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Château De Cordès
The Château de Cordès is a castle situated in the '' commune'' of Orcival, in the Puy-de-Dôme ''département'' of France. The château is privately owned, and open to the public. It is classified as a historic monument and the garden is listed by the French Ministry of Culture as one of the Remarkable Gardens of France.Comité des Parcs et Jardins de FrancChâteau de Cordès/ref> History The original castle dates from 1268, when it belonged to Guillaume de Chalus, whose family occupied the castle for nearly four hundred years. In 1659, they sold it to Emmanuel d'Allègre. His son, Yves de Tourzel, the marquis d'Allegre, who became a marechal of France in 1724, rebuilt it and transformed it into a residence, and in 1695, commissioned the workshop of Le Nôtre to lay out the garden. In 1965, the new owner restored the château and recreated the gardens. Paul Bourget set the action of his novel, ''Le démon de midi'', published in 1914, at the Château de Cordès. The chât ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machicolation
A machicolation (french: mâchicoulis) is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones or other material, such as boiling water, hot sand, quicklime or boiling cooking oil, could be dropped on attackers at the base of a defensive wall. A smaller version found on smaller structures is called a box-machicolation. Terminology The structures are thought to have originated as Crusader imitations of mashrabiya. The word derives from the Old French word ''machecol'', mentioned in Medieval Latin as ''machecollum'', probably from Old French ''machier'' 'crush', 'wound' and ''col'' 'neck'. ''Machicolate'' is only recorded in the 18th century in English, but a verb ''machicollāre'' is attested in Anglo-Latin. Both the Spanish and Portuguese words denoting this structure (''matacán'' and ''mata-cães'', respectively), are similarly composed from "matar canes" meaning roughly "killing dogs", the latter word being a slur referring to infidels.Vil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
