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Origin and history

The Château de Meux, located in Charente-Maritime on the same name, is an emblematic monument of the Saintonge. Built in the 15th century in a flamboyant style, it embodies the period of reconstruction following the departure of the English. Its architecture is distinguished by a polygonal roof tower with cut strips, decorated with stone embroidery, and a porch overlooking structured gardens.

The seigneury of Meux, attested as early as 1250 with Geoffroy de Meux, passes through successive alliances between noble families. In the 13th century, Thomas de Meux, son of Geoffroy, passed the estate on to his daughter Marchande, married to Simon de Montlieu. After the end of the lineage, the land fell around 1400 to Jeanne du Fresnay, wife of Aymard de La Laigne, then to their daughter Blanche, who brought her in dowry to Louis Chesnel. The latter, often mistakenly credited with the construction of the present castle, consolidates the Chesnel settlement in Saintonge.

During the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, the Chesnel gradually abandoned their possessions of Saintonge for lands in Beauvais and near Compiègne. In 1712 Charles-Maurice Colbert, acting for Angélique-Élisabeth Chesnel, sold the castle to Pierre Dudon, a Bordeaux lawyer. The latter, in debt after the premature death of his wife Brigitte de Laage in 1713, transferred the estate from 1714 to Jacques de Laage, master of the hotel of the Duke of Berry and future Baron of Bellefaye.

The family of Laage, who added the name of Meux to his own, kept the castle until 1853, when Jérôme de Laage, lieutenant-colonel and former deputy, separated from it. Transformed into a farm until the 1970s, the castle was saved from the ruin by Monique Guilbaud, who undertook 17 years of restoration. Since 1975, its façades, roofs, and interior elements of the fifteenth century have been classified as historical monuments.

The architecture of the castle is characterized by a 15th century house, a hexagonal tower with a staircase and medieval fireplaces. Two towers, now missing, are attested by ancient engravings. The French garden, reconstituted from 1972 onwards, is organized around eight cone-cut yews, rose trees, and a traditional vegetable garden, all separated from the park by a cut hedge.

The castle opens only on the occasion of Heritage Days, offering a rare glimpse of this preserved heritage. Its history reflects the marriage strategies and social changes of the Saintongese nobility, from the Middle Ages to the contemporary era.

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