Gilles Berthelot

Do you know Gilles Berthelot? Meet the man who commissioned the château d'Azay-le-Rideau and met a particularly tragic end.

The new lord of Azay-le-Rideau

A rising career

Gilles Berthelot (? - 1529) enjoyed a brilliant career in royal finance. Born into a large bourgeois family from Tours, and a favorite of King Louis XII (1462 - 1515), he became successively advisor, notary and secretary to the King, then Master of the King's Accounts in 1511 and President of the Chamber of Accounts. He was also mayor of Tours in 1519.

His positions with the crown brought him great financial ease. He demonstrated this success by acquiring the seigneury of Azay-le-Rideau between 1504 and 1510, and rebuilding the medieval château into a refined Renaissance residence.

Figure by Gilles Berthelot carved on a dormer window
Christian Glückman - Centre des monuments nationaux

A tragic end

Gilles Berthelot was not the only treasurer in the royal entourage to build himself an Italianate château. Suspecting the great financiers of enriching themselves at the expense of the state, Francis I had their accounts investigated, revealing financial malfeasance. This was an opportunity for the young sovereign to dismiss a number of advisors who had served his predecessor, Louis XII.

Following the defeat at Pavia and his return from captivity in Madrid, Francis I had the powerful treasurer Jacques de Beaune de Semblançay, Berthelot's cousin, condemned and executed in 1527. Gilles Berthelot was in turn stripped of his functions and fled to Metz. He died a few months later, in 1529, in Cambrai.

What about the Château d'Azay-le-Rideau construction site? Gilles Berthelot's wife, Philippe Lesbahy, took over from him and brought the project to completion.