Jacques de La Croix de Castries

Baron of Castries

Jacques de La Croix, Baron of Castries (died 1575), is the lord who undertook, in 1565, the construction of a new château at Castries, on the remains of the medieval fortress. He belonged to the La Croix family, a Montpellier lineage attested from the 14th century, which acquired the barony in 1495 with Guillaume de La Croix, governor of Montpellier and president of the Court of Aids. The surviving sources on him remain sparse: it is mainly known that at his death in 1575 his property was divided between two sons who were still very young. The elder, Jean, kept the Languedoc lands and the Barony of Castries; he was the father of René-Gaspard, future first Marquis. The younger, Gaspard, received the lordship of Meyrargues in Provence and founded a separate branch, from which Duke René de Castries would descend in the 20th century. The project begun by Jacques corresponds to the campaign of the second half of the 16th century noted in the Monuments historiques record; it would be interrupted by the destruction of 1622, before the major reconstruction of 1645–1670.