Château de Bonaguil Château de Bonaguil is a castle in the French " commune " of Saint - Front - sur - Lémance , but actually owned by the neighbouring " commune " of Fumel in the Lot - et - Garonne " département " . It has been classified as a " Monument historique " ( Historic Monument ) since 1862 . The " château de Bonaguil " was the last of the fortified castles . It was built in the 13th century , but was entirely restructured at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries by Bérenger de Roquefeuil , who added all of the defensive improvements of the end of the Middle Ages . A marvel of military architecture covering 7500 m² , incorporating the latest developments in artillery ( both for defence and in adapting the defences for protection against it ) it was , however , obsolete when completed . It was never attacked . The name derives from " bonne aiguille " ( good needle ) and refers to the defensive site : a steep , rocky promontory perfectly suited to the siting of a castle . First stage . The first castle at Bonaguil was constructed after the middle of the 13th century ( between 1259 and 1271 according to Jacques Gardelle ) , on a rocky spur , probably by Arnaud La Tour de Fumel . The single entrance to the keep , built above a natural cave , was a six metre high door , accessible by ladder . The first written mention is in 1271 , in a charter listing the possessions of the King of France Philippe III " le Hardi " . At that date , it was a vassal of the fiefdom of Tournon , and was probably just a simple polygonal keep , with a small courtyard surrounded by a wall , with a lower courtyard surrounded by a palisade . The dwelling was not built until the end of the 13th century or even the beginning of the 14th . The widening of a fracture in the rock allowed a well to be dug to a depth of 47 m ( 154 ft ) . The lords of Bonaguil fought on the side of the King of England in the Hundred Years War . The castle was taken several times , burnt and abandoned , although always the property of the Fumel family . On 11 November 1380 , Jean de Fumel - Pujols , baron of Blanquefort and owner of the castle , married the heiress of Roquefeuil , Jeanne Catherine de Roquefeuil , and dropped his name for the more prestigious name of his wife . Their son Antoine joined together the properties of the two families , and their grandson , Jean de Roquefeuil , moved with his wife Isabeau de Peyre to Bonaguil in 1444 . Developments by Jean de Roquefeuil . Jean de Roquefeuil , who sent his son Antoine to take part in the War of the League of the Public Weal , against the King , made several modifications , as much for defence as comfort : Of Jean ' s four sons , out of nine children , it was the third , Bérenger , who survived and inherited the property of his father . Defensive reinforcement by Bérenger de Roquefeuil . The considerable defence works of the castle have their origin in the lord of Bonaguil ' s problems with King Charles VII , who condemned him for his violence against serfs and vassals . They were financed thanks to the good fortune of the Roquefeuils , who owned lands in the Gironde and the Golfe du Lion . The works extended over thirty years . First wall . The main danger at the end of the 15th century came from artillery . For protection , it was necessary to keep the enemy ' s cannons at a distance . An external wall , 350 m in length , was added to the castle , with lower curtains retaining a mass of earth which cushioned the artillery shots . This curtain wall was reinforced with small towers and equipped with guns . This was the second innovation of this rebuilding : provision for the use of masses of artillery for the defence of the castle , with a total of 104 embrasure s for firing . So the castle used the latest developments in armaments : push back the firing of the assailants by obliging them to set up their cannons further away ; make the approach difficult with openings for ground shot ; large calibre guns were put on top of the towers ( such as the platform on top of the keep ) so as to fight at a distance . The spur on which the castle stands is cut by a large ditch sunk in the rock . A barbican was built beyond the ditch . It was linked by two drawbridges to the body of the castle . It was also defended by several guard towers , allowing a flanking fire from which the arquebus es could cover every angle . Still with the aim of leaving no point uncovered by fire , caponier s were built in the ditches ; these small earthworks were in front of the curtain , allowing the ditch to be swept with fire from the defenders , from one or both sides of the structure . Finally , boulevards were laid out , partly in the north ditch , to permit rapid movement from one point to another of the fortress , in case of attacks on different parts of the castle ; this anticipated the fortresses of the 17th century . Second system of defence . The earthworks and barbican were only designed to postpone the danger to the heart of the castle , the residential part . This was equally strengthened . Six towers were built - four round towers in the corners , and two towers in the middles of the curtain , a square on in the west and a round tower in the south . The towers allowed greater cover of the curtains : defenders could fire on the sides of assailants who were attacking at the foot of the wall between two towers . These high towers served , as in the mediaeval castles , to protect the walls thanks to their design . Their height was a guarantee against scaling . The innovation was the treatment of the top , reinforced to provide an artillery platform . The corbel s supporting the walkway were replaced with inverted pyramids , much more solid and able to support a much heavier weight - an artillery piece , its carriage and supplies . Changing fortunes of the castle from the 16th to the 18th century . When Bérenger died in 1530 , the castle was not yet adapted for siege warfare , but it remained an imposing fortress . His son Charles squandered his fortune ( on his beautiful wife Blanche de Lettes de Montpezat , it seems ) and his sons Honrat and Antoine inherited a reduced fortune . During the Wars of Religion , the two brothers fought in opposite camps , and the castle was taken in 1563 . A first restoration took place in 1572 . In debt , Antoine had to give the fortress to the lord of Pardhaillan in 1618 , before being able to buy it back several years later . His son Antoine - Alexandre was a marquis , but passed on to his only daughter Marie - Gilberte a castle in a poor state and empty coffers . Married from the death of her father ( 8 July 1639 ) to the Marquis of Coligny - Saligny , she devoted herself to the repair and maintenance of the castle . She remarried in 1655 to Claude - Yves de Tourzel , Marquis of Allègre , with whom she had a daughter who married Seignelay , minister of the Colbert family . François de Roquefeuil , a distant relative with some claim to the castle , took possession of it in 1656 , kept and pillaged it for almost a year before abandoning it . Marie - Gilberte lived in Paris for the last years of her life , and abandoned the château de Bonaguil , until her death in 1699 . It passed next to François - Gaspard de Montpeyroux , a soldier who almost never lived there , then to his sister , who sold it in 1719 to Jean - Antoine de Pechpeyrou - Beaucaire . His son sold the castle to Marguerite de Fumel , widow of Emmanuel de Giversac , in 1761 , who carried out some works to make it more comfortable . Embellishments of the 18th century . Marguerite de Fumel stayed regularly at the Château de Bonaguil . She converted the castle , notably in the dwelling P in the plan . In this period , the earthworks to the west of the castle were enlarged and laid out as a large terrace and became a pleasant promenade . New apartments were built in the south , outside the inner wall , thus benefitting from a better outlook . The lady of the manor gave feasts . The seven drawbridges became fixed bridges . A part of the ramparts was demolished to give a view over the valley . The French Revolution and restorations . It was the nephew of Marguerite de Fumel , Joseph - Louis de Fumel who inherited in 1788 . He fled in October 1789 , and the castle was declared " bien national " ( national property ) . The furniture was dispersed , the roofs , floors and wood panelling taken down . Following the Thermidor , the Fumels recovered the castle , but did not live there , and sold it . It passed from owner to owner until it was purchased in 1860 by the " commune " of Fumel , who obtained the classification " Monument historique " ( 1862 ) and began some restoration work by B Cavailler in 1868 and by the " arrondissement " ' s architect A Gilles in 1876 . The architect from the " Monument historique " restored the keep between 1882 and 1886 . Other repairs were made between 1898 and 1900 , including covering the watch tower roof with stone tiles in 1900 . Further restoration works were carried out in 1948 - 1950 , 1977 and 1985 .