History

Although the name Ausone has been attached to this Saint Emilion estate for over four centuries, it is still not possible to claim with certainty that this property was the poet Ausonius’s Lucaniac villa dating back to the fourth century. However, at the foot of the estate, at the spot called La Gaffelière, important archeological remains can be found of a Gallo-Roman villa from late antiquity decorated with mosaics and which is called “La Villa du Palat”.

It is highly probable that the old medieval tower of the Château de Villeneuve belonging to François and Geffroy de Lescours in the 14th century, outside the walls of Saint Emilion on the plateau of « la Madeleine, was renamed the Tower of Ausonius around 1580 to 1590 by Geoffroy de La Chassaigne, a great antiques enthusiast and a translator of Seneca, and who was both the brother-in-law of Michel de Montaigne, the famous author of the “Essais”, and the uncle through marriage of the lord of the place Geoffroy de Lescours, and furthermore the grandson of the tutor of the latter.

His father, Joseph de La Chassaigne, the President and later the public prosecutor of the Bordeaux parliament, created the suburban villa of Ausone at Le Bouscat in 1563 in which he amassed numerous antiques and a sundial which he claimed dated back to Ausonius and on which he had engraved DEC.AVSON.COS.OLYMPIADE LXXXIII, suggesting a municipal consulate in Bordeaux in the 4th century for the poet Ausonius (from 354 to 357 AD).

Three dynasties have been at Ausone since the Middle Ages

Only three families have been the owners of the current prestigious estate of Ausone in St Émilion:

The Lescours family from the 13th to the 16th centuries
Jacques de Lescure and his heirs in the 17th century
The Chatonnet-Cantenat family from the end of the 17th century and the Dubois-Challon-Vauthier family who are of the same descent

The family of today’s descendants running Ausone goes back to 1690 when Pierre Chatonnet (1636-1728) was officially confirmed owner of the estate. He was succeeded by five woman descendants:

By Michèle Chatonnet, granddaughter of Pierre Chatonnet, who married Arnaud Cantenat in 1740,
By Jeanne-Aimée Cantenat, great-granddaughter of Arnaud, who married Gabriel-Victor Lafargue (the son of Jean Lafargue and Françoise Cantenat) in about 1840,
By Jeanne-Émila Raymond, first cousin of Jeanne-Aimée Cantenat, who married Jean Challon,
By Marie-Suzanne Challon the wife of Jean-Édouard Dubois,
By Cécile Dubois-Challon who married Octave-Ismaël Vauthier