Cordes Castle

A beautiful 15th-century château, remodeled internally in the 17th and 18th centuries by Marshal d'Allègre. The drawing room is decorated with remarkable 18th-century plasterwork (and features fine Louis XV furniture), and there is a vaulted guardroom with a monumental fireplace. The chapel contains a 16th-century marble altar and altarpiece. A remarkable recumbent effigy of Yves II d'Allègre, a companion of Bayard and Gaston de Foix, who fell at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512, is also located here. It was in this château that Paul Bourget set the plot of his novel "Le Démon de Midi" (The Midday Demon).

One of Cordès's attractions lies in its gardens and arbors, created in 1695 and designed by Le Nôtre: a rose garden, a pond, turrets, and views of the Puy de Dôme.