The Château du Tholonet is an historic

château A château (, ; plural: châteaux) is a manor house, or palace, or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking re ...

bastide Bastides are fortified new towns built in medieval Languedoc, Gascony, Aquitaine, England and Wales during the 13th and 14th centuries, although some authorities count Mont-de-Marsan and Montauban, which was founded in 1144, as the first bastides ...

Le Tholonet Le Tholonet (; ''Lou Toulounet'' and ''Lo Tolonet'' in Provençal) is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France. Its inhabitants are called ''Tholonétiens''. Geography The commune is near Aix-en-Provence, and at the f ...

near

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence, or simply Aix, is a List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, city and Communes of France, commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. A former capital of Provence, it is the Subprefectures in France, s ...

, France.

History

The estate was acquired by Alexandre de Gallifet, who served as the President of the

Parlement of Aix-en-Provence The Parlement of Aix-en-Provence was the provincial ''parlement'' of Provence from 1501 to 1790. It was headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, which served as the ''de facto'' capital of Provence. History Provence was incorporated into the Kingdom of ...

, from the d'Albertas family in 1646. The bastide was completed in 1776, a decade prior to the French Revolution. It was later inherited by

Gaston Alexandre Auguste, Marquis de Galliffet Gaston Alexandre Auguste, Marquis de Galliffet, Prince de Martigues (23 January 1830 – 8 July 1909) was a French general, best known for having taken part in the repression of the 1871 Paris Commune. He was Minister of War in Waldeck-Rousseau' ...

, who opposed the construction of the

Zola Dam Zola Dam is a dam in Le Tholonet near Aix-en-Provence, France. History The dam was designed by Italian-born engineer François Zola, the father of novelist Émile Zola. Its construction was initially rejected by Gaston Alexandre Auguste, Marqui ...

in 1838. It has been home to the Société du Canal de Provence since 1959.

References

Houses completed in 1776 Châteaux in Bouches-du-Rhône {{France-castle-stub