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Origin and history

The Logis de la Vergne, located in Alloue in Charente, is a mansion whose origins date back to the 15th and 17th centuries. The estate, initially surrounded by today's filled moat, was structured around two courses. The first housed the house body and a tower, while the second was lined with commons, of which only the entrance porch and part of the adjacent buildings remain. The site preserves defensive architectural elements, such as murderers, as well as a bell dated 1788, bearing witness to its seigneurial past.

The first attested lords of the estate are the Guyot. A fireplace in the kitchen dates from 1670, and Marc Guyot of the Repaire inherits the seigneury in 1679. In 1704 Marc Guyot and his wife Marie de Mairé settled there, raising the estate to the rank of chestnut. After several transmissions, including that to the Loyseau family of Grandmaison in 1812, the house was marked by the marriage of François Charles de Grandmaison in 1843, engraved on the covered passage. In the 20th century, the estate came into the hands of René Barbier (1933), then Maria Casarès and André Schlesser (1961), who made it a place of artistic life.

When Maria Casarès died in 1996, the estate was left to the municipality of Alloue. Since then, it has hosted a cultural project called Maison Maria Casarès, combining artist residence and summer theatre festival. The house and its library have been listed as historical monuments since 2002, thus preserving both architectural and memorial heritage, linked to local history and contemporary theatre.

The architecture of the house reflects its successive alterations: a rectangular body of building extended by a circular tower, long-paned roofs, and a covered 19th century passage. The commons, partially preserved, include stables and fenil modified over time. The estate, along the Charente river, is part of a wooded landscape, where remains of the north building body, near the banks.

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