Le Forez is an area in France which is largely in the Loire département, and is essentially rural. The Château de la Bâtie d'Urfé is in Forez in Saint-Étienne-le-Molard, where Honoré d'Urfé (1567-1625) lived for a time and where the area was the source of inspiration for what is his masterpiece, the first roman-fleuve: L'Astrée.
L'Astrée is a homage to his childhood home and surroundings and was published between 1607 and 1627, being a partly autobiographical pastoral love story of Astrée and Céladon (in turn rendered homage to by Éric Rohmer's film version of part of it): the director could hardly have even summed up a book which stretches to 5399 pages with 293 characters in twelve books. The book was read throughout Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (And was in fact finished posthumously by the author's secretary Balthazar Baro.)
The novel, obviously known by academics, is still obscurely 'remembered' in the French word for green glazed porcelain: céladon, or 'celadon' in English. Unfortunately, because of a lack of time, we were unable to appreciate the château and its surroundings to anything like the extent it merits.
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