This is the region of Toulourenc which means « all or nothing » in Provençal. A landscape that is wild and bare. A narrow series of gorges and there, at the end of the road, is the château d'Aulan. A proud and solitary building perched on a rocky spur 750 metres in altitude. Built in the 12th century for strictly strategic purposes, pillaged again and again, through the course of many reshufflings, the château lost its defensive utility. However, towers, dungeons and machicolations still remain. The exterior contrasts markedly with the fanciful interior: the antique furniture and the family objects saved from lootings are mixed with souvenirs of distant travels. An unusual château where each room tells the story of   the Suarez d'Aulan, the family that has owned it since the 17th century.

A dynasty distinguished by having unceasingly rebuilt its residence, sometimes stone by stone. Without ever giving up. Following its war cry: « Mas alto » (always higher). After its total destruction at the time of the Revolution, the château was progressively rebuilt during the 19th century by Louis and his son Arthur Suarez d'Aulan. These visionary builders also built the Etablissement Thermal de Montbrun les Bains hot springs and reforested the region by reintroducing the first Austrian black pines there.

With the first World War, the château was again completely destroyed. At the beginning of the 1930's, the young Count Charles de Suarez took up the torch, as well as the trowel and the pitchfork. He stacked up stones and brought in the hay.. The second World War broke out: the château, although transformed into headquarters for the resistance, remained miraculously intact.

Then came a much more peaceful period. The château grew more beautiful thanks to the love of Charles de Suarez who lived in it until his death in 2004. He inspired several writers including Jean Giono and René Char, while Albert Camus, seduced by the site, considered living there to finish « Le premier homme ». A story of courage and determination but also of humour and fantasy which can now be discovered via a guided tour.

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Photo: Château d'Aulan

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« Here, our nights are more beautiful than your days »: it was from the Château de Grignan that the Marquise de Sévigné wrote Jean Racine these now famous words. Perhaps it was in contemplation of « the triumphant views » from the immense terrace of this Renaissance jewel where sumptuous holiday celebrations were held and finally depleted the fortune of its owner, the Count of Grignan.

The 17th century was coming to an end. The story begins in 1669 when Françoise Marguerite de Sévigné, daughter of the letter writer Marquise, who lived in Paris, married François Adhémar of Monteil, the Count of Grignan. The famous correspondence began with this separation of the mother and daughter. The Marquise came to Grignan three times for long visits that were   sometimes marked by heavy tensions. The lady of letters liked to surround herself with prelates, writers and authors. A brilliant Court created far from Paris but whose echoes reverberated there; the château de Grignan was truly the « Versailles of the South ».

The story did not have a happy ending. After the death of the Marquise in 1696, followed soon afterward by that of her daughter, it was the Comte de Grignan's turn to disappear in 1714, totally ruined. A lord of Piedmontese origin, the Count Félix de Muy took over the château before his family was declared emigrant at the time of the Revolution. The château was completely destroyed in 1793. The château was not rebuilt, identically, until Marie Fontaine bought it in 1912 and restored it. She put her entire fortune into it. Now the property of the conseil général de la Drôme, the château is open to the public in the form of visits, which feel like a page from a historical novel, offering an in-depth view of the 17th century lifestyle. 

Contact and information: http://www.guideweb.com/grignan/
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Photo: André Morin / châteaux de la Drôme 

And even then...

- Nothing remains of the primitive chateau mentioned in the 11th century, nor of the strong fortress built by the Adhémars in the 13th century. Transformed a great many times, the château de Grignan has conserved only traces of the buildings erected in the 16th and 17th centuries, and was rebuilt once more at the beginning of the 20th century.

- Festival of Correspondence, theatre, jazz, night time shows, something is always happening at the Château de Grignan

Tracking the Marquise :

- Rochecourbière cave near the village of Grignan which welcomed the people invited by the Count of Grignan. Near a spring and buried in greenery, a stone table on which the Marquise would have written her most beautiful letters. -

- Le Jardin Sévigné: a very 17th century work ... commissioned in 1996 to mark the tercentennial anniversary of the death of Mme Sévigné. A green maze in the form of an « S » which, with the addition of parasols, chairs, and pen and paper is transformed into a writing room during the correspondence festival.

- It's in the Saint-sauveur de Grignan collegiate, a renaissance building built in the 16th century, where Mme de Sévigné lies.

Here's another fortress which it is keenly recommended to take by assault! Built in the 11th century on a mound dominating the city of Montélimar, property of the Adhémars of Monteil before being ceded to the popes and finally serving as a prison, this chateau is one of the last examples of Romanesque cadastral architecture.

Everything is there: fortified wall with its circular road, dungeon, manor and chapel. An exterior appearance that is resolutely austere but which, even so, has a little fantasy, with the manor facade with nine semi-circular openings right in the wall with two-coloured arch stones and small columns. A very affluent-looking fortress that is worth the detour for its stately 13th-century manor and a contemporary art centre which has made a place for itself among the big ones by welcoming, particularly since 1996, Miro, Braque, Chagall and Masson.

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Did you know that? The castle built on a hillock by the seigniorial dynasty of the Adhemars has given its name to the city of nougat: Monteil together with Adhémar, which makes « Montélimar ».

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Photo: La Drome Tourisme

A lively interactive museum which retraces the epic tale of the production of silk: from « Bombyx Mori », commonly called « silk worm », the inveterate nibbler of white mulberry leaves, right up to the manufacture of this fascinating fabric.

The visit begins with the « hatchery » that encloses the silkworm eggs that are ready to hatch. These silkworm eggs become caterpillars which have the peculiarity of being particularly gourmand and selective about their food, eating nothing but mulberry leaves. They go as far as to multiply their weight by 10,000! Imagine: it's as if, as adults, we weighed 30 tons! At the end of this unrestrained feeding, the worms begin to spin their cocoon, comprised of a few thousand meters of thread. Then comes the time for harvesting, before the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis and out of the spinning that consists of unwinding the cocoons. What follows next is milling, which consists of twisting the thread according to the type of fabric desired and, at the end of the chain, the weaving trades. A very active journey since the Musée de Taulignan displays machines that are not only authentic but actually functioning! We owe this initiative to Pierre Lançon, himself a former miller, who in 1980 undertook the conservation of the trappings of a bygone but fascinating era.

A story that we find by going through the medieval city of Taulignan which, even long before peak of the silk industry in the 19th century, was an important commercial crossroads where gold and silversmiths, tapestry-makers, woodworkers and stone cutters met. From this prosperous era there still remain the beautiful facades of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries that line the streets of the village. A fascinating thread of history to unwind!

Contact et informations:  www.atelier-museedelasoie-taulignan.com
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Interactive visit and audioguide to the Musée de la Soie Taulignan, see  here
Photo: Musée de la Soie Taulignan, D. Vallat

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