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Origin and history

The Château de Montcléra came into being in 1334, when the future king John II, then Duke of Normandy, offered the lands of Montcléra to Arnaud de Commarque as a reward for his services to Popes John XXII and Clement VI. These lands, dismembered from the royal jurisdiction of Cazals, became the seat of a border seigneury between the royal and episcopal powers. In 1346 an agreement between King Philip VI and the bishop of Cahors fixed Montcléra as the boundary of the two jurisdictions. The seigneury, damaged during the Hundred Years' War, passed in 1368 to Amalvin de Commarque, then to Amalvin de Gironde in 1391 by tribute to the bishop.

The seigneury was reoccupied by the Gironde family only in 1446, after decades of conflict. The castle is mentioned for the first time in a count in 1504, under the possession of Jean de Gironde. In 1610, François de Gironde wrote a will requiring his descendants to carry the arms of Gironde and Montcléra. Six years later, in 1616, King Louis XIII raised the seigneury as a marquisate, also including the Viscount of Lavaur. The castle remained in the Gironde family until the 19th century, before passing to the Dupuys.

Architecturally, the 15th century castle, renovated in the Renaissance, presents a body of rectangular houses flanked by round towers with machicoulis and a square dungeon adorned with a scallop. The façade, marked by corner chains, opens with a cochère door and a pedestrian door in the middle of the hanger. Together, surrounded by a park, illustrates the evolution of a medieval fortress as a seigneurial residence. Since 1925, the castle has been listed as historical monuments, and its entrance door has been classified since 1929.

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