Royal Palaces and Parks of France Part 24

Within, a rather ba.n.a.l Salle de Bal is shown as the chief feature, but it is conventionally unlovely enough to be pa.s.sed without emotion, save that its easterly portion takes in the _cabinet_, or private apartment, where Charles X signed his abdication. Adjoining this is the bedroom occupied by that monarch, and a dining-room which also served His Majesty, and which is still used by the head of the government on ceremonious occasions. Its decorative scheme is of the period of Louis XV.

The Salle de Conseil is of the period of Charles X, and has some fairly imposing carved wainscotings showing in places the monograms of Marie Sophie and the Comtesse de Toulouse.

A great map, or plan, of the Forest of Rambouillet covers the end wall, and, if not esthetically beautiful, is at least useful and very interesting.

It was executed under Louis XVI and doubtless served its purpose well when the hunters gathered after a day afield and recounted anecdotes of their adventures.

There is another apartment on the ground floor which is known as the _Salle a Manger des Rendezvous de Cha.s.se_, whose very name explains well its functions.

The Cabinet de Travail of Marie Antoinette and the Salle de Bain of Napoleon have something more than a mere sentimental interest; they were decidedly practical adjuncts to the royal palace.

Napoleon's bath took the form of a rather short, deep pool. Its fresco decorations, as seen to-day--replacing that family portrait gallery which Napoleon caused to be painted out--are after the pseudo-antique manner and represent bird's-eye views of various French cities and towns, while a series of painted armorial trophies decorates the ceiling.

On the second floor are the apartments occupied by the d.u.c.h.esse de Berry and those of the d.u.c.h.esse d'Angouleme.

In the great round tower is the circular apartment where Francis I breathed his last. It is this great truss-vaulted room that most interests the visitor to Rambouillet.

On the ground floor is another Salle de Bain, quite as theatrically disposed as that of Napoleon. Its construction was due to the Comte de Toulouse whose taste ran to Delft tiles and polychrome panels, framing two imposing marines, also worked out in tiles.

The _parterre_, extending before the main building, is of an ampleness scarcely conceivable until once viewed. It is purely French in design and is of the epoch of the tenancy of the Comte de Toulouse. Before the admirably grouped lindens was a boathouse, and off in every direction ran alleys of acacias, while here and there tulip beds, rose gardens and hedges of rhododendrons flanked the very considerable ornamental waters.

This body of water, in the form of a trapezoid, is divided by four gra.s.s-grown islets and separates the Jardin Anglais from the Jardin Francais. One of the islets is known as the Ile des Roches and contains the Grotte de Rabelais, so named in honour of the Cure of Meudon, when he was presented at Rambouillet by the Cardinal du Bellay. It was on this isle that were given those famous fetes in honour of the "_beaux esprits_" who formed the a.s.siduous cortege of Catherine de Vivonne, mythological, pagan and _outre_.

The Jardin Anglais at Rambouillet is the final expression of the species in France. Designed under the Duc de Penthievre, it was restored and considerably enlarged by Napoleon and, following the contours of an artificial rivulet, it fulfils the description that its name implies.

More remote, and half hidden from the precincts of the chateau, are the Chaumiere and the Ermitage and they recall the background of a Fragonard or a Watteau. It is all very "stagy"--but, since it exists, can hardly be called unreal.

The park proper, containing more than twelve hundred hectares, is one of the largest and most thickly wooded in France. Between the _parterre_ and the French and English garden and the park lie the Farm and the Laiterie de la Reine, the caprice of Louis XVI when he would content Marie Antoinette and give her something to think about besides her troubles. Napoleon stripped it of its furnishings to install them, for a great part, at Malmaison, for that other unhappy woman--Josephine.

Later, to give pleasure to Marie Louise, he ordered them brought back again to Rambouillet, but it was to Napoleon III that the restoration of this charming conceit was due.

In the neighbourhood of Rambouillet was the famous Chateau de Cha.s.se, or royal shooting-box, which Louis XV was fond of making a place of rendezvous.

On the banks of the etang de Pourras stood this Chateau de Saint Hubert, named for the patron saint of huntsmen, and within its walls was pa.s.sed many a happy evening by king and courtiers after a busy day with stag and hound.

