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ROYAL PALACES AND PARKS OF FRANCE
* * * * *
_WORKS OF
FRANCIS MILTOUN_
_Rambles on the Riviera_ $2.50
_Rambles in Normandy_ 2.50
_Rambles in Brittany_ 2.50
_The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine_ 2.50
_The Cathedrals of Northern France_ 2.50
_The Cathedrals of Southern France_ 2.50
_In the Land of Mosques and Minarets_ 3.00
_Royal Palaces and Parks of France_ 3.00
_Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country_ 3.00
_Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces_ 3.00
_Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy and the Border Provinces_ 3.00
_Italian Highways and Byways from a Motor Car_ 3.00
_The Automobilist Abroad_ net 3.00
(_Postage Extra_)
_L. C. Page and Company_
_53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass._
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Terrace of Henri IV, Saint Germain_ (_See page 286_)]
[Illustration]
ROYAL PALACES AND PARKS OF FRANCE
by
FRANCIS MILTOUN
Author of "Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine," "Castles
and Chateaux of Old Burgundy," "Rambles in Normandy,"
"Italian Highways and Byways
from a Motor-Car," etc.
With Many Illustrations
Reproduced from paintings made on the spot by Blanche Mcmanus
Boston
L. C. Page & Company
1910
Copyright, 1910.
by L. C. Page & Company.
(Incorporated)
All rights reserved
First Impression, November, 1910
Printed by
The Colonial Press
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U. S. A.
Preface
"A thousand years ago, by the rim of a tiny spring, a monk who had
avowed himself to the cult of Saint Saturnin, robed, cowled and
sandalled, knelt down to say a prayer to his beloved patron saint.
Again he came, this time followed by more of his kind, and a wooden
cross was planted by the side of the "Fontaine Belle Eau," by this
time become a place of pious pilgrimage. After the monk came a
king, the latter to hunt in the neighbouring forest."
It was this old account of fact, or legend, that led the author and
illustrator of this book to a full realization of the wealth of historic
and romantic incidents connected with the French royal parks and
palaces, incidents which the makers of guidebooks have passed over in
favour of the, presumably, more important, well authenticated facts of
history which are often the bare recitals of political rises and falls
and dull chronologies of building up and tearing down.
Much of the history of France was made in the great national forests and
the royal country-houses of the kingdom, but usually it has been only
the events of the capital which have been passed in review. To a great
extent this history was of the gallant, daring kind, often written in
blood, the sword replacing the pen.
At times gayety reigned supreme, and at times it was sadness; but always
the pageant was imposing.
The day of pageants has passed, the day when lords and ladies moved
through stately halls, when royal equipages hunted deer or boar on royal
preserves, when gay cavalcades of solemn corteges thronged the great
French highways to the uttermost frontiers and ofttimes beyond. Those
days have passed; but, to one who knows the real France, a ready-made
setting is ever at hand if he would depart a little from the beaten
paths worn smooth by railway and automobile tourists who follow only the
lines of conventional travel.
France, even to-day, the city and the country alike, is the paradise of
European monarchs on a holiday. One may be met at Biarritz on the shores
of the Gascon gulf; another may be taking the waters at Aix or Vichy,
shooting pigeons under the shadow of the Tete de Chien, or hunting at
Rambouillet. This is modern France, the most cosmopolitan meeting place
and playground of royalty in the world.
French royal parks and palaces, those of the kings and queens of
mediaeval, as well as later, times, differ greatly from those of other
lands. This is perhaps not so much in their degree of splendour and
luxury as in the sentiment which attaches itself to them. In France
there has ever been a spirit of gayety and spontaneity unknown
elsewhere. It was this which inspired the construction and maintenance
of such magnificent royal residences as the palaces of Saint
Germain-en-Laye, Fontainebleau, Versailles, Compiegne, Rambouillet,
etc., quite different from the motives which caused the erection of the
Louvre, the Tuileries or the Palais Cardinal at Paris.
