The ghosts of the old castle
Treesson is known in France no less than his luxurious counterparts from the Loire Valley. Although why, it would seem? It cannot boast of its enormous size, the interior decoration cannot be appreciated - Treesson is in private hands and is closed for visits. In addition, it is not so easy to get to - it is located almost in the center of Brittany, at the edge of the legendary Broceliande forest. Why, from year to year, does it attract so many curious travelers who are ready to make a detour just to admire it from afar?
My home is my castle
First, Tresesson has almost no competitors. The aforementioned Loire castles are in many ways similar, because they were born thanks to the same architectural fashion - a kind of giant carved caskets of the Renaissance.
Tresesson is not one of those - it was erected at the turn of the XIV-XV centuries, in the midst of the Hundred Years War. Brittany at that time was an uncomfortable and restless place, armed detachments of the British, French and the Bretons themselves roamed all over the country, challenging each other for the ownership of this land. But even more dangerous for the locals were gangs of dashing "soldiers of fortune", always ready to profit at someone else's expense (those who watched Verhoeven's film "Flesh and Blood" or read Conan Doyle's novel "The White Detachment" will understand what I mean).
Castle Tresesson is just an outstanding example of that era - the fortified possession of a middle-class feudal lord, forced to defend himself not so much from regular armies as from greedy neighbors and no less dangerous armed marauders. Earlier in France, and throughout Western Europe, such castles were built in thousands - only a few have survived to this day.
Tresesson survived mainly due to his provincial location - the main events of the War of the Breton Succession bypassed him, and during the times of French absolutism and the coming era of gunpowder, he was all the more unnecessary for anyone, because he had completely lost its military significance. The second factor thanks to which the castle has survived to this day is the constancy of ownership. While his less fortunate brethren passed from hand to hand and decayed from year to year, the owners kept the family property in perfect condition almost until the Revolution. Mainly thanks to them, today we can appreciate the walls of local reddish limestone, black roof tiles with a reflection, a stone bridge thrown over a wide moat filled with water and a powerful chatelet - a fortified entrance to the castle with two towers on the sides and a gallery for crossbowmen on top.
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During the day, Treesson is not only harsh, but also impressive - even in the middle of winter.
Heirloom ghosts of the Treesson family
And yet, the castle would never have achieved its current fame, if not for the stories of ghosts that once inhabited, and maybe now inhabit it. Traditions and legends, a noble family (extinct on the eve of the Revolution) left behind a lot, but only a few of them are directly or indirectly connected with ghosts
The first story: about the crusade and unsuccessful love
They say that sometimes at night near the entrance to the castle you can meet an unusual pair of lovers - a young man and a young girl appear out of nowhere, go to meet each other, and then retire towards the Broceliande forest. Rumor has it that this is the youngest offspring of the Tresesson family and his betrothed. The cruel father was against their marriage and sent his son to the Holy Land, from where he was not destined to return. His beloved, having learned about this, could not bear the melancholy and despair - literally a few days later she was gone. And after death, their souls do not find rest, again and again saying the last goodbye to each other!
Story two: about ghost gamblers
About three centuries ago, life in the castle turned into a living hell: every night, from behind the closed door of one abandoned room, screams, curses and sounds of blows were heard. No one dared to enter the cursed bedroom, the servants huddled by the fireplaces, clutching pokers in trembling hands - if you have to deal with the servants of Satan, what weapon can be better than a red-hot iron?
After a while, the brave man was found - one of the guests of the family became him. Taking a loaded pistol and a sword, in the evening he went to the sworn place. Little by little, the night came into its own, and the desperate fellow himself did not notice how he fell asleep.
He was awakened by the sounds of curses and slaps of cards - next to him, players who had come from nowhere were leading a noisy party, a pile of gold glittered on the table in the dim light of the candelabra. Without thinking twice, our hero unloaded the pistol into the air: the gamblers immediately disappeared, but the gold did not.
The story continued in the morning, when the guest claimed the rights to the mined coins. The owner did not agree with this and announced that everything found in the walls of the castle was the property of the Treesson family. According to rumors, the litigation reached the capital of Brittany and was considered in the Rennes parliament (before the Revolution, he had judicial powers). Whether this was exactly what I was unable to find out, but one thing I am sure - to summon the ghosts to the meeting as witnesses did not work.
Story Three: The White Lady
The most famous and at the same time the most authentic of the legends of the Treesson castle. The first record about it is dated 1824, and the actual events took place in the middle of the 18th century. The then owner was known as a good-natured person, and the peasants loved him, which cannot be said about poachers - he did not like them much, so those who wanted to hunt other people's game preferred to do their craft exclusively on dark moonless nights. It so happened that one of the local "Robin Hoods" was setting a snare near the castle and heard the sound of horse hooves nearby. It was too late to run, and the unlucky hunter barely managed to climb the nearest trunk. Holding his breath, he watched as several people in black came out of the carriage that had stopped just under a tree. They took out the shovels and hoes they had in store and quickly began to dig a hole.
When the work was finished, two more came out of the carriage: they roughly dragged the woman in a white wedding dress and brought her to the pit. The poacher was able to hear the words: "this is your grave"! The unhappy woman cried, wringing her hands and begging to be relieved of her terrible fate. She called them brothers, but the executioners were ruthless. "You have disgraced our family and will die here!" was their only answer.
Petrified with horror, the poacher watched as the unfortunate living was thrown into a pit and thrown with earth.
Not daring to provide immediate assistance, he hurried home and told his wife about everything. She scolded him for cowardice and forced him to call for help - together they rushed to the castle and hammered all the way into the gate. Having figured out what was the matter, Señor Tresesson called the servants, and the detachment went to the site of the tragedy. It took just a few minutes to save the unfortunate victim - she was taken out of the grave while still alive, but the poor woman gave up her ghost in the hands of the rescuers, unable to utter a word. Her name, as well as the names of the murderers and the details of this dark story remained unknown.
The body was buried according to Christian tradition, and a wedding dress, a veil and a crown of wilted flowers found shelter in the castle chapel, where they soon became the subject of a local marriage cult - for some unknown reason, they were believed to bring spouses happiness in love. The memory of the exact place of the terrible execution faded away along with the Tresesson family, and the "relics" disappeared in a stormy series of revolutionary events, which cannot be said about the ghost of the White Lady - they say that her silhouette can still be seen in the full moon near the old castle.
A. Golovlev