Huriel

Huriel was a walled town and barony in the Bourbonnais near Montluçon. Its stone keep, later known as La Toque, and the church of Notre-Dame preserve the medieval relationship between fortified lordship and a Benedictine priory. The lordship passed to the de Brosse family through marriage in 1265, and they retained it into the later fifteenth century. Their history gave Huriel connections with the wider conflicts of the French kingdom.

Louis I de Brosse died at the battle of Poitiers in 1356. Jean I de Brosse, lord of Huriel and Boussac, entered royal service under Charles VII, became marshal of France in 1426 and participated in the campaigns alongside Joan of Arc in 1429. Later inheritance and partition carried Huriel through several other families before it passed to the Bartillats in 1673. Étienne Jehannot de Bartillat served Louis XIV as a royal secretary, councillor and guardian of the royal treasury. Thus the small barony's history joined local fortification and ecclesiastical life with military and financial service to successive French kings.