Nowhere else does there exist the equal of these inspired royal
country-houses of France, and, when it comes to a consideration of their
surrounding parks and gardens, or those royal hunting preserves in the
vicinity of the Ile de France, or of those still further afield, at
Rambouillet or in the Loire country, their superiority to similar
domains beyond the frontiers is even more marked.
In plan this book is a series of itineraries, at least the chapters are
arranged, to a great extent in a topographical sequence; and, if the
scope is not as wide as all France, it is because of the prominence
already given to the parks and palaces of Touraine and elsewhere in the
old French provinces in other works in which the artist and author have
collaborated. It is for this reason that so little consideration has
been given to Chambord, Amboise or Chenonceaux, which were as truly
royal as any of that magnificent group of suburban Paris palaces which
begins with Conflans and ends with Marly and Versailles.
Going still further afield, there is in the Pyrenees that chateau, royal
from all points of view, in which was born the gallant Henri of France
and Navarre, but a consideration of that, too, has already been included
in another volume.
The present survey includes the royal dwellings of the capital, those of
the faubourgs and the outlying districts far enough from town to be
recognized as in the country, and still others as remote as Rambouillet,
Chantilly and Compiegne. All, however, were intimately connected with
the life of the capital in the mediaeval and Renaissance days, and
together form a class distinct from any other monumental edifices which
exist, or ever have existed, in France.
Mere historic fact has been subordinated as far as possible to a recital
of such picturesque incidents of the life of contemporary times as the
old writers have handed down to us, and a complete chronological review
has in no manner been attempted.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY 13
II. THE EVOLUTION OF FRENCH GARDENS 14
III. THE ROYAL HUNT IN FRANCE 43
IV. THE PALAIS DE LA CITE AND TOURNELLES 61
V. THE OLD LOUVRE AND ITS HISTORY 75
VI. THE LOUVRE OF FRANCIS I AND ITS SUCCESSORS 85
VII. THE TUILERIES AND ITS GARDENS 106
VIII. THE PALAIS CARDINAL AND THE PALAIS
ROYAL 131
IX. THE LUXEMBOURG, THE ELYSEE AND THE
PALAIS BOURBON 151
X. VINCENNES AND CONFLANS 168
XI. FONTAINEBLEAU AND ITS FOREST 180
XII. BY THE BANKS OF THE SEINE 203
XIII. MALMAISON AND MARLY 215
XIV. SAINT CLOUD AND ITS PARK 229
XV. VERSAILLES: THE GLORY OF FRANCE 244
XVI. THE GARDENS OF VERSAILLES AND THE TRIANONS 260
XVII. SAINT GERMAIN-EN-LAYE 279
XVIII. MAINTENON 296
XIX. RAMBOUILLET AND ITS FOREST 309
XX. CHANTILLY 324
XXI. COMPIEGNE AND ITS FOREST 342
INDEX 363
[Illustration: List of Illustrations]
PAGE
TERRACE OF HENRI IV, SAINT GERMAIN (_see page 286_) _Frontispiece_
THE LOUVRE, THE TUILERIES AND THE PALAIS ROYAL OF TO-DAY _facing_ 12
"JARDIN FRANCAIS--JARDIN ANGLAIS" 15
HENRI IV IN AN OLD FRENCH GARDEN _facing_ 20
PARTERRE DE DIANE, CHENONCEAUX 27
PLAN OF SUNKEN GARDEN (JARDIN CREUX) 30
A PARTERRE _facing_ 32
BASSIN DE LA COURONNE, VAUX-LE-VICOMTE _facing_ 42
A "CUREE AUX FLAMBEAUX" _facing_ 46
AN IMPERIAL HUNT AT FONTAINEBLEAU _facing_ 52