The hunt in France was perhaps at the most picturesque phase of its existence at this time. The hunt of to-day is but a pale, though b.l.o.o.d.y, imitation of the real sport of the days when monarchs and their seigneurs in slashed doublet and hose and velvet cloaks pursued the deer of the forest to his death, and knew not the _maitre d'equipage_ of to-day.

CHAPTER XX

CHANTILLY

Chantilly, because of its royal a.s.sociations, properly finds its place in every traveller's French itinerary. Not only did Chantilly come to its great glory through royal favour, but in later years the French government has taken it under its wing, the chateau, the stables and the vast park and forest, until the ensemble is to-day as much of a national show place as Versailles or Saint Germain. It is here in the marble halls, where once dwelt the Condes and the Montmorencys, that are held each year the examinations of the French Academie des Beaux Arts. And besides this it is a place of pilgrimage for thousands of tourists who, as a cla.s.s, for a couple of generations previously, never got farther away from the capital than Saint Cloud.

Many charters of the tenth century make mention of the estates of Chantilly, which at that time belonged to the Seigneurs of Senlis. The chateau was an evolution from a block-house, or fortress, erected by Catulus in Gallo-Roman times and four centuries later it remained practically of the same rank. In the fourteenth century the chateau was chiefly a vast fortress surrounded by a water defence in the form of an enlarged moat by means of which it was able to resist the Bourguignons and never actually fell until after the taking of Meaux by the English king, Henry V.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHANTILLY]

Jean II de Montmorency, by his marriage with Marguerite d'Orgemont, came to be the possessor of the domain, their son, in turn, becoming the heir. It was this son, Guillaume, who became one of the most brilliant servitors of the monarchs Louis XI, Louis XII, and Francis I, and it was through these friends at court that Chantilly first took on its regal aspect.

In turn the celebrated Anne de Montmorency, Connetable de France, came into the succession and finding the old fortress, albeit somewhat enlarged and furbished up by his predecessor, less of a palatial residence than he would have, separated the ancient chateau-fort from an added structure by an ornamental moat, or ca.n.a.l, and laid out the _pelouse_, _parterres_ and the alleys of greensward leading to the forest which make one of the great charms of Chantilly to-day.

Here resided, as visitors to be sure, but for more or less extended periods, and at various times, Charles V, Charles IX and Henri IV, each of them guests of the hospitable and ambitious Montmorencys.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Statue of Le Notre, Chantilly_]

Chantilly pa.s.sed in 1632 to Charlotte, the sister of the last Marechal de Montmorency, the wife of Henri II, Prince de Conde, the mother of the Grand Conde, the Prince de Conti and the d.u.c.h.esse de Longueville.

With the Grand Conde came the greatest fame, the apotheosis, of Chantilly. This n.o.ble was so enamoured of this admirable residence that he never left it from his thoughts and decorated it throughout in the most lavish taste of his time, destroying at this epoch the chateau of the moyen-age and the fortress. These were the days of gallant warriors with a taste for pretty things in art, not mere bloodthirsty slaughterers.

On the foundations of the older structures there now rose an admirable pile (not that which one sees to-day, however), embellished by the surroundings which were evolved from the brain of the landscape gardener, Le Notre. The Revolution made way with this lavish structure and with the exception of the Chatelet, or the Pet.i.t Chateau (designed by Jean Bullant in 1560, and remodelled within by Mansart) the present-day work is a creation of the Duc d'Aumale, the heir to the Condes' name and fame, to whom the National a.s.sembly gave back his ancestral estates which had in the meantime come into the inventory of royal belongings through the claims established by the might of the Second Empire.

Back to the days of the Grand Conde one reads of an extended visit made by Louis XIV to his princ.i.p.al courtier. It was at an expense of two hundred thousand _ecus_ that the welcoming fete was accomplished. Madame de Sevigne has recounted the event more graphically than any other chronicler, and it would be presumption to review it here at length. The incident of Vatel alone has become cla.s.sic.

To the coterie of poets at Rambouillet must be added those of Chantilly; their sojourn here added much of moment to the careers and reputations of Boileau, Racine, Bourdaloue and Bossuet. It was the latter, who, in the funeral oration which he delivered on the death of the Prince de Conde, said:

"Here under his own roof one saw the Grand Conde as if he were at the head of his armies, a n.o.ble always great, as well in action as in repose. Here you have seen him surrounded by his friends in this magnificent dwelling, in the shady alleys of the forest or beside the purling waters of the brooks which are silent neither day nor night."

