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Origin and history

The Château du Douhet, mentioned in 1250, was acquired in 1521 by Briand de Vallée, adviser to the Parliament of Bordeaux, who made it a secondary residence. At his death in 1544, his son Nicolas, Protestant leader during the Wars of Religion, inherited him. The estate remained in the Vallée family until 1659, including Claude de Vallée, who successfully managed it after the premature death of her husband, Charles de La Rochefoucauld. The inventories of 1544, 1658 and 1793 confirm that the current house body, despite aesthetic changes (windows, roof), dates back to the 16th century, without major reconstruction.

In 1659 Judith de La Rochefoucauld, heir to the Douhet, married Renaud de Pons de Thors after the tragic death of her first husband, Charles Poussard de Lignières. Persecuted for their Protestant faith, Renaud was interned in Paris (1686–88) and then banished, while Judith and their daughter Henriette suffered five months' imprisonment in 1688 before their exile. The castle then passed to their descendants, including Charles-François Boscal de Réals, until its sale in 1769 to Abbé Pierre-Léonard de Laage, the last seigneur of the Douhet. Confiscated as a national asset after the Revolution, it was bought in 1800 by banker Mathieu Faure.

In the 20th century, industrialist Jean-François Parfait Damilleville, a aviation ace during the First World War, acquired the castle in 1946 and undertook 25 years of restoration to save it from ruin. The castle, transformed into a condominium in 2009 after work on private apartments, retains major historical elements: an 18th-century cooler in vaulted cellars, a 16th-century dovecote (1,916 bolts), and gardens fed by a Gallo-Roman aqueduct. The excavations of 2023 revealed walls and latrines mentioned in the inventory of 1658.

The architecture of the castle, marked by a U-house and a double-revolution staircase, reflects a stylistic transition between the 17th and 18th centuries. The central pavilion, covered with slate, is framed by two low-roofed wings, while the park, classified as a historic monument in 1969, includes water mirrors and the remains of the lake. Despite a fire mentioned in 1652 by Monumentum (reconstruction completed in 1678), the family archives do not mention it, suggesting modifications rather than total destruction. Registered in 1969 and revised in 2023, the site combines medieval, classical and hydraulic heritage.

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