Château de Fétan: A Seventeenth-Century Château in Trévoux
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Unclassified
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page5 sections
History
From Fortified House to Fief
Château de Fétan is a historic château in Trévoux, France, rebuilt in the seventeenth century from a fortified house that already stood on the site. It lies in the former province of Dombes, a territory in eastern France that retained a distinct political identity before joining the French kingdom. The present château was built in 1622, a date carved beneath its corbelled watch turret.
In 1580, Jean Thévenon, seigneur of Tavernost and lieutenant general of the bailliage of Dombes, acquired the land of Fétan from the sieur de la Raffinière, Gaspard and Benoît Dufour, Jean Bluison, and the Bodillet brothers. A bailliage was a territorial judicial and administrative district governed by a bailli or a comparable officer. On 30 August 1585, Thévenon sold the property to Antoine Jacquet, a postmaster in Lyon.
In 1601, Henri de Bourbon-Montpensier, sovereign prince of Dombes, ennobled the property and established it as a fief, a landed holding held under a feudal relationship. The arrangement required homage and the payment of a pair of golden spurs whenever the vassal changed.
Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Ownership
Gaspard Jacquet, son of Jean Jacquet, transferred the property to André Bouilloud on 27 January 1644. Bouilloud was a maître des requêtes, a senior official responsible for petitions and administrative or judicial matters at a sovereign court, in this case the Parliament of Dombes. In 1659, the fief was adjudicated to Pierre Perrachon, acting for César Beraud, a royal councillor and collector and payer of annuities for Lyon’s Hôtel de Ville.
The property later passed through marriage into the Thélis de Valorge family. Marguerite Beraud’s daughter, Marguerite de Thélis, married Louis de Letouf, marquis of Pradines. He produced formal declarations concerning Fétan in 1732 and 1744. The land subsequently passed to the Trollier family, which resumed the fief in 1777 and still held it in 1789.
Protection
Château de Fétan received partial protection as a French historic monument under an order dated 30 January 1973. It is also included in the general inventory of cultural heritage.
Remains
The site incorporates the former sixteenth-century fortified house and the château reconstructed in the seventeenth century. The present building dates to 1622, and its construction date is carved beneath a small projecting watch turret supported by corbels. The château stands in the commune of Trévoux, in the Ain department of France.
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