RENDEZVOUS DE CHASSE, RAMBOUILLET _facing_ 56
BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF OLD PARIS (Map) _facing_ 74
THE XIV CENTURY LOUVRE _facing_ 82
THE LOUVRE _facing_ 90
ORIGINAL PLAN OF THE TUILERIES (Diagram) 106
SALLE DES MARECHAUX, TUILERIES _facing_ 116
THE GALLERIES OF THE PALAIS ROYAL 146
BOURBON-ORLEANS DESCENDANTS OF LOUIS PHILIPPE (Diagram) _facing_ 146
PALAIS DU LUXEMBOURG _facing_ 154
DOOR IN THRONE ROOM, LUXEMBOURG 156
THE PETIT LUXEMBOURG _facing_ 156
THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS _facing_ 158
THE THRONE OF THE PALAIS BOURBON 161
VINCENNES UNDER CHARLES V 168
CHATEAU DE VINCENNES _facing_ 172
A HUNT UNDER THE WALLS OF VINCENNES _facing_ 174
CONFLANS 176
ORIGINAL PLAN OF FONTAINEBLEAU 180
FROM PARIS TO FONTAINEBLEAU (Map) _facing_ 180
PALAIS DE FONTAINEBLEAU _facing_ 186
SALLE DU THRONE, FONTAINEBLEAU _facing_ 190
FRAGMENTS FROM FONTAINEBLEAU _facing_ 192
CHEMINEE DE LA REINE, FONTAINEBLEAU _facing_ 194
MONUMENT TO ROUSSEAU AND MILLET AT BARBISON _facing_ 200
CHATEAU DE BAGATELLE 204
CHATEAU DE MALMAISON _facing_ 218
THE GARDENS OF SAINT CLOUD _facing_ 236
THE CASCADES AT SAINT CLOUD _facing_ 240
COUR DE MARBRE, VERSAILLES _facing_ 264
THE POTAGER DU ROY, VERSAILLES _facing_ 270
THE BASSIN DE LATONE, VERSAILLES _facing_ 272
THE FOUNTAIN OF NEPTUNE, VERSAILLES _facing_ 274
PETIT TRIANON _facing_ 276
LAITERIE DE LA REINE, PETIT TRIANON 277
SAINT GERMAIN (Diagram) 280
THE VALLEY OF THE SEINE, FROM THE TERRACE AT SAINT
GERMAIN _facing_ 288
FAUTEUIL OF MME. DE MAINTENON 297
CHATEAU DE MAINTENON _facing_ 300
AQUEDUCT OF LOUIS XIV AT MAINTENON _facing_ 306
CHATEAU DE RAMBOUILLET (Diagram) 309
LAITERIE DE LA REINE, RAMBOUILLET _facing_ 312
CHATEAU DE RAMBOUILLET _facing_ 316
CHANTILLY (Diagram) 325
STATUE OF LE NOTRE, CHANTILLY _facing_ 326
CHATEAU DE CHANTILLY _facing_ 336
COMPIEGNE (Diagram) 343
NAPOLEON'S BEDCHAMBER, COMPIEGNE _facing_ 352
COURS DE COMPIEGNE _facing_ 356
Royal Palaces and Parks of France
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
The modern traveller sees something beyond mere facts. Historical
material as identified with the life of some great architectural glory
is something more than a mere repetition of chronologies; the sidelights
and the co-related incidents, though indeed many of them may be but
hearsay, are quite as interesting, quite as necessary, in fact, for the
proper appreciation of a famous palace or chateau as long columns of
dates, or an evolved genealogical tree which attempts to make plain that
which could be better left unexplained. The glamour of history would be
considerably dimmed if everything was explained, and a very seamy block
of marble may be chiselled into a very acceptable statue if the workman
but knows how to avoid the doubtful parts.
An itinerary that follows not only the ridges, but occasionally plunges
down into the hollows and turns up or down such crossroads as may have
chanced to look inviting, is perhaps more interesting than one laid out
on conventional lines. A shadowy something, which for a better name may
be called sentiment, if given full play encourages these side-steps, and
since they are generally found fruitful, and often not too fatiguing,
the procedure should be given every encouragement.
