Saint André equipped his chateau with a menagerie from which he offered a bear to the dauphin, the son of Henri II. Vallery was in a permanent whirlwind of hunts and banquets, masked balls and drunken feasts; it rang with the sounds of dancing, laughter, whispers and the rustle of fine fabrics.
Pierre Lescot had delved deep into Antique times to find his inspiration, and this is the period from which Saint André took the rituals and the themes for his feasts. One of the essential attributes of court life in Vallery was the mask. Although there have been civilisations that knew nothing of the wheel or the cart, the mask always played a role in their traditions. Enigmatic, provocative, inciting or ritualistic, the mask has been an integral part of man's celebrations since the beginning of time.
The relative anonymity offered by the mask enabled guests to take liberties with morals they found oppressive. Under the guidance of Saint André, that "Lucullus of luxury, carousing and magnificence", the court would soon discover the peaks and excesses of revel-making.
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The winter solstice marked the opening of saturnalia at Vallery: seven days of half play-acting, half carnival, during which the world was turned on its head. For one week, social differences were reversed with the masters taking over their servants' role and serving at table. A truce was declared and gifts exchanged, and behind each mask everyone cocked a snook at his or her real identity. "Quod cuique libitum esset, licitum fiat" - roughly translated as "may all that pleases be allowed". Such was the motto of these secret and unrestrained celebrations in honour of Bacchus, inspired by the Greeks' festivities in honour of their god of wine, Dionysus. Such brazen bacchanalian merry-making at Vallery unfurled beneath masks of fauna chiselled into a keystone; judging from their amused expressions, the masks found such spectacular revelry highly entertaining.
Men and women adorned with belts of ivy and crowns of rockrose - not to mention an assortment of phallic accoutrements - mingled in the two walled gardens at the heart of the forest. Creatures masked with the attributes of the pagan pantheon caroused with an assortment of animals and grotesque transvestites. The established order and etiquette were restored at Shrovetide - not without great difficulty - amongst these swashbuckling Huguenots who defied Christian morality.
In De Thou's eyes, the marshal's thirst for pleasure was unquenchable; he was desperate for debauch-ery: "homo effrenati luxus perditaeque libidinous". According to Brantôme he was "the most gallant man of his time and the most desirous and inventive where parties were concerned… A man given to all types of lasciviousness and excess".
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Marshal Saint André's sovereign and friend, Henri II, paid a second visit to Vallery in 1556, from the 2nd to the 8th of September. The king was dumfounded by the unprecedented display of imagination in the festivities, including a procession of extravagant characters wearing costumes in the purest Antique style that the marshal himself had designed.
After a banquet, the entertainment kicked off in the gardens: for seven days and seven nights the guests witnessed gladiator fights and Greek plays and tournaments. The apotheosis, on the evening of the last day, was nautical jousting on the ponds in the walled gardens.
Jacques Androuet du Cerceau
Pleasure-grounds at Château de Vallery
On December 26th, Vallery would celebrate the Festival of Fools. Once again, the hierarchy was turned up-side down. Members of the clergy would dress up as devils or as women and elect a pope of fools. In a most impious and inebriated atmosphere, the latter would preach burlesque sermons and distribute bawdy blessings to the four corners of the chateau. One century earlier, the Council of Basle had denounced such practices and forbidden anyone outside the clergy from wearing episcopal regalia.
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