The Château du Rivau has a square keep at the heart of its fortifications, and its shape recalls thirteenth-century fortified castles. The infobox gives 1445 as its build date. François de Beauvau, a captain of Francis I, built the stables in 1510. The article describes them as the royal stallion stables of Henry III and says they were inspired by Italian architecture.
Joan of Arc and her followers came to fetch horses here in 1429. The Beauvau family held the property for 247 years, and Rabelais mentions the castle in Gargantua. The Castellane family owned it from 1768 to 1796.
The painter Pierre-Laurent Brenot lived there from 1960 to 1992, and an 18-year renovation followed. The castle is open to visitors with twelve fairy-tale gardens, and it has been a monument historique since 1918.
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