Château Grand Corbin-Despagne: The 19th Century
Sadly little is known of the property during the centuries that followed. At the time of the French Revolution, more than four hundred years later, it was in the hands of the Conilh de Beyssac family. It was the subsequent division and sale at this time that led to the proliferation of the aforementioned Corbin estates. One parcel of land evidently came into the hands of the Despagne family, in 1812. This family have been resident in the region for many centuries, and are able to trace their history back as far as 1655, when local records describe the baptism of a child born to Pierre Despagne and his wife Lyson Raynaud.
The first members of the Despagne family to set foot on the Corbin lands were not proprietors, however, but tenants. Louis Despagne (1789 – 1845) began to work the land on a métayage agreement, which is essentially sharecropping. He would have planted and tended his crops, and the harvest would have been divided between him and his landlord. On March 26th 1812, the same year that he purchased the land here (as evidenced by the inscribed on the gatepost, pictured below), Louis married Marguerite Musset (1788 – 1854), and they later had a son Jean Despagne (1820 – 1885). Jean continued to work the land after his father could no longer do so, and it seems likely that when the métayage agreement came to an end he purchased the soils which he knew so well. At this point the family owned a total of 6 hectares of land. In time Jean also married, in a ceremony held on 14th May. His bride was Marguerite Pezat (1820 – 1885), and they had a son who they also named Jean Despagne (1844 – 1915).
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