Nérac

Nérac (; , ) is a commune in the Lot-et-Garonne department, Southwestern France. The composer and organist Louis Raffy was born in Nérac, as was the former Arsenal and Bordeaux footballer Marouane Chamakh and Admiral Francois Darlan.

==History== Nérac appears at the beginning of the 11th century as a possession of the monks of St Pierre de Condom. The lords of Albret gradually deprived them of their authority over the town, and at the beginning of the 14th century founded a castle on the left bank of the Baïse. In the 16th century the castle was the residence of Henry IV during much of his youth and of Marguerite de Navarre, sister of Francis I, of Jeanne d'Albret, and of Margaret of Valois, wife of Henry IV, who held a brilliant court there. Nérac, the inhabitants of which had adopted Calvinism, was seized by the Catholics in 1562. The conferences, held there at the end of 1578 between the Catholics and Protestants, ended in February 1579 in the peace of Nérac. In 1580 the town was used by Henry IV as a base for attacks on Agenais, Armagnac and Guienne. A for Guienne and a were established there by Henry. In 1621, however, the town took part in the Protestant rising, was taken by the troops of Louis XIII and its fortifications dismantled. Soon after it was deprived both of the and of the , and its ruin was completed by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.