Conserved amidst the castle archives, the correspondance and notes of these two brothers
is a lively and humourous testimony to the XIXth century society, culture and daily life.

Jules de Gounon-Loubens (1813-1894)

A marine officer at first, Jules then dedicated his life to scholarly studies. He was a great erudite with astonishing knowledge.

Then he traveled a lot through Europe and north Africa and wrote books on the Romane langage, on XVIth century Castille, as well as number manuscript studies enriched with very high quality drawings.

One of the former grain attics is now dedicated to a small museum displaying his works. One can see there a great number of his travel notes with precise and detailled drawings. An audio recording invites the visitors to also listen to the reading of some of the correspondance he exchanged with his brother.

Victor de Gounon-Loubens (1811-1892)

After studying at the Polytechnics school, Victor became a student at the painter Ingres workshop in Paris. Then, he traveled a great amount in Europe and resided at the Villa Medicis in Rome. At this time, he copied some famous paintings, some of them can still be seen in Loubens.

Back in Paris, he found many of his friends. Among them, Gérard de Nerval who sent to him two letters , considered some of the most important pieces of correspondance he wrote, Théophile Gauthier and Viollet Le Duc, who praised Victor's spirit and sens of humour.

The association Mémoire pour demain has published several annotated collections of his and his friends letters.