Témoignages de nos hôtes
à travers le monde
Having known the Combes family in 2003, I have been fortunate to have spent many stays at the Château de Garrevagues over the years. The welcome of the family and Marie-Christine especially is out of the extraordinary. She makes everybody feel welcome, at home and always knows how to touch people’s hearts and minds. It is the personality of Marie-Christine as a host that makes a stay at Chateau de Garrevaques an exceptional moment, enjoying the beautiful, well maintained Chateau with all its history and stories and the beautiful surroundings of the Lauragais. To me and my family the Chateau and the Combes Family are home and family. Thank you for all you give to all those that come and go!
Maggie Bergsma
Château de Garrevaques
Château’s children
Henry de Gineste (1838-1903) governs a well-knit house, where everyone seems to have no concern but to make others happy. His home is bathed in an open, amused and easy atmosphere, where parents and children love each other with a simple, obvious love, without any more difficulties. In this anthology of photos, exhumed from old family albums, we discover this Garrevaques who had vocation to be the house of happiness. In these portraits, there is his offspring but also many children who were familiar to him, and are for me, complete strangers.
Wooden playhouse, old toys, dolls' pram, lead soldiers, earthenware dinette from another century ... will be the joy of generations of children, and among them, mine!
A word about education ...
Among the educational principles of Henry de Gineste, the practice of foreign languages!
The count had a passionate dislike of the French southwestern accent, and watched carefully that his "little ones" could not, under any pretext, adopt the sunny intonations of the region. His 4 children spoke mostly English; all were bilingual, thanks to the energetic Mrs. Cockright, their teacher, landed from South Africa.
The use of the language of the hereditary Enemy Bothered her own mother, Marie de Gineste (1813-1892), whom the grandchildren called "Mimi Vieille". She amused herself by writing rhymes in local dialect, on melodies of Protestant hymns; then she tried to teach them to all her descendants.