Château d'Arques

About fifty miles south-east of Carcassonne, the village of Arques holds the bottom of a valley watered by the stream of realse and surrounded by many forests. The castle stands on top of a small isolated hill, a few hundred meters west of the town. Mentioned for the first time in 1011, the town sees the family of Arques dispossessed of this manor in the twelfth century, in favor of the powerful House terms. During the crusade against the Albigensians, Beranger d'Arques, a descendant of the family despoiled, is among the relatives of William Peyrepertuse. In 1217, Simon de Montfort, leader of the Crusaders, would have taken and burned the castle and the village of Arques. He then offered his lieutenant in 1231 Pierre de Voisin lands of Arques. In 1265, the new lord of Arques was a remarkable passage on his fields, condemning a 60 year old woman, accused of witchcraft, to be burned alive in the village. At the end of the thirteenth century, his son, Gilles de Neighbours, rebuilt the village called "country house" and began building the present castle. His own son, Gilles II, completed its construction to 1316. In the sixteenth century, Arques went to the family of Joyeuse, but as a place of residence, the castle was replaced by that of Couiza. Then in 1575, Protestants besieged the castle and fail before the dungeon. The castle was sold under the revolution, as a national and suffered some damage. It was classified a historic monument in 1887.