Château du Parangon, 17th-century castle in Joinville-le-Pont, France.

Château du Parangon is a 17th-century building whose pale yellow facade has horizontal grooved banding across three storeys, tall windows with wrought-iron balconies on the upper floors, and a central glazed double door under a triangular pediment. A steep grey slate roof with dormer windows and brick chimneys tops it. The Val-de-Marne departmental council owns it and runs social services there; a primary school stands in the park.

The castle was built in the second half of the 17th century by the Amelot family and served as a summer residence. Around 1670 it became the home of writer Madame de La Fayette, who lived and worked there.

The name Parangon comes from the Amelot family: Jean-Jacques Amelot de Chaillou, intendant des finances and foreign minister under Louis XV, owned the estate at the end of the 17th century. Around 1670 the house belonged to Madame de La Fayette, who spent summers there and received Madame de Sévigné and Boileau; she wrote part of La Princesse de Clèves from 1672.

The château stands in Joinville-le-Pont, in the Val-de-Marne, and belongs to the departmental council, which runs social services there; a primary school was built in the park. It is not a tourist site, so access to the building and grounds is not open to casual visitors. The facade with its banded stonework and slate roof can be seen from the street.

The original gardens were designed by Le Nôtre, the royal gardener of King Louis XIV who also created the gardens of Versailles. This connection reveals the property's link to one of the greatest landscape design achievements of the era.