Château Canon: The Hovyn de Tranchère Family

As the 18th century drew to a close Château Canon was in the possession of Jeanne Fontémoing, inherited from her father and brother. Jeanne had married Arnaud Valentin de Tranchère (1767-1793) in 1790, but just three years after their wedding he had been executed by guillotine, and she lived the rest of her life as a widow. Before his death, however, Jeanne and Arnaud had produced one child, a daughter named Jeanne de Tranchère (born 1791), and she subsequently inherited the estate. With her marriage to the customs inspector Ferdinand Auguste Joseph Hovyn (1780-1859), on December 11th 1811, the estate then came into the hands of the Hovyn family, who originally hailed from Belgium. I should point out at this juncture that many documenting the history of Château Canon seem to attribute the transfer of the estate into the Hovyn family to a mysterious granddaughter of Raymond Fontémoing’s named Virginie. Having done the research though, genealogical records do not seem bear this out (unless Jeanne de Tranchère also went by the name Virginie de Tranchère, which is far from impossible).

Ferdinand and Jeanne had two sons, Ferdinand Louis Hovyn (born 1812) who worked as a négociant, and Jules Auguste Hovyn (1816-1898), who was a notable politician of the day. It was the latter of the two who inherited the estate, and during his time there he married Marguerite Boyer (died 1866) on September 3rd 1844. The estate first appears in the 1850 Cocks et Féret under the name Saint-Martin, the proprietor Hovyn, with an annual production of 20 tonneaux (equivalent to 80 modern-day barriques) per annum. Nevertheless, it seems widely accepted that it was when in the possession of Jules Auguste Hovyn that the estate was named Château Canon, sometime around 1853, no doubt much to the annoyance of the proprietors of the aforementioned Château Canon in Fronsac.

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