FRANCE: Treasure Hunt

As Finance Minister to France’s King Henri IV (1589-1610), the shrewd but fair-minded Due de Sully is said to have piled up for his royal master a fortune of some 40 million gold livres. The duke also did well enough by himself to purchase a fine old château on the banks of the Loire 80 miles south of Paris. During its long history and frequent alterations, Château Sully-sur-Loire, as it came to be known, lent its sheltering roof to the entertainment of nine Kings of France, as well as to Voltaire, the Marquis de Lafayette, Cardinal Mazarin and Joan of Arc. In recent times 20,000 tourists a year have trooped through it.

But to the Marquise de Bausset-Roquefort, a descendant of Sully who inherited the chateau in 1902, the greatest charm of Sully-sur-Loire lay in an ancient rumor that a fortune of francs in jewels and gold lay buried somewhere in its walls. In 1951 the marquise began looking for the treasure in earnest. She hired work men in droves to dig up the ancient foundations. When water from the castle moat seeped into the cellars, she brought in helmeted divers to continue the hunt. Girders gave way, walls collapsed, suction pumps worked overtime, but still the marquise searched.

Time passed; lawns, courtyards and bastions disappeared to make way for mounds of earth and gaping excavations. Buttresses were built to shore up the sagging walls, but no treasure appeared. At last, after three years of digging, the worried contractors presented a bill for 9,362,000 francs and refused to dig another shovelful unless the marquise paid it in one month. But the marquise was broke.

“The marquise has sold all the historic tapestries, paintings and furniture,” complained the contractor’s attorney. Last week the château was put up for auction. The townspeople, outbidding everyone else, bid 20 million francs ($57,000) for the sagging but prized tourist attraction. “We shall do everything possible,” promised the mayor, “to repair and preserve its marvelous heritage.”