This discovery caused a great stir, because it confirmed a rumor that had been circulating for a century, namely that one of the lords of the place had kidnapped and put his wife in the dungeon following a serious marital disagreement. The affair dated back to 1714. The Marquis Jean-Jacques de Montesquiou, who was at that time lord of Xaintrailles, married, despite his 54 years, with Hélène de Sabran, 33 years his junior and from a illustrious family from the South of France. His brother, Honoré de Sabran, was first chamberlain of the Duke of Orléans, who became Regent on the death of Louis XIV. The wife of the accommodating Honoré, Louise-Charlotte de Foix, was one of the most notorious mistresses of this great lord who was eager to get the party started. This may have led to confusion: it was rumored that Hélène de Sabran had also been one of the Regent's mistresses, which no reliable document could confirm.
Philippe d'Orléans left the memory of a very dissolute life. As for Hélène, particularly beautiful, she was said to have had, despite her youth, many lovers before her marriage. The historian Philippe Lauzun describes her thus, as she appeared in a painting that has now disappeared: “The proud and haughty eye, the thin and slender waist, tight in a Pompadour bodice, the quiver on the shoulder , bow in hand, and two beautiful greyhounds lying at his sides.” And he adds: “We sense in her the nobility of the race, the great lady of the Regency. »
Violent arguments
However, the good days of youth having only a short time, the beauty resolved to make an honorable end by getting married. But such was the lot of women at that time, that she did not have a penny of dowry. She resolved to marry this richly endowed Gascon gentleman, hoping to make up for her deplorable deficit in personal wealth. Once the marriage was completed, taking advantage of the advantage that her beauty and youth gave her, Hélène was given considerable property by the Marquis de Montesquiou. Having eyes only for the charms of his young wife, and totally blind as to her sulphurous past, the old husband consented to all her requests.
“I saw, with my own eyes, the staircase, the cellar and the remains of this person walled up in this dungeon”
However, the beauty abused the windfall and demanded more and more. However, she made the mistake of showing herself to be more and more rapacious, then faced with the reluctance of the husband who was beginning to see things clearly, she revealed herself to be perfectly odious. Violent arguments broke out so much so that the rumor of the couple's disagreement did not fail to spread throughout the village. Then one day, this noise stopped, and no one in Xaintrailles saw Hélène de Sabran again.
A skeleton discovered
This is how the rumor was born and spread according to which the exasperated husband had thrown the beautiful Hélène into some low-lying assholes. Rumor which was perpetuated from generation to generation until, in 1838, the discovery, under the dungeon, of this female skeleton, confirmed the terrible suspicions.
Baron Haussmann, who was then sub-prefect of Nérac, witnessed this discovery, and recounts it in his Memoirs: “While re-laying the slabs of the interior courtyard of the castle, workers had just uncovered a small staircase going down to the entrance to a sort of dungeon, under the dungeon, in which were the bones of a human body: a skull still garnished with a few hairs and scraps of gold and silver fabric. I saw, with my own eyes, the staircase, the cellar and the remains of this person walled up in this dungeon. »
It could, of course, only be the “remains” of Hélène de Sabran.
Rumor… and history
Except that serious historians then took up the matter, consulted the acts and the chronology. Before a notary, the couple separated in 1720, six years after their marriage, and Hélène de Sabran then left Xaintrailles, nevertheless taking the money that her husband had imprudently allocated to her.
No longer seeing her, the shouts of dispute having ceased, local imaginations became inflamed. But other notarial acts revealed that the unfortunate Jean-Jacques died in 1730, while Hélène de Sabran died in her turn, far from Xaintrailles, three decades later, in 1763, at the age of sixty. , not without having initiated endless lawsuits against the heirs of the late marquis.
What remains is the mystery of these bones on which scraps of rich clothing remained. Mystery, indeed… But one thing is certain: it is impossible that these were the remains of Hélène de Sabran, which her husband, too happy to get rid of, certainly did not think to sequester!
