Château de Beaulieu (Lathuy)

A large white villa behind a wall and gate has the appearance of a castle here...

A beautiful driveway - with a fairly recent iron wayside cross at the beginning - takes you to this 'castle' that has a beautiful domain behind it with quite a few special trees and a large pond. The castle, as a plaque at the entrance says, was inhabited by a certain baron Jean-Pierre de Beaulieu, actually Jean-Pierre baron de Beaulieu-Marconnay in full and Johann Peter von Beaulieu in German. Why in German? Well, Jean-Pierre, J-P to his friends, was born in Lathuy in 1725. And that was part of the Austrian Netherlands at the time. And J-P became a general in the Austrian army where he fought against the Prussians during the Seven Years' War and against the French during the First Coalition War. In the battle against the French, led by a young man named Napoleon, Beaulieu became an artillery general and commander of the Austrian army in Italy. In 1796, however, he was replaced because he had not succeeded in stopping Bonaparte's troops. He died in 1819 in Linz, Austria, on his estate at the ripe old age of 94. So he did not stay here very often. But the domain is still worth it. The castle you see here is not the first one. The first was built around 1777 by the lord general and a second one was built in 1803. Only a few elements of the first castles remain due to destruction during the war. At the end of the 19th century, the castle came into the hands of the Pastur family. That is the same family that bought the castle in Jodoigne that later became known as Pastur Castle - see komoot.com/nl-nl/highlight/5965104Finally: in Lathuy you can follow a 'de Beaulieu walk', information board near the church.

Nice walk full of greenery with a little more boring weather at the segment in the fields but could be shortened by leaving the gravel and going through the path along the grove. Nice discovery!