Château d'Escoire

The castle dates from the second half of the 18th century. Since 1954, it has been listed as a historical monument for its facades and roofs. From the 1950s to the late 1970s, this castle was a holiday destination for the children of the Parisian company LMT ("Le Matériel Téléphonique"), acquired by Thomson, then by Thales. Abandoned for years, the Château d'Escoire in 2015 is owned by Sylvie and Tase Kordalov, originally from Macedonia but former hoteliers in Gacé in Normandy, who live in one wing, while the other part was for a time operated as bed and breakfast rooms.

On the night of October 24-25, 1941, the castle was the scene of a triple murder that remains unsolved and in which Henri Girard, future writer, known under the pseudonym of Georges Arnaud, was involved. He notably published in 1950 Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear), a novel that sold two million copies and was adapted for the screen in 1953 by Henri-Georges Clouzot in a cult film. In the early morning, Henri Girard, then twenty-four years old, discovered the bodies of his father Georges Girard, owner of the castle, archivist-paleographer, curator of the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, his aunt Amélie, and their domestic servant, Louise Marie Soudeix. Henri, who had slept in a wing of the castle, informed the estate's caretakers that he had found the three victims killed with a billhook. Due to the mysterious circumstances of the tragedy (no witnesses, no motive, no signs of forced entry), Henri was suspected of the murder, arrested, and spent nineteen months in prison until his trial. Defended by master Maurice Garçon, he was finally acquitted, for lack of evidence, on June 3, 1943. This news item received extensive media coverage at the time and subsequently inspired several books and television programs, notably the novel La Serpe (Femina Prize) by Philippe Jaenada, who defends Henri Girard's innocence, contrary to the crime narrative La Serpe rouge (Moissons Noires, 2021) by Nan Aurousseau and Jean-François Miniac. For lawyer Maurice Garçon and writer Philippe Jaenada, a plausible hypothesis is the guilt of René Taulu, renamed Fernand Doulet by Jaenada in his book, the son of the sharecroppers and caretakers of the estate, Romain and Victoria (in the book, Saturnin and Yvonne). After the war, the castle was sold at auction, bought by Ferdinand Lagueyrie from La Rivière-de-Mansac (Corrèze) and operated by him and his son-in-law Antoine Peyramaure. In June 2021, director Patrick Schmitt, Albert-Londres prize winner in 1989, filmed the two authors of La Serpe rouge there for an episode of the television series Des Crimes presque parfaits (Planète channel). In 2025, Henri Girard's daughter, Catherine Girard, claims that her father told her he was the culprit and develops this idea in her work In violentia veritas. The accusation against George Arnaud made in La Serpe rouge is corroborated by Catherine Girard's testimony in In Violentia veritas.

List of castles and residences in Dordogne List of historical monuments in the arrondissement of Périgueux

Resource related to architecture: Mérimée

Périgueux and its agglomeration portal French castles portal French historical monuments portal