The Château de Puilaurens (Puilaurens Castle, also Puylaurens; in Occitan: lo Castèl de Puèg-Laurenç) is one of the so-called Cathar castles in the commune of Lapradelle-Puilaurens in the Aude département. The castle is located above the Boulzane Valley and the villages of Lapradelle and Puilaurens. There is a path from Axat to the castle.
The castle has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1902.

Château de Puilaurens

Account

by category

Login

Name

by region

Title

Name in English

The Château d'Arques is a ruined 14th-century castle in the commune of Arques in the Aude département of France. It is one of the so-called Cathar castles.
History
In the 12th century, there was a conflict between the viscount of Carcassonne and several seigneurs, including Arques and Lagrasse. The estates at Arques became the property of the seigneurs of Termes.
In 1217, Béranger d'Arques was one of the associates of Guillaume de Peyrepertuse.
In 1210, after the defeat of the Château de Termes during the Albigensian Crusade, Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, attacked Arques. After having burned the village (Villa de Arquis), situated on the banks of the Rialsès, he gave this part of Razès to one of his lieutenants, Pierre de Voisins.
In 1284, Gilles de Voisins bagan work on building a castle, with the intention of defending the Rialsès valley and controlling the transhumance routes leading to the Corbières.
In 1316, Gilles II de Voisins, known as "Gilet", altered and completed the castle.
In 1518, Françoise de Voisins, the last of the Voisins, married Jean de Joyeuse who took the baronny of Arques. The castle was abandoned in favour of Couiza.
In 1575, the castle was besieged by Protestants and only the keep managed to resist the assault.
By the start of the French Revolution the castle had fallen into ruin. It was sold as a national asset and subsequently suffered severe damage.
Architecture
The castle consists of an enceinte and a high square keep with four turrets. It was built after Albigensian Crusade of the 13th century on lands given to Pierre de Voisins, one of Simon de Montfort's lieutenants.
The almost square enceinte (51m by 55m) encircles the castle with a gateway furnished with machicolation and surmounted with a keystone bearing the arms of the Voisin famil ("De gueules à trois fusées d'or en fasce, accompagnées en chef d'un lambel à quatre pendant de même"). Numerous buildings must have existed the length of the enceinte. Two well-preserved residential towers remain.
The square keep, 25 m high, is a work of military architecture inspired by castles in the Ile de France. It has four levels served by a spiral staircase. The various rooms were constructed with extreme care. The top floor was given over to defence of the castle. Forty soldiers could defend it thanks to numerous murder holes and rectangular bays set symmetrically into the walls.
It is a good example of the progress in military construction in a strategically important region.
Today
The castle is owned partly by the commune and partly privately. It has been listed since 1887 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. It has been renovated and, in part, recosntructed. It is open to visitors.

Château d’Arques

Peyrepertuse is a ruined fortress and one of the Cathar castles of the Languedoc located in the French Pyrénées in the commune of Duilhac-sous-Peyrepertuse, in the Aude département.
It was associated with the Counts of Barcelona, later kings of Aragon.
The name Peyrepetuse is derived from Pèirapertusa, Occitan, meaning Pierced Rock.
The lower part of the castle was built on a strategic location by the kings of Aragon in the 11th Century and the higher part by the French King Louis IX later on, after the area was annexed to France. The two castles are linked together by a staircase. The castle lost importance as a strategic castle when the border between France and Spain was moved in 1659, causing the castle to be abandoned.
The castle ruins are impressive, set high on a defensive crag.  From the approach road it is difficult to see where the rock stops and the castle starts. 
The castle was built in the 11th century on a site dominating the Corbières and the sea.  The main part, resembles the prow of a ship, running along the top of an 800m (2,600 ft) high crag.  It houses the church of Sainte-Marie and the governor's residence.
It was never subjected to attack during the Crusade against the Cathars.  Nevertheless, it was surrendered to the French Crusaders 22nd of May 1217, reclaimed again as the balance of power changed. Guilhem de Peyrepertuse, was excommunicated in 1224 because of his refusal to submit to the Catholic Crusaders. He surrendered after the siege of Carcassonne (the Viscount of Carcassonne, Guilhem's suzerain, having failed to retake Carcassonne from the French invaders in 1240). Peyrepertuse became a French possession the same year.
In 1258, the Treaty of Corbeil defined the border between France and Aragon for four centuries : Peyrepertuse became a royal French fortress at the southern border of the French kingdom. At the end of the 13th century, it was a powerful stronghold with strong defences. During the winter of 1367-1368, Peyrepertuse was the refuge of Henri de Trastamare, claimant to the crown of Castille.

