En un regard
Le château en bref
On a steep hill in Escalans, on the edge of the Landes and the Armagnac region, the Château de Jourdan overlooks woods and heathland. It is less a fortress than a large manor house, embellished with two small crenellated towers.
Its renown rests on a curious episode that links it to the family of Jane Austen. In 1782, Louis XVI granted Jean-François Capot de Feuillide, captain in the Queen's Dragoons, extensive tracts of heath and marshland around Gabarret and Barbotan, which he intended to drain and develop. To oversee his works, the officer rented Jourdan from 1784 to 1786. He lived there with his wife, Eliza Hancock, cousin of the English novelist, and Eliza's mother, Philadelphia Hancock.
The two women, wearied by the isolation of the place, returned to England in 1786. Capot de Feuillide was guillotined in 1794, and in 1797 Eliza married Henry Austen, Jane's brother. This sojourn in the Landes is known only from a secondary account and would merit confirmation from the archives. The house is today a private property.