Château du Sailhant

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

The château du Sailhant has had a history rich in dramatic turns for more than a thousand years. The first mention of a knight of Sailhant dates back to the beginning of the 11th century: Guigonis de Salhens was part of the milites (knights) and principes (aristocrats) of the Saint-Flour region. It subsequently passed into the hands of numerous and prestigious families: the Rochefort d'Aurouze, then the Dauphin de Saint-Ilpize. During the Hundred Years' War, it was taken and occupied four times by English bands. The fortress constituted a strategic strongpoint that allowed control of the city of Saint-Flour. The sieges it underwent never involved engines capable of causing major destruction. The château was always in a state of defence. Certain secondary architectural elements may perhaps have been less well maintained or in ruins. At the end of the war, the château was habitable but without comfort. Original loopholes adapted for crossbow fire date from this period. In 1569, Antoine Dubourg was killed at the château during its capture by the comte de Montmorin Saint-Hérem, governor of Auvergne, as part of his campaign against the Protestants. The château was not in a state to resist and did not have soldiers among the servants present. It was occupied for seven years by a Catholic garrison. In the 17th century, it passed to a branch of the d'Estaing family, who carried out a new arrangement of the main dwelling. In 1749, Voltaire, a creditor of the d'Estaing, had the Sailhant seized. In the 19th century, it was repurchased by farmers who let it deteriorate. For lack of sufficient maintenance, it was on the verge of ruin when it was taken over by Mary Raynaud, a local man who had made a meteoric fortune in business before being ruined. In order to establish his position in the Cantal where he had himself elected deputy, he decided to reconstruct the château from 1888 in a neo-medieval spirit. Work was interrupted in 1891 as a result of his bankruptcy. The Delbet family bought it in 1904; they carried out no work on it and its sale in 1997.

Description

Today, the fortress of the Sailhant rises on a basaltic promontory whose walls form a sheer drop of thirty metres high on all its faces, with the exception of a narrow strip of land which connects it to the north to the planèze. This spectacular triangular rocky spur dominates the valley of the Babory and the crater lake into which the waterfall of the same name flows. The château embraces with its walls the contours of the promontory with which it merges in certain places. Its square keep and its round flanking towers dominate the site with their impressive silhouettes.