silos. The granaries belonged to the Foltz family (established 1870 in Amboise) and became known as La Grande Cave Madame Foltz.

In 1856 a Prefectural Decree authorized a wine merchant, to "… establish vast stores for wines the extent of the rock cellars… known under the name of Caesar's granaries".

Today les Greniers Cesar/Gastignon/Chaptal/Foltz are owned by Hotel Choiseul.

Post by Pamela, images by Mark.