Enjoy our hotel in the Lot and call it home for a while

The building of the fortress of La Treyne, in 1342 according to the earliest written records, is probably the work of Guillaume and Hughes de Roffilhac. 
 

On January 27, 1356, on the Avignon Bridge, Noble Guillaume de Rofflihac swears homage – head bare, on his knees and with clasped hands – to "Glorious man, Lord Guillaume of Beaufort, Knight, Viscount of Turenne, for the castle or the fort built or to be built in the site of La Treyne, on the edge of the Dordogne".

On May 12, 1462, the Viscount of Turenne granted the Seigneury of La Treyne to the noble man Annet du Cluzel , "with all justice haute, moyenne et basse", more than likely because the Roffilhac branch had died out. The Knight Annet du Cluzel built the church of Meyraguet in which he was buried. His stone recumbent figure, dressed in his knight's armour, is still in the seignorial chapel, to the left of the transept of the church of Meyraguet.

On May 7, 1519, noble Jean de la Treyne, noble Annet du Cluzel’s son, married noble Jeanne de Coustin de Bourzolles.

In 1540, Jean de la Treyne swore homage to the King for "the castle, the forest, the rents and full justice" he had received from the Viscount of Turenne, François de la Tour III, Knight of the Order of the King  and captain of a hundred gentlemen of his House.

In 1533, Louis de Cluzel is chosen as Lord of La Treyne. At the time of his death (he was murdered in 1592) the Seigneury of La Treyne is granted to his son, Jacques Galiot du Cluzel, a squire who swore homage to the Viscount of Turenne, on December 2, 1600.

In 1607, Jacques Galiot du Cluzel dies without direct posterity:  Jean de La Ramière, Pierre and Galienne de Cluzel’s son, claimed the title of Lord of La Treyne. History shows that the Seigneury of La Treyne passed, in 1607, from the Cluzels to the La Ramières. Howewer, if at the time, the transfer of property would have been equal between men and women, the Cluzels would still possess the Seigneury of La Treyne. Likewise in 1711, the same situation prevailed when Marie de La Ramière had to transfer property rights of La Treyne to her husband Jean III of Cardaillac.

Pierre de La Ramière, husband of Galienne de Cluzel, Lord of La Treyne, was such a leading light in his party and in his family that he deserves our attention. Pierre, nicknamed "The Captain", converted to the Protestant religion. He was credited with the victory of La Roche l’Abeille, in Haute-Vienne, on June 25, 1569. During this battle, Henry of Navarre, only 16 years old , took up arms for the first time under the watchful eye of his mother, Jeanne d’ Albret. The friendship between the would-be King of France and his comrade in arms Pierre de La Ramière dates from this period (facsimile of the Henri IV letter to Pierre de la Ramière).
However, Henry de Navarre, rousing the cavalry with his famous words, "Let my white panache be your rallying point, you'll always find it on the way to honour and victory”, had to renounce Protestantism to claim the throne of France, allegedly with the remark, “Paris is well worth a Mass.”( 1594 ).

Meanwhile, La Treyne, which was a Hugenots den, had been set on fire in 1586 by order of the Duke de la Mayenne, Lieutenant of King Henri III.

In 1622, a decree of the Parliament of Toulouse ordered the destruction of La Treyne, already in ruins due to the by fire of 1586 as well as by the excesses of Jean de la Ramière’s son, guilty of lese-majesty.

Jean de La Ramière died in 1616. His remains were buried, at night and by force, by his sons in the seignorial church of Meyraguet in spite of a Royal Decree stating that the bodies of the deceased having belonged to the reformed Protestant religion couldn’t "be buried in the Catholic cemeteries or in the churches on the pretext that the graves of their fathers are still there or they have some seignorial rights."

Once the wars of Religion were ended and a period of relative calm began, the La Ramières repaired their dwelling of La Treyne. 

It is thus than in King Louis XIII ‘s time, they restored the castle, lowering the 14th century square tower, the former dungeon being less and less necessary to defend La Treyne. They joined the north side of the square tower with a residence flanked by a large round tower.

This restauration of La Treyne was completed in 1643 when Gédéon The First, Lord of La Treyne, swore homage to the Viscount of Turenne, Frédéric-Maurice de la Tour The First, Duke of Bouillon and Prince of Sedan "for the Castle and the Seigneury".

