Château de la Sagne

English translation

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History

On 9 November 1729, Pierre Bosviel de Lagoutine acquired from the baron François d'Hautpoul the "metterie de la Saigne", to the west of the town. La Sagne was then a modest building and in very poor condition. In 1794, Pierre Olombel, associated with his father at the head of an important textile trading business, purchased the property. This acquisition crowned the economic and social success of this leading merchant-manufacturer. According to Gaston Tournier, "the dwelling has undergone embellishments since 1794 but it has not been modified in its interior arrangements": La Sagne thus already adopted its current form, and the replacement of the timber-framed house with one storey by the large building body that one knows today took place in the course of the 18th century, after 1733 and before 1794. It appears on the cadastral survey of the early 1830s, and a painting from the early 19th century (known through a reproduction) depicting the town of Mazamet shows the western gable of the castle with the bay of openings lighting the longitudinal corridor. La Sagne subsequently passed into the hands of Pierre-Charles Olombel (1781-1852), of Philippe Olombel (†1874) then of his son, also named Philippe. The substantial transformations (refurbishment of the façades and their decoration, reorganization of the interiors) made in the second half of the 19th century - probably around 1870 - must be attributable to the last two Olombels. Elements of decoration similar to those of the villa of Eugène Cormoul-Houlès, built in the years 1875-76, make it possible to consider that the Montpellier architect Louis-Alphonse Corvetto was the author of this renovation. The Olombels took advantage of the creation of the new district to reorganize the castle's environment: they had a park of approximately two hectares developed which isolates the castle from the town and enhances it, and planted the company's offices to the east. At the very beginning of the 20th century, Philippe Olombel, childless, divided up the park and sold the land to the north and west of the castle to woollen manufacturers who were to build their villas there (a plan drawn up at the time of the subdivision of these lands makes it possible to know the location of the dependences of the estate which comprised, in addition to the castle and its two annexes, the offices, the lodge, the stables and the laundry).

Description

The building with a very elongated rectangular plan measures approximately 35 m in length and it is moreover provided with two secondary bodies which extend it to the east and west, aligning to the south. It comprises three levels, with the exception of the western body which has one level fewer. The area per level of the main body is approximately 530 m2. The latter is characterized by two fine façades with nine bays each and whose central part is marked by a very slight avant-corps. The façades were redecorated by the Olombels during the second half of the 19th century: very sober, they were unified by decorations in moulded natural cement (corner chains, moulded cornice with glyphs and dentils, cords marking the storeys, keystones of the arches of doors and windows, etc.). The interior distribution of the main body is double in depth, a central longitudinal corridor distributes the rooms to the north and south, from the hall and the staircase cage. As in other dwellings of Mazamet industrialists, the wealth of the owners manifests itself in the interior, in particular in the impressive dimensions of the vestibule and the particular importance given to the staircase, displayed facing the entrance door, framed by fluted pillars with composite capitals. With the library on the first floor, they are among the most striking 19th-century arrangements. The ground floor of the western wing preserves some arrangements of service rooms (large laundry with the well associated with a stone vat for washing as well as a cement-lined wash house, storage sheds). On the ground floor of the eastern wing, the walnut joinery and cupboards, which occupy the entire south wall, could be those of the dining room arranged at the end of the 18th century by Elisabeth-Louise Bosviel, wife of Pierre Olombel.