Little journal of friends of Montautre - n°14

Dear friends of the Montautre site,

Here is the fourteenth issue of the " Little Journal of the Friends of Montautre "! Thank you all for your feedback, comments, additions, and encouragement: they motivate us to continue the adventure!

0. News

The continuous rain of the last two months has slowed down the work somewhat, but Théo and Mimoun from the Blanchon company have braved the bad weather and stayed the course: the deconstruction/reconstruction of the masonry of the turret (adjacent to the chapel) is complete. The four broken granite lintels have also been repaired and restored to their geometry thanks to hidden metal inserts.

The work will now consist of replacing the floor joists and starting work on the Travassac slate roof at the beginning of next year. The surface coating (which will be smoothed to the exposed stone, as it was in the past) will be applied at the end of the project.

If you would like to pay less tax on your 2023 income and you like Heritage (and especially Montautre), do not hesitate to make a (tax-free) donation at the following link: https://www.fondation-patrimoine.org/les-projets/lacaze-montautre-2021-fromental . We hope that your donations can reach, or even exceed, 20% of the cost of the work (the rest will be financed from our savings since we do not receive any subsidies).

In any case, a big thank you to all of you for your support and to the Fondation du Patrimoine for its support in launching the collection: without this team dynamic, we would be unable to do anything.

1. Gallo-Roman history

Excavations on the presumed site of the Temple of Mercury will finally take place at the end of August/beginning of September 2024. An area of 10 km2 has been digitized using LIDAR technology on board an aircraft (1st map below). The analysis of the data by our two archaeology students, Anne-Claire Leleu and Margaux Ranty, has made it possible to define the priority axes for the pre-excavation surveys (red lines on the zoom of the map), which will take place under the sponsorship of the DRAC ( Fabien Loubignac ), and Jean-Pierre Loustaud (Gallo-Roman specialist in Limousin).

2. Medieval and Renaissance periods

One of our visitors, Philippe Barrault, made an incredible discovery: the Guénégaud publishing house, for which he is responsible, had republished a 19th-century work by Elie de Beaufort in which the author describes all the castles in the region (see photo)... except, curiously, the castle of Montautre! However, he found in his archives a copy of Elie de Beaufort's manuscript on Montautre which should have appeared in the initial work (published in 1851-1861) but the original of which had been lost. It is therefore a new work ! This description of the castle (see second photo), dated approximately 1850, is rich in information. We learn of the disappearance - at the beginning of the 19th century - of a gallery located in front of the guards' lodge, in the upper courtyard, and reusing 12 monolithic columns similar to the five that can still be seen on the site. This gallery (installed in the 16th or 17th century) distributed the rooms of the male and female servants. These rooms, mentioned in the 1721 inventory, had been created during the redevelopment, in the classical period, of the guard room, just above the stables and the bakery. Moreover, the description of the castle suggests that the 4th corner tower (next to the kitchen), the only one missing to this day, was still standing in 1850 (whereas it was thought to have disappeared in the 16th century).

3. Classical period

Thanks to one of you, a faithful friend of Montautre, who follows us on Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/chateaudemontautre/ ) and Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/serge.lacaze.33?locale=fr_FR ), we learned of the presence of one of the Aubusson tapestries with the coat of arms of the Mondin de Montautre and the Bony de Ladignac in another castle in the south of Haute-Vienne. We were able to photograph it and see that it is still in magnificent condition, and from the same generation and the same artist as the other tapestries in the castle. In fact, five tapestries from the Manufacture Royale d'Aubusson , bearing the arms of Mondin de Montautre and Bony de Ladignac, were present in the 1763 inventory. According to Roger Drouault , a historian who visited the castle and analyzed the archives in 1909, only three tapestries remained at the time, tapestries which then left the castle at the end of the 20th century. The investigation continues to find out to which generation and by which channel this tapestry left its place of origin.

More than ever, it is all of you, friends of Montautre, who bring to life and enrich the history of this place with your information, your knowledge and your contributions of all kinds . This is what Josiane Lazzarini , who loved Montautre so much where she had lived in the 1960s, was trying to do. Ten days after her disappearance, we are thinking of her, of Primo, her husband, and of Nadine, their daughter, whose grief we share.

You can all be assured of a welcome to Montautre whenever you pass by. Give us a shout, or say hello to Kitty and Adri, who continue to maintain this truly unique site.

And that's it for our fourteenth little journal... while waiting for the continuation of the adventures in the next edition!

Happy Christmas and New Year, and see you soon!

Kind regards

Serge