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Origin and history

The château des Modières came into being in the 12th century as a seigneurial house dependent on the castle of Murat. It appears clearly on the maps of Cassini after successive enlargements, especially in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Today, it retains a central porch dated 1784, framed by two wings added to these periods, as well as two square towers and a back terrace furnished in 1884 by the Michel family. A chapel, mentioned in an act of 1666, has now disappeared.

The name Les Modières could evoke Maud's land, in connection with the Germanic invasions that devastated the Neris-les-Bains region from 275 AD, or mean bad words. The site, strategic, was occupied by successive noble families: the Faye (XIIIth century), crusadeed in Palestine, then the Chaslus, Verneix, Montais, and Roque (until 1583). The latter, originally from Saint-Pourçain, wore coats of arms with three rocks (threads of lance) on a lizard field.

In 1666, Denis Aumaister, seigneur of the Guard, acquired the fief, followed in 1699 by Jean-Gilbert Perrot d'Estivareilles, whose descendants kept him until 1785. The castle then passed by inheritance to the Vilatte de Peufeilhoux (circa 1840), then to the Michels (1848), who modernized it at the end of the 19th century. This period coincides with the rise of worldly life in Neris-les-Bains, a nearby spa.

The current architecture reflects these transformations: the 17th century wing, the 19th century wing added by Mr. Michel, and the 1784 porch. The monumental grid and entrance courtyard also date from this time. The castle thus illustrates the evolution of a medieval seigneury in aristocratic residence, marked by the tastes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

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