Bastide de Labastide Villefranche
Historic site and monument, Park and garden, Fortified town
in Labastide-Villefranche
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Marguerite, daughter of Gaston VII and wife of Roger-Bernard de Foix, founded the bastide in 1292, in reaction to the creation of the bastides of Hastingues by the English and Sordes by the Navarrese. A watchtower made it possible to keep an eye on troops or looters, and to warn the capital Orthez by optical signals via relays. 40 years later, Gaston Fébus transformed the watchtower into a dungeon and attached to it a fortified castle, destroyed in 1523 by Charles V. Only the square and...
Marguerite, daughter of Gaston VII and wife of Roger-Bernard de Foix, founded the bastide in 1292, in reaction to the creation of the bastides of Hastingues by the English and Sordes by the Navarrese. A watchtower made it possible to keep an eye on troops or looters, and to warn the capital Orthez by optical signals via relays. 40 years later, Gaston Fébus transformed the watchtower into a dungeon and attached to it a fortified castle, destroyed in 1523 by Charles V. Only the square and massive 28 m high keep remains; its ground floor is "blind", the upper floors being the only ones intended to be inhabited. One of the sides has been used as a pediment since 1922.
The keep tower of the 14th century, chapel, cloister, park, garden, lake, pier, reservoir, interior decoration of the Château Bijou estate are classified as a Historic Monument
