Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Matel, located on a site occupied by at least the 13th century, was acquired in the 16th century by Jean Chézard, an Italian aristocrat. Destroyed by a fire in 1594 during the League wars, it was rebuilt the same year. This place was born in 1596 Jeanne Chézard de Matel, the founding mystic of the Order of the Incarnate Word, who meditated there as a child in front of a cooler still visible in the present park.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the castle was restored in the style of the era. A century later, Captain Poulot, an eccentric chemist and adventurer, inherited it. He partially damaged dependencies during an explosive experiment and lost his fortune in a shipwreck. His family, represented by portraits of stone on the interior façade, added a veranda to the main building. At its peak, the property had twenty surrounding farms.

In 1919, André Citroën bought and quickly sold the estate, reducing its area from 182 hectares to 39 hectares. Today, the castle (900 m2), its outbuildings and 13 hectares of park and forest house events such as weddings or seminars. Part of the park, adorned with centenarians and bordering the Roanne Canal in Digoin, is communal property and pre-invented for the remarkable Garden label.

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