We live in a house in the centre of a small village. With its stately façades and turret, the villagers sweetly call it châtelet. Before us, French noblesse have stayed in it, gentry with impressive estates in France. During dozens of holiday trips, we have located and documented all of it. But that didn’t give any answer to the question: How to present it in a digestible… no, in a captivating manner? How to abridge the centuries and how to connect the turbulent history of Europe with everyday life in the village? For that purpose, I introduced a family of estate stewards employed by the Masters of Bouchove. After all, masters come and go, but stewards stay. Besides clerks, marketers and a villain. Thus I got a story line and could start processing the numerous bits and pieces of information into three volumes that describe the rich history of Bouchove.