Brûlain

Watered by the Courance river, the village of Brûlain was in the hands of the Lusignan family in the 12th century. In 1716, the parish had 43 tenant farms. In his Etat de l'élection de Niort, the subdelegate Laurent Chebrou wrote: "Many ewes and brood mares are reared here, most of them suitable for carriages.... It has the finest stud farms for horses and bullocks in the whole province". In 1817, Baptiste-Paul Grimaud, the inventor of the reversible map with the two-headed portrait, was born in the commune. He had a pump and a washhouse installed in the village, and provided the municipal library with a large number of books. The tradition of livestock farming continues to this day, with two farms turning their milk production into cheese and butter.

Worth seeing: château de la Mothe-du-Bois, gentilhommière de Bourgneuf, Saint-Martin church.