Achille-Joseph Robert de Lignerac

duc de Caylus

Achille Joseph Robert de Lignerac, duc de Caylus (1733-1783), belongs to the Robert de Lignerac family, lords of Saint-Chamant (Cantal) from the end of the sixteenth century. According to the documentation devoted to the château, he led an extravagant lifestyle at Versailles and in Paris. His creditors had his property seized and, in 1777, obtained the judicial sale, at the Châtelet de Paris, of the château and the seigneury of Saint-Chamant. The property was acquired in 1783 by Pierre Couderc, secretary to the King at the présidial of Aurillac, whose descendants, the Couderc de Saint-Chamant, have kept it ever since. His career thus marks the end of more than two centuries of Lignerac presence in this château, whose keep dates from the time of Robert de Balsac and which received a large residential building in the seventeenth century.