What a boon the internet can be – in small doses. And we’ve had only a small dose of it recently. More about that in a later post. I can find out almost anything, without moving from my computer in la France profonde. Sometimes, even the internet doesn’t provide the immediate answer; but persistence pays off. So it was in the case of le château de Saint-Michel-de-Vax.
My series about local châteaux has been on the back burner for a while, mainly because I have written about nearly all those nearby. My appetite was whetted again when our walking group started last week’s walk in the tiny village of Saint-Michel-de-Vax (Tarn), near the border with Tarn-et-Garonne.
Ancient settlement
A settlement has existed there since the 5th century, when some monks decided to settle in a cave in a place called Batz. They named the village Saint-Michel. I presume the “Vax” is a corruption of Batz.
Like many such villages, Saint-Michel once had a much larger population. From a high point of 411 in 1856, the population had declined to 62 in 2015.
The château
Saint-Michel has its own small château (most of them are really glorified manor houses with a couple of towers attached). Today, the château looks empty, although it’s not ruined. This, of course, got my historical antennae twitching. When was it built? Who lived there? What events took place within and close to its walls?
However, the château didn’t give up its history without a struggle. After a good deal of searching, I found that it was constructed between 1200 and 1250. It’s not clear who actually built it, but during this period the comté of Toulouse, whose counts had been associated with Cathar heresy, finally became the property of the French crown. Presumably, the château and its lands were held as a fiefdom of the crown.
The château was built as a fortress with four towers. This might have been one of a network of fortresses built to subdue the locality in the king’s name after the upheaval of the Albigensian Crusade against Cathar heresy.
The place has obviously undergone considerable modifications since it was first built. Only two towers remain, and the main part of the building looks of Renaissance construction to me. During the Revolution, the towers were remodelled so that they were the same height.
Revolutionary connections
Around that time, the château pops up in history again. In 1751, Jean-Pierre Lacombe-Saint-Michel was born there. He became a general in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies, took part in the storming of the Bastille, voted for Louis XVI’s execution and was appointed governor of Barcelona, before ill health drove him back to Saint-Michel-de-Vax, where he died in 1812. During his travels, he sent copious instructions to his intendant, Batti, concerning the management of his domain in Saint-Michel.
In those turbulent times, Lacombe-Saint-Michel managed to keep his head and remained a staunch republican. Interestingly, though, his second wife, Marie Micoud, whom he married in 1793, had tried to save the king from the guillotine and was even imprisoned for it. His royalist brother, Jean-Marie, was sentenced to death and his family held him indirectly responsible for it.
His direct descendant, Claude Simon, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1985. Lacombe-Saint-Michel appears as a character in Simon’s novel, Les Géorgiques.
Here’s a rather poignant coda to Lacombe-Saint-Michel’s story, which I found only by chance. His first wife was a Dutch Protestant, Marianne Hasselaër. He was inconsolable when she died at 33 in 1790. Her tomb sits in woodland in a valley not far from the château, covered with a tombstone erected by her husband. One day I’ll try to find it.
You might also like:
Posts about châteaux
Vaour and the Templars
Trip Along the River Aveyron
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Life on La Lune 
Have you seen the chateau at Fenyrols? another fascinating place, with a chequered history.
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Hello. Yes, it’s an interesting place and is one of the Châteaux I’ve written about in this series – link here if you’re interested to read about it https://vanessafrance.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/every-chateau-tells-a-story-7-the-chateau-de-feneyrols/
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Vanessa, this chateau with its remaining towers looks very much like Chateau l’Astorguie in Parisot when I first saw it in 1998, before its remodel by the present owners in roughly 2001-2002. The slanted tower roof is very much the same, as is the main part of the chateau. Might there be a connection to later renovation of le Château de Saint-Michel de Vax and Chateau l’Astorguié, which was constructed initially in, I think, the early sixteenth century?
Another very interesting post from you, I enjoy all of them and especially this series.
Best regards,
Scott Perrizo
Boulder, Colorado USA
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Hello, Scott. It’s a nice idea that there may have been some connection between the two châteaux, although I think it more likely that they resemble each other because that was the building style of the time in this region. The slanted towers and the flat Renaissance frontage are quite common around here. A number of the châteaux I’ve written about were originally built in the Middle Ages, but were then remodelled in the 16th-17th centuries. By that time, building techniques had advanced somewhat; the windows were larger, for example. I can’t claim to be an architectural expert, however.
Glad you enjoy the posts. I must find some more châteaux to write about, but since I’ve done most of those around here, I’ll have to go further afield!
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It’s a lovely building in it’s present state but what a fascinating history. I am particularly smitten with Lacombe-Saint-Michel and his wives. I do hope you will find the resting place of his beloved.
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I imagine that, with four towers, it might have been somewhat bigger and more important at one time. The story of the wives is fascinating: one a protestant and the other a royalist, neither of which he was. I’ve seen photos of the first wife’s tomb and the stone is quite big, so probably easy to find. The inscription seems to have worn away with time, though.
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