The Grand Conde died, however, at Fontainebleau. The heir, Henri-Jules de Bourbon, did his share towards keeping up and embellishing the property, and to him was due that charming wildwood retreat known as the Parc de Sylvie.

Louis-Henri de Bourbon, Minister of Louis XV at the commencement of his reign, had gained a fabulous sum of money in the notorious "Law's Bank"

affair, and, with a profligate and prodigal taste in spending, lived a life of the grandest of grand seigneurs at Chantilly, to which, as his donation to its architectural importance, he contributed the famous ecuries, or stables. To show that he was _persona grata_ at court he gave a great fete here for Louis XV and the d.u.c.h.esse du Barry.

The last Prince de Conde but one before the Revolution built the Chateau d'Enghien in the neighbourhood, and sought to people the Parc de Sylvie with a rustic colony of thatched _maisonettes_ and install his favourites therein in a weak imitation of what had been done in the Pet.i.t Trianon. The note was manifestly a false one and did not endure, not even is its echo plainly audible for all is hearsay to-day and no very definite record of the circ.u.mstance exists.

Chantilly in later times has been a favourite abode with modern monarchs. The King of Denmark, the Emperor Joseph II and the King of Sweden were given hospitality here, and much money was spent for their entertainment, and much red and green fire burned for their amus.e.m.e.nt and that of their suites.

The Revolution's fell blow carried off the princ.i.p.al parts of the Conde's admirable constructions and it is fortunate that the Pet.i.t Chateau escaped the talons of the "Bande Noire." Immediately afterwards the Chateau d'Enghien and the ecuries were turned over to the uses of the Minister of War, and the authorities of the Jardin des Plantes were given permission to transplant and transport anything which pleased their fancy among the exotics which had been set out by Le Notre in Chantilly's famous _parterres_.

Under the imperial regime the Foret de Chantilly was given in fee simple to Queen Hortense, though all was ultimately returned to the Conde heirs after the Restoration. It was at this period that Chantilly received the visit of Alexander, Emperor of Russia, and the historian's account of that visit makes prominent the fact that during the periods of rain it was necessary that an umbrella be carried over the imperial head as he pa.s.sed through the corridors of the palace from one apartment to another.

The host of the emperor died here in 1818 and his son, spending perhaps half of his time here, cared little for restoration and spent all his waking hours hunting in the forest, returning to the Pet.i.t Chateau only to eat and sleep.

The Duc de Bourbon added to the flanking wings of the Pet.i.t Chateau and cleaned up the debris which was fast becoming moss-grown, weed enc.u.mbered and altogether disgraceful. The moats were cleaned out of their miasmatic growth and certain of the gra.s.s-carpeted _parterres_ resown and given a semblance of their former selves.

Some days after the Revolution of 1830 the Prince de Conde died in a most dramatic fashion, and his son, the Duc d'Enghien, having been shot at Vincennes under the Empire, he willed the Duc d'Aumale and his issue his legal descendants forever.

Towards 1840 the Duc d'Aumale sought to reconstruct the splendours of Chantilly, but a decree of January 22, 1852, banished the entire Orleans family and interrupted the work when the property was sold to the English bankers, Coutts and Company, for the good round sum of eleven million francs, not by any means an extravagant price for this estate of royal aspect and proportions. The National a.s.sembly of 1872 did the only thing it could do in justice to tradition--bought the property in and decreed that it be restored to its legitimate proprietor.

It was as late as 1876 that the Duc d'Aumale undertook the restoration of the Chatelet and the rebuilding of the new chateau which is seen to-day. The latter is from the designs of Henri Daumet, member of the Inst.i.tut de France.

In general the structure of to-day occupies the site of the moyen-age chateau but is of quite a different aspect.

The Duc d'Aumale made a present of the chateau and all that was contained therein to the Inst.i.tut de France. From a purely sordid point of view it was a gift valued at something like thirty-five million francs, not so great as many new-world public legacies of to-day, but in certain respects of a great deal more artistic worth.

The ma.s.s is manifestly imposing, made up as it is, of four distinct parts, the Eglise, dating from 1692, the ecuries, the Chatelet--or Pet.i.t Chateau, and the Chateau proper--the modern edifice.