Château de La Rochefoucauld

La Rochefoucauld-en-Angoumois

The château of La Rochefoucauld has overlooked the valley of the Tardoire for nearly a thousand years. Around 1026, a certain Foucauld, described as "vir nobilissimus Fulcaudus" in the abbey charters, had a first fortified keep built here, the origin of the powerful La Rochefoucauld line. In 1059 his sons brought monks from Saintes to found an adjoining priory. The fortress endured the feudal clashes of the 12th century: between 1137 and 1148 the counts of Angoulême attacked and plundered it, while the neighbouring castle of Verteuil was dismantled. The lordship was raised to a barony by Philip the Fair in 1299, then to a county by Francis I in 1515. The entrance towers date from 1350, and in 1453 Jean de La Rochefoucauld had three corner towers built and the keep raised — the same year in which, according to local tradition, King Charles VII is said to have learned here of the victory at Castillon that ended the Hundred Years' War. In the 1520s, François II de La Rochefoucauld turned the fortress into an elegant Renaissance residence with a courtyard of superimposed galleries inspired by Italy. Still lived in by the family, the château suffered a fire in 1760 and the collapse of one face of the Romanesque keep in 1960, before a vast restoration campaign begun in the 1990s.

Getting there : In the very centre of La Rochefoucauld-en-Angoumois; guided tours all year round; car park near the place du Château.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound