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Origin and history

The castle of Fournels, located in the eponymous village of Lozère (Occitanie), was rebuilt in 1573 by Jean Basard d'Apcher, son of François Martin, Baron of Apcher, and legitimized in 1571. This castle, with towers and walls pierced with murderers, occupied a strategic position between three valleys. Originally, it belonged to the powerful family of the Barons of Apcher, medieval lords who had participated in the Crusades and controlled a chain of castles in the region, whose ruins of Arzenc-d-Apcher or La Garde still remain.

Marking the local history, the castle passed into the hands of the Lastic by the marriage of Marie d'Apcher with Jacques Batard de Lastic in 1616. Their descendant, Florimond de Lastic, had a daughter educated at Saint-Cyr school, where she played a role in the first performance of Esther de Racine in 1689, greeted by Madame de Maintenon for her beauty. The castle will also house the birth of Dominique de Lastic de Fournels (1742), the last bishop of Couserans, and will welcome in the nineteenth century the Marquis de Brion, related to Napoleonic figures such as Duke Duroc, Grand Marshal of Napoleon I.

Architecturally, the castle blends a rectangular structure of the 16th century, flanked by turrets with muskets, and additions of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as the guardhouse or salons with Louis XV woodwork and romantic wallpapers. The interiors, once richly furnished with tapestries and paintings, are now empty. Partially listed at the Historic Monuments in 1961, he testifies to the influence of the noble Lozerian families, from the Apcher to the Michel du Roc, general advisers and royal officers.

The last notable resident, the Marquis de Brion (1799–42), married Amélie de Lastic, thus linking the castle to imperial history: his uncle, Duke Duroc, was a close friend of Napoleon, mortally wounded at the Battle of Lutzen (1813). The Michel du Roc, lords of 21 villages in Languedoc, obtained in 1756 the erection of their lands in the Marquisate of Brion. Since 1958, the castle belongs to their descendants, although its condition is deteriorating.

The site, which was approached by the GR de pays du Tour des monts d'Aubrac, retains protected elements: facades, roofs, interiors (woodworks, wallpapers), and terraces of the park. His abandonment contrasted with his lavish past, where Gevaudana nobility, influential clergy and Napoleonic memory crossed.

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