Let's get serious: this name was given to him by a colourful character, Henri Maurousel, who was a painter, evoked in connection with his painting of the rue Esclopière… and painter (yes, his trade was house painting, and his hobby was easel painting). In this house, which he had acquired and which he gave to the Syndicat d'initiatives de Clairac in 1958, he had created his museum which brought together all sorts of heterogeneous objects and bimbelotry as can be seen below. A resident of Clairac still has a letter from Charles Darmontal, president of the Société des amis de Montesquieu, addressed to Maurousel; he promises “without delay some documents… You will thus be able to start a 'Montesquieu chapel' which is missing in your beautiful museum – House of Montesquieu. I'm going to give you a historical overview of the house that you should call 'maison de Japhet', depending on the old hotel of Montesquieu”.
Montsquieu has been part of the Clairac mythology since his marriage with Jeanne de Lartigue, owner of Vivens, where he married his dear daughter Denise in 1745. But nothing proves that this house ever belonged to him; in 1821, it was the property of the “heirs of Martin Devin”. It is permissible to think – as M. Darmontal supposes – that the confusion comes from the fact that the semi-detached house, which has now disappeared, belonged in the 17th and 18th centuries to the Lartigue family, distant relatives of his wife.
Later, it was in this historic house that the historian Claude Martin created the Musée historique du vieux Clairac, where he deposited some of his collections as well as certain documents that the clairacais may have entrusted to him. For more than a decade, this museum was very much frequented, especially by the descendants of Huguenot emigrants, who came back in particular on the occasion of the great gathering it had organized in September 1978; alas, repeated thefts led Claude Martin to close this unique place. Today, Japhet's house, which still belongs to the commune, is awaiting restoration and a new use.
Son of Louis Gabriel Castex and Jeanne Malgrat, from Saint-Antoine-de-Ficalba, born in Agen, Fernand Castex (1904-1972) became Clairacais by his marriage in 1928 to Charlotte Cazenille, daughter of the hardware store of the Place Serres. After a year spent in Agen, they moved to Clairac, boulevard des Ormeaux. Sent to the health services in Alsace, when war was declared, he later joined the Resistance, working with Messrs Bize, Faget, Pons. After obtaining a diploma in radio-electrics, he opened a shop on Place Viçose, then rue Jean-Jaurès. It was in the 1950s that he began to paint: from then on, he produced a number of drawings, paintings, engravings… He illustrated certain books, such as one by Jean Caubet on Clairac. A series of his drawings by Clairac was even used to decorate plates that are now highly sought-after.
