Château de la Grange des Prés

En un regard

Le château en bref

On the outskirts of Pézenas, the Grange des Prés was, in the seventeenth century, one of the most splendid residences in Languedoc. The estate was acquired in 1587 by Henri I de Montmorency, governor of the province, who had the house completed around 1595 and enlarged it from 1601. After the fall and execution of Henri II de Montmorency in 1632, the estate passed to the House of Condé, then returned to Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, who settled there in the early 1650s. It was the golden age of the place: festivities, concerts and performances followed one another, and Molière's company, under the prince's patronage, performed there on several occasions before the playwright left for Paris. The estate then declined: a woollen cloth manufactory was established there in 1697, followed by a barracks in the eighteenth century. Bought back in 1812 by Maurice Dessalles, it received the present château in 1850. In neo-Louis XIII style, it is built of red brick and Nézignan stone, flanked by octagonal towers and topped with slate. A bust of Molière has commemorated the company's visit there since 1897. In the twentieth century, the ornithologist François Hüe lived there until 1972. The estate, of some ten hectares, can be visited on occasional guided tours.