The Chateau Besieged

Vengeance gives strength to our arms.

--Motto of the Barons de Portal

The chateau itself, looming against the skies of Languedoc, looks like the scene of a Gothic melodrama. Turkeys roost on the veranda, and assorted dogs and cats prowl the courtyard where lilacs bloom. In an unburied coffin lies the late Baron Leonce de Portal, whose family title dates back seven centuries. The new baron, Jean-Louis de Portal, has been holding off the police at rifle point for more than six weeks.

The old baron was born here during la Belle Epoque, and grew up on this 314-acre estate in Saint-Nauphary, in southwestern France. The flourishing vineyards produced excellent wines, named for the estate, La Fumade. The baron married, had a son, and lived a life of rural gentility, trying none too skillfully to manage his estate, getting through the lean years with loans added to the mortgage. By the end of World War II, the baron's fortunes were as dilapidated as his estate; his wife and son were dead, the vineyards diseased. Then, in 1950, at the age of 66, the baron discovered and married an attractive young Polish woman, Anna Niepokul-wiska. She soon bore him a son, and then a daughter, Marie-Agnes.

His new wife also took charge of the chaotic household finances and began checking on the baron's various bills, some of which he had accepted without verifying. She suspected that neighboring tradesmen had been cheating the unwary baron. Her accusations met with indignation among the townspeople, who had mistrusted her from the first--a foreigner, a Catholic in a largely Protestant area, and, worst of all, a former domestic servant. The baroness responded by taking a number of disputed bills to court.

Litigation dragged through the years, and the family struggled on. The old baron suffered a paralyzing stroke ten years ago; the baroness continued trying to manage the estate. Then a local merchant who had long sold grain and seed and rented farm machinery to the De Portals presented a bill for $14,000. The family charged that it was a fraud. Before the matter could be resolved, a judge ordered the estate sold at auction. Though it was worth an estimated $330,000, a farmer named Louis Riviere made the high bid of $88,000, and the outstanding mortgages meant there would be nothing left for the De Portals.

Threats. When Riviere tried to take over his property, the baroness met him at the door and threatened to kill him. Riviere filed charges against the baroness, who was sentenced to four months in jail. Riviere again tried to take over, but the young baron took a pot shot at him and warned him away. In late February Riviere got the police to accompany him to the chateau, but when they tried to enter, Marie-Agnes shouted: "Not another step. My brother is armed. We will fire on you and commit suicide." A few minutes later the baroness returned from an errand in the village, got into a loud argument with the police and was hauled off to jail. "Do not surrender!" she cried to the children as she was led away.

And so the siege began. Jean-Louis, by now 21, would let nobody approach the house except the mailman, the baker, a social worker and a doctor who came to treat the bedridden old baron. Two weeks ago the baron finally died, at 89, but the children refused to bury the body until their mother returned.

The authorities agreed to drop all charges against the baroness, and they even provided a coffin for her husband. Then new problems kept arising. Grave diggers who came to prepare the baron's final resting place were driven off by a swarm of bees.

At last report the gendarmerie were still circling the chateau, the armed children were standing guard, and the baroness was shouting from the upper windows threats of new lawsuits against all who had wronged the noble house of De Portal.

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