Bessonies Castle
The Bessonies Castle ( French Château de Bessonies ) is a small castle in the commune of Bessonies in the Lot department of the Occitania region , 12 kilometers from Lac du Tolerme and 37 kilometers from Figeac . It consists of a logis with two round towers at the southern corners and is surrounded by a two-hectare park .
history
The castle was first mentioned in 1555 and was the ancestral seat of the Lords of Bessonies, a noble family who owned numerous other estates in the Quercy and Rouergue in addition to the Seigneurie Bessonies . In 1730 René de Bessonies had the ancestral castle repaired.
In 1789 it was owned by Jean Joseph René (I) de Bessonies, Royal Governor of Figeac, who had been sentenced to guillotine execution but escaped beheading by the fall of Robespierre . However, his castle was ransacked and ransacked while in custody . Jean Joseph's son Ambert emigrated during the French Revolution to avoid persecution by revolutionaries. After returning to France, he married Michel Ney's wife , Maréchal d'Empire, cousin . Because Ney had returned to Napoleon's service during the reign of the Hundred Days , after his final abdication and the return of King Louis XVIII. wanted for treason and found refuge with his relatives in Bessonies Castle. There he was arrested on August 3, 1815, first detained there and then taken to Paris , where he was ultimately executed. Ambert de Bessonie's son Jean Joseph René (II) had to resign from royal services and was banished to his estates. He died childless in 1871 and bequeathed all of his property to his nephew Edgard d'Arnaldy-Destroa, a son of his sister Marie Charlotte Louise. Eventually his eldest daughter Eugénie Julie Aglaé inherited the property in Bessonies.
After the castle building had been empty for more than 60 years and the property had been neglected, it found a new owner in 2001, who restored it and has furnished guest rooms there today . Some rooms on the ground floor can be visited as part of a guided tour. These include the carefully restored chamber and the library in which Ney was detained.
literature
- Catherine Didon: Châteaux, manoirs et logis. Le Lot. Éditions Patrimoines & Médias, Chauray 1996, ISBN 2-910137-18-X , p. 87.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Catherine Didon: Châteaux, manoirs et logis. Le Lot. 1996, p. 87.
- ↑ a b Sarah Brethes, Richard de Vendeuil: Pour l'amour des châteaux. In: L'Express . Edition of August 16, 2007 ( online ).
Coordinates: 44 ° 48 ′ 37 ″ N , 2 ° 8 ′ 59 ″ E