The Château de Rudelle is a 16th and 17th century castle in the commune of Muret. The castle is noted for its ancient chimneys and for murals painted on the third floor.
It was built by Guillaume de Rudelle, the son of Jean de Rudelle, a counsellor to the king. In 1783, Jean-Marie-Joseph Ingres, the father of the famous artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, stayed there and painted several ceilings. At the French Revolution, the property was taken as a national asset and sold at auction.
The building today has a reactangular plan within square towers at each corner. On the south, a square tower projects slightly. On the top floor, immediately below the roof, is a series of arcades on the north and south façades. Mullioned windows decorate the façade. The upper floors are reached by a wooden spiral staircase.
References:Carlsten is a stone fortress built on the orders of King Carl X of Sweden following the Treaty of Roskilde, 1658 to protect the newly acquired province of Bohuslän from hostile attacks. The site of Marstrand was chosen because of its location and its access to an ice free port. Initially a square stone tower was constructed, but by 1680 it was reconstructed and replaced by a round shaped tower. Successive additions to the fortress were carried out, by the inmates sentenced to hard labour, until 1860 when it was reported finished. The fortress was decommissioned as a permanent defense installation in 1882, but remained in military use until the early 1990s.
The fortress was attacked and sieged twice falling into enemy hands. In 1677 it was conquered by Ulrik Frederick Gyldenløve, the Danish military commander in Norway and in 1719 by the Norwegian Vice-Admiral Tordenskjold. At both occasions the fortress was returned to Swedish control through negotiations and treaties.