Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

Crabillé Castle, located in Montgesty in the Lot (Occitanie), was built in 1804 on an old 18th century agricultural estate belonging to the bourgeois family Bonafous, allied to the Murat by the marriage of Jean Bonafous with Antoinette Murat, niece of Joachim Murat. The latter, close to Napoleon, allowed Jean Bonafous to become knight of the Empire. The castle, erected after the demolition of the houses of the hamlet, welcomes personalities like Caroline Bonaparte and Marshal Lannes. When Antoinette Murat died in 1829, he was abandoned.

In 1860, the estate was acquired by two farmers who turned it into a farm, dividing it into two parts. One falls in ruins after 1930, while the other, converted into a tobacco shed, survives. Repurchased in 1961, the castle is restored to its original appearance, with its facades, its Mansart roof and its commons classified Historic Monuments in 1993. Its neoclassical architecture (symmetric plan, wings in return, convergent flight staircase) evokes the seventeenth century, although built a century later.

The castle is organized around a central house body framed by two pavilions, open to a regular garden accessible by a monumental staircase. The outbuildings (pigeon, barn, oven) bear witness to its agricultural past. After decades of decline, its partial restoration preserved a rare example of provincial imperial architecture, linked to the social ascent of a Querkyn family under the First Empire.

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