Photo : Florent Pécassou / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Château de Montaner
The château de Montaner is a former fortress at Montaner, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, in the Béarn. Gaston Fébus had it built between 1374 and 1380 to guard the borders of the Béarn against Bigorre and Armagnac; Sicard de Lordat was its architect. Built of brick, it comprises a polygonal enclosure, two gatehouses and a tall square keep.
The keep, about forty metres high, rests on a perfect square plan 13.70 metres wide. Above the door, the arms of Foix-Béarn and the motto "Fébus me fe" are carved in limestone. The roof timbers, completed in 1398, were made by Cagot carpenters in exchange for tax relief.
The castle passed from Jean d'Albret to Jean I de Foix. Managed by the département since 1854, it has been restored since 1962 by volunteers who hold a summer medieval festival there. The keep and the ruins of the enclosure have been listed since 1980, the whole site since 2021. In 2025, its management passed to a private company.
