For sale: 15 rooms, dungeon, unsavory past

Two bids are in, but you might still have a chance to pay a million Euros for the castle where Richard the Lion-hearted died in a failed robbery attempt.

Well, not quite that way, but we'll come back to that in a minute after the specs for the Chateau de Chalus-Chabrol, offered for sale on the French classified ad site Le Bon Coin. It's in Limousin, in south-central France. The mayor of Chalus says he hopes the new owners will make the castle a 'commercial, economic and touristic project.'

Now back to Richard, widely admired as a gallant Crusader. As the most reliable (because written just after the events) chronicle describes it:

… during Lent King Richard took advantage of the opportunity of peace with King Philip to lead an army of his own against the Viscount of Limoges, who had rebelled against him during the time of war and had made a treaty of alliance with Philip. Moreover there are some who say that a treasure of incalculable value was found on the viscount’s lands; that the king ordered it to be handed over to him; nd that when the viscount refused, the king’s anger was further aroused. The he devastated the Viscount’s land with fire and sword, as though he did not know that arms should be laid aside during Lent, until at last he came to Chalus-Chabrol… 

The modern historian then adds: 

For three days attacks were mounted on the castle, after which the castle walls were in imminent danger of collapsing. It was at this point a soldier named Peter Bru also known as Peter Basil was lucky to hit the king in his shoulder with a bolt from a crossbow, which could not be wholly extracted “without great violence”. After this the wound deteriorated quickly in spite of the herbs and plasters, which were applied. Inside 12 days the king had died. It is believed he died of septicaemia.

Afterwards the entrails of Richard Lionheart were buried in the Abbey at Chalus, his heart in the Cathedral of Rouen and his embalmed body in the Abbey of Fontevraud.

But if you still want the castle, go ahead. There are no ghost stories there.