*Les demeures de la distinction* examines the role of country houses and their owners in nineteenth-century Haute-Vienne, a department in central France. Through the lens of châteaux and châtelains, the study explores how elite residences functioned as symbols of status, continuity, and local power during a period of major political, economic, and social change. The book situates these dwellings within the broader history of rural and regional society, considering how property, family identity, and social distinction shaped relationships between landowners and their communities. It is a historical investigation of architecture as evidence of social hierarchy, as well as of the châtelain as a figure in the transformation of provincial France.