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Origin and history

The Garaison manor house, facing south at Monléon-Magnoac (Hautes-Pyrénées), is a closed complex of walls dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, as evidenced by a window with gables and medieval fortification stones discovered during works. Built with local materials (galets, wood, torchi), it includes a half-timbered main house, a remarkable stable, a farmhouse transformed into a 19th century hostellerie, as well as a bread oven and a restored well. This place, once paved with a calade, reflects ancestral know-how.

The hamlet of Garaison, occupied since the Prehistory (traces of tumulus) and marked by a Gallo-Roman presence (water course I-Alia), becomes a major pilgrimage place after the Marian apparitions reported in 1515 to a berger, Angleze de Sagazan. A listed chapel, built in 1540, has since 1590 been home to a miraculous statue of Notre-Dame des Seven Pains, spared by a fire during the Wars of Religion. The manor house, linked to the baronnie of Barthère and Garaison (family of Antin), then hosts the states of the four local valleys (Aure, Basse-Neste, Barousse, Magnoac).

In the 17th century, chaplains settled in Garaison, evinced the family of Antin and turned the mansion into a house for pilgrims. After the Revolution, the site houses a college (1841-1903) and 1,700 prisoners during the First World War, including Dr.Albert Schweitzer. Rached in 1923 by former students, he became again a Catholic school, still active today, in connection with the Shrine of Lourdes. The Boué family, owner since the 19th century, still preserves the property.

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