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Origin and history

The Lacataye dungeon, located in Mont-de-Marsan in the Landes, is a set of two strong houses, built from the late 13th or early 14th century in shellfish stones. Although dungeon, it is a hybrid building, modified in the 16th century by the addition of niches, reflecting both a residential and a military vocation. These houses, built in the former suburb of Pujolin on the right bank of the Midou, monitored the stream and protected the eastern side of the city, then expanding.

The origin of the name "Lacataye" dates back to the 1960s when the Despiau-Wlérick Museum was installed for cultural promotion. Previously, the site was known as "La Cataye Tower", "Pujolin Tower" (by the name of the neighbourhood), or "former Lacaze Barracks". The term Lacataye would derive from the captalha gascon, linked to the Latin căp The site, called pujolin (very small hill in gascon), also suggests the anterior presence of a castral moth or a primitive tower.

The construction was attributed, without formal proof, to Marguerite de Moncade, wife of the Viscount of Foix-Béarn, about 1313, when she retired near the convent of the Claress of Mont-de-Marsan, of which she was a protector. An alternative hypothesis evokes his father, Gaston VII, or his sister Constance de Moncade, the associated Romanesque chapel being attested as early as 1277. Both Romanesque-style houses feature windows walled in the central wall, indicating sequential construction. They belonged to the Viscounts of Marsan, who abandoned them when they left the city. In the 16th century, their upper part was redesigned to strengthen their defensive role.

The site also housed Marguerite de Navarre (sister of Francis I and grandmother of Henry IV), who found there a "hermitage" conducive to spiritual retreat. In 1546, she wrote L-Heptameron, and in 1548, she represented La Comédie de Montemarsan, a mystical work featuring allegories such as the Love of God or the Bergerius. In 1560 the governor of the castle of Nolibos settled for more comfort. Spared during the Wars of Religion and the Fronde, the building became a barracks in the 19th century after the legacy of Antoine Lacaze, mayor of Mont-de-Marsan, in 1860.

From 1860 to 1900, the building served as a departmental barracks (first for the troops, then as a logistics annex), before housing a boarding school, a gymnastics centre, and a municipal workshop. In 1925, he hosted the city's first TSF program. Ranked a historical monument in 1942, it was restored in 1963 to become the Museum Despiau-Wlérick in 1968, dedicated to the figurative sculpture of the twentieth century. Close by, another Romanesque house, now Dubalen Museum, bears witness to the medieval defensive system of Mont-de-Marsan.

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