Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Feuilse, located in Saint-Just-Luzac in Charente-Maritime, finds its origins in a medieval fief named Chardes, attached to the land of Bernardières. Around 1600, the wealthy Protestant merchant Jean Jousselin acquired this fief and began to rebuild the house in 1612. When he died in 1613, his heirs continued the work, but the building fell into bad shape over the decades. The fief passed into the hands of his descendants, including Benjamin Jousselin and Jeanne Jousselin, wife of Abel Valland, before being divided between their nieces, Jehanne and Marie Jousselin.

In 1678, a report attests to the deterioration of the house. After an agreement in 1688, Marie Jousselin and her husband, Pastor Jean Bernon, became owners. Bernon, from a powerful family of Rockese traders and converted to Catholicism after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, enlarged the house to the north, erected a monumental gate and built gardens. To mark his conversion, he built a chapel, blessed in 1710 by the bishop of Saintes. When he died in 1711, the estate moved to his niece Esther Gabiou, wife of Stephen Chassériau, then to local Protestant families until the 19th century.

The architecture of the castle is distinguished by its fronton gate, its classified facades, and an interior decorated with woodwork painted by F. Roy in 1699, representing landscapes, battles and allegories. The chapel, isolated in the park, and the elements of the house (vestibulum, living room) have been protected under the Historic Monuments since 1984 and 1989. The site thus illustrates the transformations of a seigneurial domain between Renaissance and classical times, marked by the religious tensions of the period.

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