Château de Peyrepertuse

The Château de Puivert is a so-called Cathar castle situated in the commune of Puivert, in the Aude département of France. This building, on top of a hill overhanging the village and its lake, reaches an altitude of 605 m. The site is in the Quercob region, 60 km (37 mi) south of Carcassonne and 45 km (28 mi) east of Foix. The castle has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1902.
History of the Château
The first castle
The construction of the present chateau dates from the 12th century. The first mention is in 1170; it belonged to the Congost family before the Albigensian Crusade. These lords practised Catharism and were accused as heretics. Then, in November 1210, the castle was subjected for three days to a siege by the army of Thomas Pons de Bruyère, lieutenant of Simon de Montfort. The castle subsequently became the property of the northern barons. All that is left of this older castle is a few sections of wall to the east. A collapse of the natural dam on the lake at the foot of the site caused the destruction of part of the town of Mirepoix, 30 km to the north, in Ariège in 1279. According to legend, this was because a certain Dame Blanche wanted to daydream on the lake shores, which were inaccessible in bad weather. She asked that the water level be lowered and work undertaken to accomplish this goal led to the collapse.
The present castle
At the start of the 14th century, Thomas de Bruyère (grandson of Pons) and his wife Isabelle de Melun had the new castle built to the east of the old castle. The remains of the old castle are still visible. The coat-of-arms of Isabelle de Melun, who was the daughter of a Grand Chamberlain of France, still exists in the 'new' castle. The building was given a symbolic and picturesque character that can still be seen today.
The castle was classified as a Monument historique (Historic monument) in 1907. The castle is privately owned. Thanks to its very well preserved keep it has been a location for many films, including The Ninth Gate and Le Peuple migrateur.
The minstrels' room
On the fourth floor of the keep is the minstrels' room (salle des musiciens). It is so called because eight very fine sculptures of musicians with their instruments are represented in the room. Legend has it that the town of Puivert welcomed a great gathering of troubadours in the 12th century. The instruments seen in the room are the bagpipes, flute, tambourin, rebec, lute, gittern, portable organ, psaltery and the bowed hurdy-gurdy.
Elsewhere in the town is a museum (Musée du Quercob) showing the musical tradition of the region from this period.
Description of the château
The walls
The castle's functions were military: lookout and defence, unlike many buildings of the era which had religious goals. The curtain wall extends for 175 m, pierced with arrow slits. It is rectangular in plan. The moat which separated it from the plateau is practically invisible today. The entrance to the courtyard is through a square gate tower, situated in the centre of the east wall.
Five of the original eight towers remain:
a smooth round tower in the northeast corner
a rough round tower in the middle of the north wall
a square tower, with a windowed turret on the eastern side joining the two top floors
remains of a round tower in the southeast
the keep (the best preserved part of the castle).
As well as the central gateway in the east wall, there are two other doorways:
one in the northwest corner defended by the keep
another to the south of the keep giving access to the older castle.
The surface area of the site is very large: 3200 m² inside the walls.
The keep
The best preserved part of the castle, the square keep measures 15 m by 15 m with a height of 35 m. Originally, it adjoined the manor house. On the west of the tower can be seen pieces of perpendicular masonry, from which it can be deduced that the buildings were joined in this area. The keep comprises:
two lower levels: partly underground, with barrel vaulting
a third floor: the chapel is accessible through a doorway with a broken arch. The room is decorated with small columns, mouldings and shields. The ceiling is rib-vaulted; in the wall is a "piscina" (basin).
a fourth floor: a rib-vaulted room, the culs-de-lampe sculpted with non-religious figures playing musical instruments - the Minstrels' Room ("Salle des Musiciens"). It is well lit, thanks to three windows resembling those of the chapel.
the fifth and top floor: a defensive platform, originally surrounded with crenellations, provides views of the Quercob region.

Château de Puivert

Fort Libéria is situated in Villefranche-de-Conflent in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in France, at the point where three valleys (the Têt, the Rotja, and the Cady) meet.
History
The fort was constructed by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a military engineer to Louis XIV, after the division of Catalonia between France and Spain by the Treaty of the Pyrenees. Construction began in 1681, at the same time as that of the Mont-Louis Citadel, which is further upstream in the Têt valley. The fort is connected to the city of Villefranche by an underground staircase composed of 734 steps. The fort dominates the village at a height of about 150 meters. The fort had at one time served as a prison for Louis XIV's poisoners.
After the troops left, the Domain put the fort up for sale. The first private owner, Monsieur Laurens, came along in 1925. This person, a retired former shipowner, had the idea of making it a retirement home for sailors. With the aim of converting the fort for his residents, Mr. Laurens demolished the officers' barracks located on the first level of the fortress in order to make a courtyard. Because of the difficult access and the remoteness from the sea, his project was not the success he had hoped it to be. The fort was again put up for sale and bought in 1955 by Mr. Marcel Puy, who did so as a wedding gift to his wife. Finally, Mr. Puy signed a long lease in 1984 with 4 of the city's shopkeepers and, after three years of restoration, the fort was opened to the public in 1987.
Historical monument
Fort Libéria was classified as an "historical monument" in April 2009 by the Regional Commission of Heritage and of Sites of Languedoc-Roussillon (an offshoot of the Regional Supervision of Cultural Affairs). At the same time, it was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (July 7, 2008) as part of the Network of Major Sites by Vauban (mostly fortifications). It has been a private property since the end of the 19th century, but potential restoration work on the monument could be requested by the chief architect of historical monuments. The fort is open for public in July–August from 9am to 8 pm, in May–June from 10 am to 7 pm and from 10 am to 6 pm rest of the year.