If you have €7,000,000 you want to spend before capitalism collapses, you can scoop up Château du Bouilh, built for Louis XVI on the eve of the French Revolution, never occupied by royalty, and lovingly preserved to this day, with period interiors to match.
It's a perfect pied-a-terre for the discerning oligarch to cower in, pissing one's drawers while inequality, corruption and climate change trigger the collapse of the rotten system that elevated one to one's exalted position.
It has 30 bedrooms, so you can go from bed to bed, night after night, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. It has seven hectares of wine-caves in which to hide from the truth and reconciliation commission's bailiffs. It has a series of outbuildings ("follies") that will made picturesque backdrops for your war-crimes trial.
Everything was right on track for the Neoclassical castle until the Revolution got under way. In fact, there should be another house to bookend the demi-moon gallery, but building came to a screeching halt during the trial of Marie-Antoinette, Linda tells us, when Jean-Frédéric was arrested as a suspect in assisting the monarch. Even before the jury, he insisted on calling Marie Antoinette “Your Majesty.” Sadly, it cost him his powdered little head in 1794.
A Sleeping Chateau, Untouched since the Revolution, is For Sale [Francky Knapp/Messy Nessy Chic]
(via Kottke)
