Château de la Fautraise

En un regard

Le château en bref

Château de la Fautraise is a building located in the commune of Bierné-les-Villages, in Argenton-Notre-Dame, Mayenne. Recorded on the Cassini map (as ‘château de la Fautraize’), it is a fief mouvant of Romfort. It was rebuilt around 1750 by René-Louis-François Chailland, curate of Argenton from 1731 to 1768 and lord of la Fautraise, who lived there and kept a vicar in the village. The chapel attached to it, whose preservation was requested in the year XII, still existed in 1824. It has since been replaced by a chapel in the ogival style. In 1863, M. Émile de Beaumont bought the château and had it restored. The residence is a modern building; its central pavilion has a pyramidal roof crowned with a lantern. According to the historian Émile Queruau-Lamerie (1841-1929), as repeated by the Abbé Angot, it was in this residence that Marin-Pierre Gaullier, a royalist colonel, laid down the arms of his division of 2 400 men. He handed them over to General Henri-Pierre Delaage, who came from Château-Gontier to negotiate with him in 1796. However, according to the Mémoires of Bernard de la Frégeolière, the disarmament took place at the château de Beaumont in Saint-Laurent-des-Mortiers, some 4 km from the château de la Fautraise; ‘on a chimney in the great hall of the old château (de Beaumont), notes the Abbé Angot, fleurs-de-lis carved into it can still be seen.’