Not all the interesting royal palaces and chateaux of France are those
with the best known names. Not all front on Paris streets and quays, no
more than the best glimpses of ancient or modern France are to be had
from the benches of a sight-seeing automobile.
Versailles, and even Fontainebleau, are too frequently considered as but
the end of a half-day pilgrimage for the tripper. It were better that
one should approach them more slowly, and by easy stages, and leave them
less hurriedly. As for those architectural monuments of kings, which
were tuned in a minor key, they, at all events, need to be hunted down
on the spot, the enthusiast being forearmed with such scraps of historic
fact as he can gather beforehand, otherwise he will see nothing at
Conflans, Marly or Bourg-la-Reine which will suggest that royalty ever
had the slightest concern therewith.
Dealing first with Paris it is evident it is there that the pilgrim to
French shrines must make his most profound obeisance. This applies as
well to palaces as to churches. In all cases one goes back into the past
to make a start, and old Paris, what there is left of it, is still old
Paris, though one has to leave the grand boulevards to find this out.
Colberts and Haussmanns do not live to-day, or if they do they have
become so "practical" that a drainage canal or an overhead or
underground railway is more of a civic improvement than the laying out
of a public park, like the gardens of the Tuileries, or the building and
embellishment of a public edifice--at least with due regard for the best
traditions. When the monarchs of old called in men of taste and culture
instead of "business men" they builded in the most agreeable fashion. We
have not improved things with our "systems" and our committees of
"_hommes d'affaires_."
It is the fashion to-day to decry the cavaliers and the wearers of
"love-locks," but they had a pretty taste in art and an eye for artistic
surroundings, those old fellows of the sword and cloak; a much more
pretty taste than their descendants, the steam-heat and running-water
partisans of to-day. Louis XV and Empire drawing and dining-rooms are
everywhere advertised as the attractions of the great palace hotels, and
some of them are very good copies of their predecessors, though one
cannot help but feel that the clientele as a whole is more insistent on
telephones in the bedrooms and auto-taxis always on tap than with regard
to the sentiment of good taste and good cheer which is to be evoked by
eating even a hurried meal in a room which reproduces some historically
famous Salle des Gardes or the Chambre of the OEil de Boeuf of the
Louvre, if, indeed, most of the hungry folk know what their surroundings
are supposed to represent.
Any chronicle which attempts to set down a record of the comings and
goings of French monarchs is saved from being a mere dull chronology of
dates and resume of facts by its obligatory references to the architects
and builders who made possible the splendid settings amid which these
picturesque rulers passed their lives.
The castle builders of France, the garden designers, the architects,
decorators and craftsmen of all ranks produced not a medley, but a
coherent, cohesive whole, which stands apart from, and far ahead of,
most of the contemporary work of its kind in other lands. Castles and
keeps were of one sort in England and Scotland, of still another along
the Rhine, and if the Renaissance palaces and chateaux first came into
being in Italy it is certain they never grew to the flowering luxuriance
there that they did in France.
Thus does France establish itself as leader in new movements once again.
It was so in the olden time with the arts of the architect, the
landscape gardener and the painter; it is so to-day with respect to such
mundane, less sentimental things as automobiles and aeroplanes.
Another chapter, in a story long since started, is a repetition, or
review, of the outdoor life of the French monarchs and their followers.
Not only did Frenchmen of Gothic and Renaissance times have a taste for
travelling far afield, pursuing the arts of peace or war as their
conscience or conditions dictated; but they loved, too, the open country
and the open road at home; they loved also _la chasse_, as they did
tournaments, _fetes-champetres_ and outdoor spectacles of all kinds. Add
these stage settings to the splendid costuming and the flamboyant
architectural accessories of Renaissance times in France and we have
what is assuredly not to be found in other lands, a spectacular and
imposing pageant of mediaeval and Renaissance life and manners which is
superlative from all points of view.
