Name -
Chateau de Laxion
Location -
Corgnac sur l'Isle
Department -
Dordogne 24
State -
Chateau Ruin
Laxion shows an apparent unit of construction which accredits a fast construction.
Its plan and its appearance evoke feudality (quadrilateral delimiting a court, defended by 4 towers with access via a drawbridge registered in a square tower in form of a chatelet).
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But of many signs attest of a late construction, and seem to testify to aimings more ostentatious than military, the staircase Tuscan with right flights of 2,35 m, in work, enlightened of 10 large bay windows with mullions, round towers registering of the square parts whose angles level the facing, many bays on the first level and absence of real overall defensive power.
About 1450: it easily can be about the original time of construction of the Southern tower.
1560-1579: perhaps about 1560, Antoine Chapt de Rastignac was invested by his father the possessions of Rastignac with Corgnac, according to the ?universal peerage-book?, Brignac appears there in first rank, Laxion in second, then Cubjac, Birac and Corgnac; it seems however that the majority of these grounds did not concern then the possessions of Chapt de Rastignac with Corgnac; indeed, Brignac, Cubjac and Birac were brought to Antoine by his first wife, Isabeau d' Andeaux, in 1570; and Laxion came to him from the chief of his remarriage (on September 18, 1574) with Marguerite de Calvimont, daughter of Guy de Calvimont.
Marguerite dies in 1578 after having had 2 children, Raymond and Marguerite.
Antoine, who carried the weapons for the service of the King against the reformed alleged religion? is named in 1579 with the head of the nobility of P?rigord, against the League, because the enemies of the King are at the 2 edges of the chess-board? But he is killed in combat around March 1579 (2 of his/her brothers will also perish during the wars of religion):
Would 4 years and 6 months have sufficed for Antoine to rebuild Laxion with the measurement of its ambitions and the dangers of time.
Antoine did have the will to rebuild the old one and modest castle of Romagi?re within Laxion, Tragic destinies: after his/her Louis older brother had died in the head office of Mussidan in 1569, Antoine is also killed in 1579, and his/her young brother Raimond, baillif of Haute-Auvergne, ?man of an untiring courage? according to THOU, will be killed in 1596.?
Antoine did begin with the new building, adapted to the threats of the time, after the fire of the chateau and the church of Thiviers by the huguenots in 1575, within one mile of Laxion (like in the same year, the Barri?re chateau in P?rigueux? and how many others)?
1643: marriage of Francois Chapt de Rastignac, that Louis XIII names ?the Laxion brave man?; participation noticed in the fight against the Sling; Laxion is set up in marquisat in 1653, at the end of this one; lintel of the western door of the interior court dated (1602 or 1642 or 1653?)
1743: restoration by Charles Chapt de Rastignac married in 1724 to Marie d'Aydie de Rib?rac; cooks lintel dated 1743
With the abrupt death of Antoine in 1579, his daughter Marguerite de Chapt de Rastignac de Laxion, her brother Raymond, hardly older, she is under supervision of his uncle, also fore-mentioned Raimond; this brother, heir male to Laxion, on January 1, 1597, witness of the duel in a meadow, of his first cousin Peyrot de Chapt de Rastignac, with Jean de Sauveboeuf; in this one, Peyrot got 8 or 9 blows of sword through the body, but escapes from it, its witness, puts an end prematurely to the destiny of Raymond de Chapt de Laxion, the other witness? Marguerite will be thus the single heiress
In 1599, Peyrot without ground nor title which is worth, already 30 years old, he marries his/her German cousin Marguerite Chapt de Rastignac de Laxion. Peyrot thus collects the stronghold of Corgnac and Laxion, strongly increased by the 2 marriages of Antoine.
Like Antoine, it is necessary for him to invest a place with the measurement of its name and its new ambitions: a residence which shows and affirms the statue of its owner.
In 1960, the chateau which had belonged for 40 years to the family of Dr. DAMON, still has the totality of its frames and roof cover. They are however in bad condition due to lack of financial means. Miss Damon lets things become degraded, more and more quickly as the years pass in inertia. Drac sent to him several letters of injunction of work but without success: the State does not have the means of saving a building of this importance against the will as of its private owners.
Lastly, the castle is sold in 1963 to a Dutchman who creates a SCI. He says architect; free thinker, it is also made call marquis and promises much. Is Laxion saved?
It is said that he believed the reincarnation of Alexandre the Great, and says the heir, distant but in blood line, of the first wire, supposed, of the first bed of Marguerite de Calvimont (widowed of Gaston of Romagi?re and second wife in 1574 of Antoine de Chapt de Rastignac, by whom the ground of Laxion came in Chapt de Rastignac). According to him, this wire which he calls ?Victor?, would have gone to join William of Orange and the party protesting in Holland, he affirms , to return Antoine de Chapt de Rastignac in 1579, the unworthy father-in-law who it (he always affirms) had despoiled his goods? and who had, fraudulently, makes disappear the files suitable to show the existence of the ?Count Victor de Laxion?, the ?tale? of Laxion continued.
Unfortunately, at this time, It sat in the bottom of Pandora's box, says one, the hope. But it will take 45 years, to finish emptying the box cursed of Laxion.
From 1963 to 1998, 2 pepper plantations will fall. A third will be torn off by a tractor. The fourth and last round tower, as well as part of the wing East will be burnt down in 1998 by the owner, he had left a basin full with fuel lit under the frame during the night, to drive out the Hornets.
The Dutch owner dies in 2003, but the succession is complex and the castle is left in abandonment for 5 years. Whereas the process of sale is finally engaged afterwards years of obstinacy, a fire occurs in the night of January 9, 2008. This one devastates the ?livable? part of the chateau. Half of the Western wing as well as part of the Northern wing are destroyed; only the remains of the walls of which the facings and stones of the window framing burst from the heat.
Many inhabitants of Corgnac cry 'their' chateau, as one suddenly learns the death from another.
Its current owners purchased the chateau in mid 2008 and it is currently being slowly restored
Good Luck/Bonne Chance :)
