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Origin and history

The Château de Montréal is a former castle founded in the 13th century, renovated in the 17th and 18th centuries, located in the department of Ardèche, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. It stands on the Mount "Mont Regalis", successively renamed "Mont Royal", "Mont Réal", then Montreal. Its strategic position at 300 meters above sea level dominates the valleys of the Line and the Roubreau, controlling access to Largentière (formerly Argentaria), a mining town exploited since the Gallo-Roman era for its silver-bearing lead. This castle was part of a belt of fortresses built by the bishops of Viviers to defend the coveted mines, with a dungeon culminating at 30 meters, heart of the defensive system including also Sanjeaux, Brison, Vinezac and Tauriers.

The dungeon, built in the 12th century above a cave, was enlarged in the 13th century by a enclosure and a house, then equipped in the Renaissance with a balcony courtyard and a monumental staircase (dated 1559). In 1345, the Balazuc family acquired the castle after the marriage of Pelette de Montréal and Albert II de Balazuc, keeping the site for three centuries. Faithful to the king of France, the Balazuc maintained Montreal as a Catholic bastion in a predominantly Protestant region. The castle then passed to the Hautefort de Lestrange in 1638, then to the Merle de Lagorce in 1742, which moved its tapestries from Aubusson to the town hall of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc.

The present building combines two contiguous houses: a 25-metre-high medieval quadrangular dungeon, with original working walls and drills, and a Renaissance house with a cobbled courtyard, door windows, hanging balconies, and a seigneurial chapel heated by the bread oven. Joyeuse's tower, located 50 metres away, features traces of figurative sculptures around its door. The castle, registered with historical monuments in 2000, also includes 18th century communes in its forecourt. Its historical role was primarily defensive, linked to the protection of local mining wealth, in a context of religious and political rivalries in Vivarais.

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