de Chaumont-la-Guiche in Saint-Bonnet-de-Joux in southern Burgundy. The stables were executed 1648–1652 by the local mason and entrepreneur François Martel, to whom the design has frequently been attributed. However, Blondel mentions that he was responsible in a note in his 1685 edition of Louis Savot's L'architecture françoise, and, according to his biographer Anthony Gerbino, there is no reason to question Blondel's claim. The cross-vaulted ground floor is divided into three aisles by two Tuscan arcades with stalls for more than eighty horses. On the exterior of the entrance front are two impressive double staircases ascending to a large hall on the upper floor. They frame the central portal, strikingly surmounted by a life-sized equestrian statue of the previous seigneur, Philibert de La Guiche. His daughter, Henriette de La Guiche built the stables for her husband, who at the time was , the governor of Provence and a grandson of Charles IX of France. Alais also owned the Château d'Écouen. These royal connections account for the monumentality of the design. Alais probably met Blondel in the military. In 1652 Blondel became the tutor of the son of the Secretary of State for foreign affairs, Loménie de Brienne, with whom he made the Grand Tour : Langres — Besançon — Basel — Alsace (Brisach) — Strasbourg (where he inspected the mechanism of the famous clock) — Philippsburg — Mannheim — Mayence — The Hague — Hamburg — Lübeck — Kiel — Denmark — Sweden (Stockholm, Uppsala) — Finland — Estonia (Riga) — Königsberg — Dantzig — Cracow — Pressburg — Vienna — Prague — Vence — Rome — Florence — Toulon. His travels would stand him in good stead when he came to compile his Cours d'Architecture. During the 1660s Blondel made a second tour with a son of Jean Baptiste Colbert, of which the itinerary is less known. In 1656, Blondel was named reader in Mathematics and Fortification at the Collège Royal, where his place was filled during his numerous absences by the astronomer Picard. From 1662 to 1668, Blondel exercised the functions of Syndic of the college. In the years 1657 to 1663 Mazarin sent him on diplomatic missions in Italy, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Moscow (where he regretted not having seen the fortifications at Kazan against the Tatars, and found that the maritime defenses were in the Dutch manner), Prussia, Livonia (with the Swedish fortifications of Riga), and