En un regard
Le château en bref
The Château de la Cave, in Saint-Savinien in Charente-Maritime, occupies a rocky spur overlooking a tributary of the Charente. Around 1520 the fief was held by Jean d'Estuert, then in 1531 by François de Mortagne, lord of La Cave; in 1556 Jean Isle paid homage for "his noble house of La Cave", and his descendant Claude Isle married Jacquette de Marbœuf in 1661. Held jointly by Jean de La Marthonie and Daniel de Laval in 1723, the estate was sold in 1749 to René-François d'Aiguières for 22,000 livres, then in 1761 to Vincent-Guillaume Torchebœuf-Lecomte for 40,000 livres, whose descendants still own it today. The curtain wall, fairly well preserved, follows the outline of the rock, and three towers, most of them truncated, defend the approach; the entrance gate is marked by a slate-roofed tower and a bartizan, and the main residence, rectangular in plan, is flanked by an octagonal stair tower topped by a small turret at the second level. Privately owned, the château is not open to visitors.