In the religious wars of 16th and 17th centuries the château was a base for Huguenot forces, and in 1650 it was partly demolished by royal troops.

During World War II (1939–45) the château housed French troops and refugees from Alsace-Lorraine in 1940 and for several months it was partially occupied by some German units.

The present château, designed on a triangular plan, has five conical towers and a watchtower capped by slate roofs.

[2] The château, a few miles north of Angoulême and in fact in Angoumois, was later used as the country seat of the La Rochefoucauld family.

[2] Hostilities continued between their descendants, William VI of Angoulême (died 1179) and Guy IV of la Rochefoucauld, but had ceased by 1170 when they both attended the dedication of the church of Saint-Amant-de-Boixe.

Eleanor's mother was a Rochefoucauld, and due to the unsettled state of the country the young couple only stayed in safe and preferably well-fortified places in their journey from Bordeaux to Paris.

The castle was yielded reluctantly to Edward III of England's regent in France, John Chandos, on 25 October 1361.

[6] French troops commanded by the Duke of Bouillon and Geoffroy III of Rochefoucauld laid siege to the castle in 1380, but it did not yield until five years later.

In 1446 the Rochefoucaulds managed to obtain the king's pardon and permission to build a defensive wall and two towers in Verteuil to restore the traditional refuge of the villagers.

In 1567 the 6th national synod of the Reformed Church of France was held at the château, and the next year it was a rallying point for Huguenot troops that came to the aid of La Rochelle when it was besieged by Catholics.

[4] In 1650 François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) gathered more than 2,000 knights whom he led to Bordeaux to help the nobles in the second Fronde revolt.

The walls of the north wing were badly damaged, the towers dismantled, the drawbridge removed and the deep ditch that defended the northwest of the castle was partly filled.

The castle remained habitable, and in 1651 was visited by the Prince de Conti, but he was forced to withdraw by soldiers of the Queen's regiment.

The English agronomist Arthur Young in his account of a Journey to France in 1787 gave a detailed and flattering description of Verteuil, praising the agricultural improvements and the life of the population.

[15] At the time of the outbreak of the French Revolution (1789–99) there were excellent relations between the La Rochefoucauld family and the people of Verteuil.

According to Marquis de Amodio, nothing might have happened to the château if it had not been for Ruffec's Committee of Public Safety and the Convention member Gilbert Romme, who is credited with burning most of the archives at Verteuil and thirty portraits.

Hippolyte de La Rochefoucauld (1804–63), who had been minister plenipotentiary in Germany and Florence, brought a fine collection of furniture and 18th-century Venetian glass chandeliers when he retired.

He commissioned a copy of the statue by Didier Début on the facade of the Hôtel de Ville, Paris of the author of the Maximes.

[4] Research started by Count Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld, which had been interrupted by the war, uncovered a buried part of the castle dating to the 12th and 13th centuries, including the room that housed the drawbridge mechanism.

[4] The site was completely protected on 4 April 2017 as it was believed that the château, the interior courtyard and the land to the north may hold archaeological remains.

[4] The present château with its five conical towers and watchtower capped by slate roofs began to be built in the 15th century, and was altered and extended several times since then.

[25] Hippolyte's son, Count Aimery de La Rochefoucauld continued to collect the souvenirs of his ancestors, turning the château into a sort of family museum.

[23] From various symbolic motifs, the tapestries seem to have been made to celebrate a marriage, probably that of Anne of Brittany (1477–1514) and Louis XII of France (1462–1515).

[23] During the French Revolution, Ruffec's Comité de Surveillance ruled that the old tapestries of the château could be preserved, since they bore no royal insignia.