The Château de la Mogère is one of many follies surrounding Montpellier, built by wealthy merchants in the 18th century. In 1706, the grounds of la Mogère were purchased by Fulcran Limouzin. In 1715, architect Jean Giral drew the plan for La Mogère, giving it the appearance it still has today.
Its harmonious façade is topped off by a pediment, standing against a background of pine trees, all in Renaissance-style.
The grounds and interior, currently owned by the Viscount Gaston de Saporta, are open for visits. The interior has been kept intact since the 18th century, displaying antique furniture and family portraits from the last three centuries. Amongst the painters represented here are Jean Jouvenet, Hyacinthe Rigaud and Jacques-Louis David.
The garden is a mixture of English garden and formal garden style and houses a large fountain built up out of thousands of little seashells and carrying a number of cherubs.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).