Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Breuil-Goulard, originally named Breuil-Millon, was in the 15th century the property of Pierre de Vasselot, squire and lord of the Chagnée. By successive alliances he passed to the families of Montalembert and the Goulard, who kept it until the end of the seventeenth century. Jeanne de Montalembert, marrying Jacques Goulard in 1440, brought in dowry neighbouring lands, thus consolidating the estate. At that time, the Vasselot family still claimed part of the land under the name Breuil-Millon, maintaining a separate farmhouse from the main estate.

In the 17th century, the castle was marked by the exile of Jacques Martel Goulard, a Protestant, who fled to England after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. His property was confiscated despite his wife's conversion to Catholicism. It was at that time that the estate took the name Breuil-Goulard. During the Revolution, the castle would have been set on fire, then rebuilt about 200 metres from its original location, adopting an architecture combining 16th and 18th century styles.

The current building, organized around a square courtyard, features a two-storey house with a mansard roof, flanked by a round tower with screw staircase and a square pavilion covered with flat tiles. Although typical of the small castles of the North-Charente, the Breuil-Goulard castle is a private property and is not visited. Its history reflects the religious and political upheavals of the Charente, from the wars of Religion to the Revolution.

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