In the 17th century, there was a ruined castle and a mill there. The land and estates belonged mostly to the local Gondi family. The remaining, smaller part was royal property.
Louis XIII, who often visited these game-rich areas for hunting, occasionally stayed in a medieval castle and even a mill.
In 1623, the king ordered a small hunting lodge to be built in place of the mill, where he stayed for the first time in 1624. This residence, sometimes ridiculed as a card castle (house of cards), was so small that it did not even have quarters for the queen.