This is perhaps hard, sometimes, to reconcile with the French attitude
towards outdoor life to-day, when _la chasse_ means the hunting of tame
foxes (a sport which has been imported from across the channel),
"_sport_" means a prize fight, and a garden party or a _fete-champetre_
a mere gossiping rendezvous over a cup of badly made tea. In the France
of the olden time they did things differently--and better.
Not all French history was made, or written, within palace walls; much
of it came into being in the open air, like the two famous meetings by
the Bidassoa, Napoleon's first sight of Marie Louise on the highroad
leading out from Senlis, or his making the Pope a prisoner at the Croix
de Saint Heram, in the Forest of Fontainebleau.
It is this change of scene that makes French history so appealing to
those who might otherwise let it remain in shut-up and dry-as-dust books
on library shelves.
The French monarchs of old were indeed great travellers, and it is by
virtue of the fact that affairs of state were often promulgated and
consummated _en voyage_ that a royal stamp came to be acquired by many a
chateau or country-house which to-day would hardly otherwise be
considered as of royal rank.
Throughout France, notably in the neighbourhood of Paris, are certain
chateaux--palaces only by lack of name--of the nobility where royalties
were often as much at home as under their own royal standards. One
cannot attempt to confine the limits where these chateaux are to be
found, for they actually covered the length and breadth of France.
Journeying afield in those romantic times was probably as comfortably
accomplished, by monarchs at least, as it is to-day. What was lacking
was speed, but they lodged at night under roofs as hospitable as those
of the white and gold caravanserai (and some more humble) which perforce
come to be temporary abiding places of royalties _en tour_ to-day. The
writer has seen the Dowager Queen of Italy lunching at a neighbouring
table at a roadside _trattoria_ in Piedmont which would have no class
distinction whatever as compared with the average suburban road-house
across the Atlantic. At Biarritz, too, the automobiling monarch,
Alphonse XIII, has been known to take "tea" on the terrace of the great
tourist-peopled hotel in company with mere be-goggled commoners. _Le
temps va!_ Were monarchs so democratic in the olden time, one wonders.
The court chronicles of all ages, and all ranks, have proved a gold
mine for the makers of books of all sorts and conditions. Not only court
chroniclers but pamphleteers, even troubadours and players, have
contributed much to the records of the life of mediaeval France. All
history was not made by political intrigue or presumption; a good deal
of it was born of the gentler passions, and a chap-book maker would put
often into print many accounts which the recorder of mere history did
not dare use. History is often enough sorry stuff when it comes to human
interest, and it needs editing only too often.
Courtiers and the fashionable world of France, ever since the days of
the poetry-making and ballad-singing Francis and Marguerite, and before,
for that matter, made of literature--at least the written and spoken
chronicle of some sort--a diversion and an accomplishment. Royal or
official patronage given these mediaeval story-tellers did not always
produce the truest tales. Then, as now, writer folk were wont to
exaggerate, but most of their work made interesting reading.
These courtiers of the itching pen did not often write for money. Royal
favour, or that of some fair lady, or ladies, was their chief return in
many more cases than those for which their accounts were settled by mere
dross. It is in the work of such chroniclers as these that one finds a
fund of unrepeated historic lore.
The dramatists came on the scene with their plots ready-made (and have
been coming ever since, if one recalls the large number of French
costume plays of recent years), and whether they introduced errors of
fact, or not, there was usually so much truth about their work that the
very historians more than once were obliged to have recourse to the
productions of their colleagues. The dramatists' early days in France,
as in England, were their golden days. The mere literary man, or
chronicler, was often flayed alive, but the dramatist, even though he
dished up the foibles of a king, and without any dressing at that, was
feted and made as much of as a record piano player of to-day.
One hears a lot about the deathbed scribblers in England in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but there was not much of that sort
of thing in France. No one here penned bitter jibes and lascivious
verses merely to keep out of jail, as did Nash and Marlowe in England.
In short, one must give due credit to the court chroniclers and
ballad-singers of France as being something more than mere pilfering,
blackmailing hacks.
