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Origin and history

The Château de Roquepiquet, mentioned as early as 1470 in an act of arrest signed by Arnaud de Caumont, lord of Verteuil, was then a den abandoned since the Hundred Years' War. This document gives the noble house and its lands to Mathurin de Gervain, a Poitevin Damoiseau, who is responsible for establishing and cultivating the place. This type of contract reflected the desire to revive the exploitation of the neglected areas in Agenais after the conflict. However, there is no evidence to confirm its fortification on that date.

During the Wars of Religion (before 1584), Gabriel de Gervain, great-grandson of Mathurin and Protestant, strengthened the castle by adding ditches, drawbridge, slots, mâchicoulis and cannons. These arrangements, typical of the religious tensions of the time, cause a conflict with his suzerain, the lord of Verteuil. The intervention of the king of Navarre, to whom a son of Gabriel had joined, made it possible to settle the dispute. Gervain's family, the owner of the site, was challenged in 1606 and 1656 by the court of aide, before finally being confirmed in 1657 for the castle and its preclotures.

In the 18th century, a estimate of 1739 proposed by the Knight of Roquepiquet, the king's engineer, provided for improvements to modernize the house ("make the house convenient and the exterior graceful"). Today, only a rock decoration remains in Madame de Gervain's bedroom and the west façade of the entrance pavilion, dated 1740. The funeral chapel, probably built by Jean de Gervain (1633–81), bears witness to the family anchoring on the estate.

The neo-Gothic countryside from the mid-19th to early-20th centuries radically transformed the castle. Around 1860, architect Léopold Payen erected a south-east circular tower, while the northwest entrance tower was raised. A second phase, initiated in 1866 by the artist-archaeologist Léo Drouyn but realized only in the 20th century by Lucien Dubarry de Lassalle, adds a south-west square tower, a terrace, and harmonic facades and interior decorations (dated 1908 engraved on a turret). At the same time, landscapers Denis and Eugene Bühler (1857) and Édouard André (1902–1904) redesigned the park, orangery and gardens.

The castle, transmitted by inheritance to Gervain's family until the 20th century, was finally inscribed in the Historical Monuments in 1997. Its history reflects the architectural and social changes of the Ages, from the post-war reconstructions of the Hundred Years to the romantic restorations, to religious conflicts and issues of nobility under the Old Regime.

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