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Origin and history

Montjean Castle, located near a pond 2.5 km east of the town of Montjean (Mayenne), was in the 16th century a stronghold defending Laval County against leaguers. Reconstructed by André de Lohéac after 1450, it was a strategic issue during the Hundred Years Wars and religious conflicts.

Originally, the site was mentioned in 1215 as a castral motte (apud motam Montis Joannis), belonging to the Laval mobility. A fire partially ravaged the masonry castle before 1385, then the fortress, called a fortissimus locus in 1431, resisted the assaults during the Hundred Years War. The Duke of Alençon even detained an English prisoner in March 1431, proof of his reputation for invincibility.

André de Lohéac, Marshal of France, acquired Montjean in 1448 and rebuilt it between 1466 and 1474, making it a much more powerful place. The castle became a place of residence for the lords of Laval, such as Guy XV or Claude de Foix, and a prison for robbers around 1500. Catherine of Alençon, widow of Guy XV, died there in 1505, stressing her status as a noble residence.

During the Wars of Religion, Montjean was a royalist bastion against the leaguers. In October 1591 Jean de Criqueboeuf, captain loyal to Henry IV, was assassinated there by Pierre Le Cornu, a leaguer, during a tragedy linked to personal revenge. The fortress, which was occupied in turn by the two camps, fell into ruins after 1600, its stones reused as a quarry in the 18th century.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Abbé Angot described imposing ruins: a half-hectare enclosure flanked by towers, double ditches on the pond side, and rubble on the land side, exploited as a quarry. The chapel of Sainte-Anne, outside the enclosure, was restored by Henri de La Tremoille in the 17th century before being united to the chapter of Thouars. The estate, including mill and pond, remains valued despite the castle's ruin.

From the 13th century, the lords of Montjean succeeded each other, from families such as the Le Franc, the Couesmes, or the Landivy, until it was bought by M. Morin de la Blottais in 1818. The archives mention feudal confessions, conflicts of succession, and matrimonial alliances that bind Montjean to Laval County, then to the house of La Tremoille.

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