Château de Cérons: A New Château
Letters presented to the Société d’Art et d’Histoire de Sarlat et du Périgord Noir suggest that the newlyweds Jean Baptiste Auguste Armand de Calvimont Saint-Martial and Jeanne Sophie de La Salle settled in the château owned by Jeanne Sophie’s family. This was the building that we know today as Château de Cérons, which at the time of this union (and for many years afterwards) was actually known as Château de Calvimont. The identity of the architect is unknown, but it is widely accepted that it was built at the cusp of the 17th and 18th centuries, and so it had been in the possession of the de La Salle family for about one hundred years.
Although their titles ‘disappeared’ at the time of the Revolution, the restoration of the monarchy brought a new confidence to the French nobility. This is evident by taking a glance at the re-ennobled status of the Calvimont-de La Salle family. There were at least seven offspring, including Jean Hippolyte Armand de Calvimont (1802 – 1858), styled as Marquis de Calvimont, and Jean Louis Armand de Calvimont (1806 – 1884), who took the title Comte de Calvimont. It was with this younger generation that we begin to see more detail on how the estate worked as a vineyard.
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