The castle of Saint-Bonnet-les-Oules is one of those of the Forez plain whose position is the most beautiful; it dominates the village, and the view one enjoys is immense. We have in front of us Andrezieu-Bouthéon and its airport, then the puy of Saint-Romain, Monsupt, the mount of Uzore, Pierre-sur-Haute, and all this region of Montbrison, crenellated with old castles, around which legends float. In the last plan we can see the Forez mountains, also called the evening or sunset mountains, with Chalmazel dominating.

The castle is located in the center of the village of Saint-Bonnet-les-Oules, in the heart of a park of 1 hectare, plot 223 cadastral.

In the room on the first floor of the castle, at the level of the Keep, above the old jail, called "small dining room", formerly archive room, and also formerly billiard room, there are wall frescoes from the 17th century about Jason and the Golden Fleece and the legend of Pyramus and Thisbe.

The architect BRESSON was passionate about the Middle Ages and had carried out numerous researches throughout his career in order to get closer to the techniques of the masters of that time. This allowed him to give back the characters of their primitive architecture to the historical castles of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance that he had to restore.

In this context, the restoration of the castle of Saint-Bonnet-les-Oules is an exception in the whole of his works, since, instead of giving back all the character of a medieval castle to this prestigious building, he transformed it in a Renaissance style. He removed the low-pitched tile roofs and replaced them with high-pitched slate roofs, significantly raising the height of the castle.

He made large openings in the central part of the castle on the plain side to break the medieval aspect. He added a turret on the ground floor containing a spiral staircase, balconies and above all a central circular staircase with a large skylight topped by a glass roof.

The only room to which he gave a medieval touch is the castle's kitchen. Certainly recovering the stones of the old chapel, he will add stone vaults with a central pillar.

Inside, there is a beautiful antique furniture that catches the attention of the visitors: the bedrooms with their canopied beds, the large living room decorated with magnificent paintings representing Louis XV, the Dauphin, the Marshal of VILLEROY (who was intendant in Lyon of the Lyonnais-Forez Province), and Messire Gaspard de CORBEAU de MONTVERDUN, lord of Fontenelle, knight of Saint-Louis, founder of the dragoon regiment.

On the first floor is the vaulted kitchen with a black and white checkerboard floor, the large dining room opening onto a large balcony with a mosaic floor, the small dining room with frescoes on the ceiling and Aremberg parquet, the small living room, the large living room and the library with a herringbone parquet.

On the upper floors there are 21 rooms, and in the attic there are 6 servants' rooms, a linen room, a drying room for clothes..

At the session of the Academy on April 28, 1781, the sculptor of King Louis XVI, Pierre JULIEN, asked for the antique statue Atalanta to be made into a marble copy and had it transported to his workshop in the Louvre. This new statue was made for the baron de JUYS and bears the signature Julien sculpteur on the tree trunk. One can read about this statue in the book Les châteaux historiques du Forez by Auguste BROUTIN in 1883:

"There is nothing as charming as the almost aerial pose of this young girl competing with her rivals for the prize of the race. The foot that supports her seems to barely touch the ground; the pose of her body leaning forward, her two arms extended towards the goal that she seems to be touching already, are as graceful as natural

Maître Jacques-Octave VINCENT de SAINT-BONNET, famous lawyer of the bar of Lyon, and owner of the castle of Saint-Bonnet-les-Oules during all the first half of the XIXth century, had to defend Mademoiselle de La BALMONDIERE, owner in Lyon of the private mansion of the baron de JUYS, which she had acquired during the revolution. This mansion had a statue of the famous sculptor of King Louis XVI: the Atalanta by Pierre JULIEN. At the end of the trial, Me VINCENT de SAINT-BONNET refused to be paid. In gratitude for his generosity and his excellent work, Mademoiselle de La BALMONDIERE offered him the Atalante statue, which is now the centerpiece of the staircase of the castle, which is listed in the inventory of historical monuments.