His son, Gédéon II, embraced the Catholic religion at the end of the 17th century acccording to his will dated April 5, 1701, putting an end to nearly two centuries of Protestant resistance.
 

Pierre, son of Gédéon II, died in 1710 after having made his will in favour of his sister Marie de La Ramière, who was to marry, the following year, Jean III of Cardaillac, Lord of Végennes (Canton of Beaulieu on the Dordogne in Corrèze), artillery captain, Knight of Saint-Louis. Jean III, deceased on March 20, 1752, was buried in the church of Meyraguet.

At his wife's death, Marie de La Ramière, lady of Cardaillac, the Seigneury of La Treyne was bequeathed to their son , François-Emmanuel de Cardaillac, who married young Lady Jeanne de Montalembert on January 28, 1748.
The House of La Ramière, listed among the early Houses of Chivalry, would have preserved La Treyne if the devolution of the Seigneury could have been done through the women. In the middle of the 18th century, the Viscount of Turenne gambled away his viscounty which was the last one to be bound to the Kingdom of France.
 

By letters patent of the King dated December 29, 1759, François-Emmanuel was granted the barony and the marquisate of Cardaillac in Quercy. As such, François-Emmanuel, Marquis of Cardaillac, swore homage to the King for the grounds and the Seigneury of La Treyne and Meyraguet from 1760 to 1778. He died in 1782.
 

His son Joseph, born in 1752, married Charlotte de Roquemaurel on March 27, 1783. Lieutenant of the King for the province of Guyenne, he passed away in the Château de la  Treyne on September 28, 1822.
 

On September 20, 1910, Jean-Jacques-Joseph-Frédéric, Marquis of Cardaillac, great-grandson of Joseph de Cardaillac, sold the castle and the estate of La Treyne to Auguste-Gabriel Savard, an industrialist who invented Bijou Fix. He sold the castle where his family had lived for more than two centuries and even five centuries if one were to follow the female branches of the Cluzel and La Ramière families.

At that time, La Treyne had lost much of its former glory. Luckily, all throughout the 20th century, the successive owners expended much energy and resources to restore it to its original Louis XIV appearance, with added comfort as a bonus!
 

Mr. Savard made important renovations and asked Edouard André, one of the greatest landscape gardeners of the time, to design the grounds and the formal French garden.

In 1922, Mr. Fontana, a Spanish industrialist, bought the estate and, like his predecessor, carried out important renovations in the castle, particularly to the woodworks of the Great Lounge and of the Music Lounge.

At the end of his life, a house painter hadn’t been able to forget the emotion he felt when he entered the Great Lounge where painters bustled about the decoration of the splendid coffered ceiling :  "The fervour and the joy were so great that it was like entering a medieval cathedral. I had the feeling that everybody was singing..."
 

Mr. Fontana's children, who live in South America, never fail to come back to La Treyne whenever they travel to Europe, looking to relive their childhood happiness. During the Second World War, André Chamson, a famous writer of the French Academy, then in charge of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities of the Louvre Museum, looked after some priceless treasures of the Museum, temporarily stored in La Treyne to be protected, among which the world famous ” Squatting Scribe”.

His daughter, Dominique Hébrard , relates this episode in her book ” La chambre de Goethe “. André Chamson was grateful for this stay and admired the outstanding beauty of the site. He ensured the protection of La Treyne by listing it as a Picturesque site of the Lot (Ministerial Decree November 6, 1946).
 

On April 10, 1954, Mr. Santiard and Mrs. Bulteau joined their passion for works of art by purchasing the castle. They brought about major renovations both inside the castle and outside on the grounds. From that time, the Château de la Treyne served as an ideal setting to present their magnificent collection of Renaissance (16th century) furniture and art items which one can now admire in the Bourdeilles Castle (Dordogne).
 

Since 1982, the Gombert family, native from Aveyron (they hold themselves mere custodian of this beautiful property) strives with passion to keep the castle alive through cultural events (exhibitions, concerts) and share its beauty and history with their guests and visitors. 
 

This historical record has been compiled thanks to the archives collection of the Château de la Treyne, placed by Jean de Cardaillac at the Departmental Archives of the Lot and to Jean Calmon’s article entitled  "Le Château de La Treyne et ses seigneurs" and published by the Bulletin de la Société des Etudes du Lot (1st quater, 1957).