| CASCASTEL CHATEAU |
VERSION FRANCAISEThe Seigneurs of Cascastel
The break up of Royal power successively left territory in the Aude under the rule of the
Counts of Toulouse, the Kings of Aragon, and the Counts of Barcelona. It is in this context that a number of Castles were built between
the 11th and the beginning of the 12th century. The civil seigneurial power exercised over the peasantry
was sometimes to the detriment of the ecclesiastical seigneurs.
The Seigneurs of Cascastel gave hommage to
the Abbot of Lagrasse for Cascastel and to the Viscount of Narbonne for Cascastel, Villeneuve and Rouffiac. The first Seigneurs of
Cascastel at the end of the X11th century to the beginning of the 17th century carried the name of
“de Cascastel” and “de Castel”. There appears to have been close contact between the Seigneurs
of Cascastel and the Viscounts of Narbonne. The square Keep and the two Châteaux protecting the ancient Roman Castrum
were the responsibility of the Seigneurs.
The family d’Arsse inherited the co-Seigneury at the beginning
of the 17th century and remained until the beginning of the 18th century. The house built in the 17th
century could be attributed to them and equally the Chapel of St. Francis in the Church in which can be found their tombs.
Joseph Gaspard Pailhoux of Cascastel, became the Seigneur about 1735. He was probably responsible for the room in the Château
decorated with moulded plaster in a Rococco style, the 18th century marble baptismal font in the Church, and also the strange
“pont de pierre” (stone bridge), which leans against the Château. He had the mining rights to mines in the
Corbières (SeeMines).
Martial Pailhoux survived the revolutionary
period and was Mayor of Cascastel until 1830.
An interpretation of the Rococco style decorated room tells us that the
Pailhoux family had connections with a progressive and influential movement and the marriage between Jacquette Pailhoux of Cascastel
and Captain Dagobert of Fontenilles, probably a French Mason, confirms this theory.
(SeeChâteau in the 17th and 18th centuries.)
