Monarchs gives rise to Styles. One has only to think Victorian or Georgian. People know instinctively what the Louis-Philippe (1830 to 1848) style is. They may not be able to describe it but can recognise it. It’s pretty, dainty, delicate, elegant yet practical.

Many châteaux are little more than museums, many are cold, damp and forbidding but not Château Amboise. In winter, when frost is on the ground and giant logs are crackling in the giant fireplace you feel you could move in, pull up a chair and be quite at home.

We recently visited the nearby Grand Caves Saint Roch, the largest troglodyte in the region. This is our second visit to a wine cave, only nine hundred and ninety eight to go. Well, this is the Val de Loire, France’s third largest wine region with, if anyone is counting, four thousand vineyards, a thousand of which welcome visitors.

Named in honour of Doctor Bretonneau (1778–1862), a genius epidemiologist. He performed the first successful tracheotomy (entrance into the trachea through the muscles of the neck); successfully treated children suffering from rickets by feeding them cod-liver oil; made the clinical distinction between scarlet fever and diphtheria to which he gave its name; distinguished between typhoid and typhus; studied smallpox and introduced inoculation in the districts around Tours; was the first to realise that disease is caused by bacteria; discovered that the same illness manifests itself differently in different patients.

Rue Nationale (formerly Rue Napoleon).

The most famous Frenchman of all time, Napoléon (the acute accent seems to be arbitrary) Bonaparte (1769-1821) is one of the most controversial leaders in history.

Philosopher, author, composer and botanist, Rousseau (1712–1778) influenced the sociological, educational and cultural thought of eighteenth century Europe.

He was born into a family of watchmakers in Geneva. His parents were French but were exiled to Switzerland because they were Protestants. His mother died nine days after his birth, his father died when Jean-Jacques was ten. When he was sixteen, Rousseau left Switzerland to travel around France.

The son of a lawyer, François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778) was known by his nom de plume Voltaire. Poet, philosopher, playwright, historian, biographer, pamphleteer, outspoken, controversial writer with a sharp, often cruel, wit. He had strong opinions on just about everything. He was scathing about Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church. He wanted freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the separation of church and state. Often vilified, he could never have imagined the posthumous recognition he would receive.

René Descartes, as the street sign says, was a philosopher, mathematician and physicist. He is remembered for many reasons not least among them for saying: ‘I think, therefore I am’ (cogito, ergo sum). Known as The Father of Modern Philosophy, his writings are still in vogue. He is also famous for stating that the mind is separate from the body. He identified the mind with consciousness and self-awareness separated from the physical brain. This is known now as Cartesian Dualism. Humans have a mind (non-physical) and body/brain (physical). The mind and body are separate. It was Descartes who made the connection between geometry and algebra to solve geometrical problems with algebraic equations.