All the French court and its followers in the sixteenth century shouted
epigrams and affected being greater poets than they really were. It was
a good sign, and it left its impress on French literature. Following in
the footsteps of Francis I and the two Marguerites nobles vied with each
other in their efforts to produce some epoch-making work of poesy or
prose, and while they did not often publish for profit they were glad
enough to see themselves in print. Then there were also the professional
men of letters, as distinct from the courtiers with literary ambitions,
the churchmen and courtly attaches of all ranks with the literary bee
humming in their bonnets. They, too, left behind them an imposing
record, which has been very useful to others coming after who were
concerned with getting a local colour of a brand which should look
natural.
It is with such guiding lights as are suggested by the foregoing resume
that one seeks his clues for the repicturing of the circumstances under
which French royal palaces were erected, as well as for the truthful
repetition of the ceremonies and functions of the times, for the court
life of old, whether in city palace or country chateau, was a very
different thing from that of the Republican regime of to-day.
Not only were the royal Paris dwellings, from the earliest times, of a
profound luxuriance of design and execution, but the private hotels, the
palaces, one may well say, of the nobility were of the same superlative
order, and kings and queens alike did not disdain to lodge therein on
such occasions as suited their convenience. The suggestive comparison is
made because of the close liens with which royalty and the higher
nobility were bound.
It is sufficient to recall, among others of this class, the celebrated
Hotel de Beauvais which will illustrate the reference. Not only was this
magnificent town house of palatial dimensions, but it was the envy of
the monarchs themselves, because of its refined elegance of
construction. This edifice exists to-day, in part, at No. 68 Rue
Francois Miron, and the visitor may judge for himself as to its former
elegance.
Loret, in his "Gazette" in verse, recounts a visit made to the Hotel de
Beauvais in 1663 by Marie Therese, the Queen of Louis XIV.
Mercredi, notre auguste Reine,
Cette charmante souveraine,
Fut chez Madame de Beauvais
Pour de son amiable palais
Voir les merveilles etonnantes
Et les raretes surprenantes.
Times have changed, for the worse or for the better. The sedan-chair and
the coach have given way to the automobile and the engine, and the wood
fire to a stale calorifer, or perhaps a gas-log.
The comparisons _are_ odious; there is no question as to this; but it is
by contrast that the subject is made the more interesting.
From the old Palais des Thermes (now a part of the Musee de Cluny) of
the Roman emperors down through the Palais de la Cite (where lodged the
kings of the first and second races) to the modern installations of the
Louvre is a matter of twelve centuries. The record is by no means a
consecutive one, but a record exists which embraces a dozen, at least,
of the Paris abodes of royalty, where indeed they lived according to
many varying scales of comfort and luxury.
Not all the succeeding French monarchs had the abilities or the
inclinations that enabled them to keep up to the traditions of the
art-loving Francis I, but almost all of their number did something
creditable in building or decoration, or commanded it to be done.
Louis XIV, though he delayed the adjustment of Europe for two centuries,
was the first real beautifier of Paris since Philippe Auguste. Privately
his taste in art and architecture was rather ridiculous, but publicly he
and his architects achieved great things in the general scheme.
[Illustration: _The_ Louvre _The_ Tuileries & _The_ Palais Royal _of_
To-Day]
Napoleon I, in turn, caught up with things in a political sense, in
truth he ran ahead of them, but he in no way neglected the
embellishments of the capital, and added a new wing to the Louvre, and
filled Musees with stolen loot, which remorse, or popular clamour,
induced him, for the most part, to return at a later day.
In a decade Napoleon made much history, and he likewise did much for the
royal palaces of France. After him a gap supervened until the advent of
Napoleon III, who, weakling that he was, had the perspicacity to give
the Baron Haussmann a chance to play his part in the making of modern
Paris, and if the Tuileries and Saint Cloud had not disappeared as a
result of his indiscretion the period of the Second Empire would not
have been at all discreditable, as far as the impress it left on Paris
was concerned.