Château Berliquet: Paul Romain de Sèze
Anne’s father was Pierre II de Sèze (1671 – 1737), who married Catherine Brunet (1674 – 1741) and they had four children. One of these was the aforementioned Anne, the others were Jean III, Marguerite and Paul Romain. This latter son, Paul Romain de Sèze (1714 – 1787), was the curate at St Sulpice de Faleyrens (a commune on the St Emilion plain, on the banks of the Dordogne), before he climbed the ecclesiastical ladder to become canon and then chaplain of St Emilion. More relevant to us, perhaps, was the fact that he also seemed to have assumed responsibility for the vineyard at Berliquet. It was during his tenure that the vineyard appeared on the Belleyme map.
After the death of Paul Romain in 1787, unsurprisingly without any issue, the estate then passed to the family of his brother Jean III de Sèze (1709 – 1777). Jean had married Marthe Dubergier (1723 – 1792) and they produced enough children to field an entire de Sèze football team (including two substitutes), from the first-born Anne Catherine (1743 – 1777) to the thirteenth child, Jean Casimir (1765 – 1842). Of the thirteen it was Jean-Pierre de Sèze (1747 – 1806) who took on ownership of his late uncle’s domaine. Whether he lived there or not I cannot be sure; he was a professional soldier, a sous-lieutenant in the Régiment de Port-au-Prince, in Haiti, and a Chevalier de l’Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint-Louis. Even so, regardless of how involved he was (or wasn’t), he still held onto the domaine for several decades, only selling it in 1805, shortly before he died. The buyer was Dominique Pérès.
