Montcigoux castle is located north of the village of Saint-Pierre-de-Frugie, in the Dordogne, 10 km south of Chalus (town in the Haute-Vienne department).
It is originally a medieval fortress from the 12th century which was the setting for a battle between the English and the French during the Hundred Years War.
Of this first building now only remains a round tower on which rests a chartreuse (isolated residence) of character, built in the 17th century.
The site remained famous after a skeleton (known as Ernest by the local population) was discovered under the floor of an outbuilding in 1913.
Very quickly a legend was forged according to which it These were the remains of a former owner who left to make his fortune and was killed on his return by his brother. This news item on the background of incest (Ernest would have had an affair with his sister hence the murder perpetrated by the brother...) was popularized by a journalist in the 1930s and then the novelist Robert Margerit in his book "La Terre aux Wolves ", in 1958. Radio and television broadcasts maintain this version.
However, the expertise requested by new owners a few years ago ended up establishing a less scabrous truth: the famous skeleton dates from the Middle Ages (13th or 14th century) and death would have been natural.
The castle is still private but its noble silhouette and the legends with which it was associated can justify a hike in this green region on the borders of Périgord and Limousin.
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