46°06′04″N 3°09′18″E / 46.101°N 3.155°E The Château de la Fauconnière is a castle near Gannat in Allier, Auvergne, France.
Location
editThe castle is located near the town of Gannat and the ruins of the Château de Chiroux.[1]
History
editLegend has it that the land was used by the dukes of Bourbon on their hunts.[1]
The land belonged to Pierre Filliot, who was born in the castle, then a primitive structure with four towers and arrowslits.[1] In 1518, he asked Anne of France to make it a fiefdom.[1] Once this request was granted, Filliot added a terrace.[1] After his death, the castle was inherited by his nephew, Philippe Filliot, who was the seigneur, or Lord, of Marcelange.[1] The latter married Elizabeth de Favières, and they had a daughter, Marie Filliot de la Fauconnière, who in 1694 married Hughes de Fontanges, a knight and seigneur of Hauteroche.[1] The castle was inherited by their son, Hughes de Fontanges, in 1722, who married Lady Marie-Gasparde de Boissieux in 1738.[1] The castle was inherited by their third son, Viscount François de Fontanges, who served as the governor of the Southern part of Saint-Domingue (now known as Haiti).[1]
In the summer of 1940, the château was home to a "High center for the training of leaders of the General Youth Secretariat at Vichy", under the leadership of Captain Pierre Dunoyer de Segonzac.[2][3] The aim was to train the French elite in the spirit of the Revolution nationale heralded by Marshal Philippe Pétain.[2] Later that year, the school was moved to the Château d'Uriage, where it became known as the Ecole Nationale des Cadres de la Jeunesse.[2]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i Jean-Baptiste Bouillet, Tablettes historiques de l'Auvergne: comprenant les départements du Puy-de-Dôme, du Cantal, de la Haute-Loire et de l'Allier, Perol, 1841, pp. 186-190 [1]
- ^ a b c Houlding, Elizabeth A. (December 1995). "Reviewed Work: The Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage, 1940-1945 by John Hellman". The French Review. 69 (2): 350–351. JSTOR 397948.
- ^ Josse, Raymond (January 1966). "L'ÉCOLE DES CADRES D'URIAGE (1940-1942)". Revue d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. 61 (61): 49–74. JSTOR 25730025.
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