A little history of Trévoux castle
And also
The tops
A sentinel!
Lords of Villars raised a castle here in the beginning of the 12th century, on the foundations of a Gallo-Roman stronghold. Their goal? To protect themselves against enemies and keep an eye on Saône traffic!
In the beginning of the 14th century, Thoire-Villars family raised a wall surrounding the city, but also built the keep in the middle of the fortress. Our famous tower!
A huge octagonal keep (it used to be 28 metres high, nowadays 16 metres high), with a particularity: its bichromy, white limestone and ochre limestone!
The building site went on in the 14th century: they raised curtains from the keep to two round towers, the three ones drawing a triangle. They also raised a main building with living rooms on the floors and kitchens on the ground floor. You know what? We even had latrines!
Bourbons' era
In 1402, Thoire sold their castle to the Bourbons. Among them we found constable Charles III of Bourbon: in 1527, old Bourbon was stripped of all his possessions, his lands... Trévoux included!
Oh, what did he do to deserve this? Well, the story began with the death of his wife Suzanne of Bourbon, in 1521.
King of France François I, who didn’t like his cousin, get his hands on the inheritance, one year later. Charles was furious: revenge!! He started to support Charles the Fifth in 1523. Oh, he cooked up with the enemy, so the king seized his possessions...
That’s all with Bourbon lords! From the end of the 16th century, the castle was abandoned. But in 1913 it was listed as a Historical monument and many times restored.