The Force Scrapbook
Items from Ken's tour through South-West France
Notes on Fourcès

Fourcès is staggeringly pretty, with its round bastide with trees on the site of the original castle. It is partly surrounded by the River Auzoue, which moves so slowly that it is full of water lilys. However, this gentle stream is responsible for Fourcès being developed as a fortified site. It appears on a map of 1020 but the first indication in official records is from 1086, when it is recorded that the Seigneure of Fourcès had the right to raise taxes,to form an army, to have a judiciary and to exert vassalage, but its fortunes declined and by the end of the century, the ruling family was involved in an abortive revolt against the powerful Duke of Aquitaine. This was one of the early Bernards, trying to keep a purely nominal allegeance to France rather than have a more seriously imposed one to England.

It seems that the bastide was built after this & is unique in Gascony by being circular, that is, a more modern circular castle was built in the middle, surrounded by a moat (now the road). This is now the wooded area. Ken suspects that, as there is another circular bastide at La Force in Aude Departement (town website) (South-West of Carcassonne), the family may have been at La Force before Fourcès & imported this Languedocian design into Gascony. See also the rather thin La Force (Aude) page in the scrapbook.

There is a big gap in the record here. However, in the 1279 treaty of Amiens, the village passed into the hands of the English King Edward 1st and the Seigneurs of Fources swore allegiance to him. This was to last throughout the "Hundred Year's War" until when, in 1352 the village reverted to the French crown. At that time Guillaume and Jourdain de Fourcès were the local lords. In 1378, Thomelin de Fourcès accompanied Constable Duguesclin on his Spanish campaign.

The castle was destroyed on May 13th 1488 by Charles VII for unspecified crimes by the seigneur. The 'new' castle was built just outside the bastide, on the banks of the Auzoue, in 1491 by our ancestor Sir Bernard de la Force, who retired to Fourcès the following year after a lifetime of diplomacy between the powers of Western Europe (see this link for the story) & apparently, owned a third of the village, (see this link for the family tree). His son Bernard seems to have continued as the Lord of Fourcès but, since Ken is descended from his younger brother Anthony, he has no further information about Fourcès at this time. If he acquires any, it will be posted up here. Note that there are references to both Bernard & Anthony in Ann Rowe's book "Perkin - a study in deception", about Perkin Warbeck/Richard, Duke of York (take your pick).

The people of Fourcès are justifiably proud of their record in World War II for smuggling downed allied airmen into Spain but that is another story.