You reach the property via a narrow lane that runs along the chateau. The edifice forms a U shape, adjoined to an abbey. It enjoys a commanding view over the River Hers valley. The property is a haven of peace in the heart of a region with an eventful past: Occitania. The chateau stands like a fortress. It is the fruit of a long monastic story: a combination of medieval history and Benedictine architecture.

The existence of this Benedictine abbey was first mentioned in a deed that dates back to 923. Charlemagne, returning from a campaign against the Saracens, chose the spot in 778 to build a monastery and a church.

A natural dam that held back Puivert lake nearby burst on 18 June 1279, destroying all the villages in the valley. The monastery was rebuilt between 1280 and 1316 to look like France’s royal fortresses with arrow slits. Then its monks abandoned the edifice during the Hundred Years’ War. Later, in 1502, a phase of reconstruction began, resulting in the buildings that we can see here today. This was an initiative from Philippe de Lévis, the Bishop of Mirepoix, who gave the fortified priory a majestic, serious look. He created apartments in the rectangular tower that the chateau still features today. From this period onwards, especially during the edifice’s second phase of restoration in the eighteenth century, the chateau never stopped being embellished with rich decorative features that expressed the abbey’s powerful influence.

The edifice is made up of three sections crowned with gabled and hipped roofs that are covered in monk-and-nun tiling and edged with triple-row génoise cornices. The first section is long and thick. It has three floors and an end tower that is taller than the rest of it. Many evenly placed arched or right-angled windows punctuate its walls. The two other sections adjoin the church. They form a cloister around a garden courtyard. The west section has three floors and the east section has two floors. The latter was recently converted into a gîte.

In front of the edifice’s large south-facing facade, a terraced garden leads down to parkland that includes an age-old magnolia in its range of trees.

The chateau

The ground floor
There is an entrance in the middle of the south-facing facade: a double door of French windows with pane bars beneath a glazed semicircular fanlight. It leads into a hallway with a patchwork floor of tomette tiles, walls painted blue and a ceiling embellished with mouldings. The main entrance is in the east face: an arched double door painted white beneath a sculpted keystone representing a man’s head and acanthus foliage.

Beyond it, in the main building, a huge vaulted corridor runs from one end of the building to the other, filled with natural light from large windows. This spacious passageway connects to the chateau’s reception rooms: a series of living rooms that were restored in the eighteenth century with big windows facing the south terrace, which looks down over the garden, the parkland and the undulating landscape stretching into the distance. The walls of the grand reception room – listed for its historical interest – are adorned with paintings of blue tones, attributed to the Boucher school. They represent the four seasons. The floor is covered with old terracotta tiles and the ceiling is ornamented with mouldings. In the adjoining living room, the ceiling also features mouldings and is decorated with gold touches. The floor is adorned with old terracotta tomette tiles fitted in large squares formed by oak strips. Each of these two rooms includes a fireplace of sculpted wood and plaster beneath a trumeau mirror. Lastly, there is a smaller living room. It is plainer than the other two. Old terracotta tiles cover its floor. Its walls are painted blue and have foliage mouldings. Its ceiling also features mouldings. A plaster fireplace stands in this room too.

At the other end of the corridor, there is a former kitchen with a monumental fireplace, large cauldrons and old stone stoves. Next to it lies a professional kitchen where meals for many guests can be cooked as need be. The latter room connects to an office, which looks out through a window at a small walled gravel garden with trees.

The edifice’s west section leads into a cloister with a cobblestone ground, walls of stone and brick pointed with mortar, and a painted French-style beamed ceiling. Its fourteenth-century columns have been well preserved. They edge the court, which a lawn and shrubs keep green all year round. Two rooms enjoy direct access to this cloister: a larder that has been turned into a bar and an old monastic refectory with a vaulted ceiling and a patchwork floor of tomette tiles. This level’s many rooms are generously sized and mostly very bright.

The first floor
A large spiral staircase leads to the chateau’s two upper floors. On the first floor, a spacious corridor with an archway in the middle, a floor of old terracotta tiles and a French-style beamed ceiling leads to a small chapel with pinewood strip flooring. This former monastic oratory features frescoes from the sixteenth century that have been well preserved. Natural light shines on them through a tall window.

The floor’s six bedrooms are large and comfortable. They have floors of old tomette tiles and walls that are adorned with floral-patterned or unicoloured wallpaper. All these bedrooms are currently used for the chateau’s hotel business. Each bedroom has a fireplace, a bathroom or shower room, and a view of the surrounding countryside stretching into the distance.

In the building’s west wing, there is an old refectory, which bears witness to the monastic life that once took place in this edifice, as do the oratory and former kitchen. The different windows that punctuate the stone walls are the result of an enlargement of former arrow slits. The current occupants’ private section – an apartment with a floor area of around 230m² – is also on this level. There, an extensive living room with a floor of old tomette tiles, large windows and a balcony looks down at the medieval street that runs beside the chateau. This room leads to a second lounge that is smaller, then to a family kitchen with wood flooring of broad strips, and to a small wooden staircase that leads to the bedrooms on the floor above.

The second floor
The apartment has three bedrooms in the west wing. Two of them are small and plain. A shower room adjoins them. The third bedroom is larger: a former attic with a floor area of around 40m². It has its own bathroom with a floor area of roughly 26m². Exposed beams of raw timber stand out and there is a wood flooring of broad strips that are painted white.

In the tower, the spiral staircase built under Philippe de Lévis leads up to the latter’s former apartments with floors of large old tiles and a big bedroom and bathroom with coffered ceilings that were recently restored. A loft space filled with natural light from two windows lies above these rooms.

On the same floor, in the edifice’s main section, there are two extra bedrooms with wood strip flooring and a private shower room. Lastly, at the end of the corridor, on the east side, there is another apartment. It has three bedrooms with broad-strip oak flooring and a lounge, dining space and open-plan kitchen all with flooring of old tomette tiles. The style is plain and rustic, without any medieval features.

At this level, the windows are smaller and right-angled. There are more of them than on the floors below. Two cross windows on the west side with stone mullions and transoms stand out from the other windows. One of them, in the tower’s south face, is particularly large. This floor enjoys a commanding view of the village below. From this level, you can also see the Pyrenees mountains in the distance.