“Englishmen fire first!” thus was field marshal Saxe’s stance on the Fontenoy battlefield in 1745. His superb soldiery defeated the long-standing enemy. A grateful Louis XV rewarded him with Chambord along with its many privileges, after naming him Maréchal de France.
In 1748 Saxe purchased Chateau de la Grange, which proudly bears his name to this day.
We owe the beautiful decor of the ‘Grande Galerie’ to his time here. Chevalier, the artisan to whom the king entrusted his stuccowork, created designs based on battles and hunting trophies from La Touche’s drawings. Saxe commissioned a major project of remodelling of the castle and grounds. His striking full-length portrait hangs in the white and gold grand salon designed by the famous architect Oppenordt.
Saxe is accredited with other brilliant conquests such as that of Princess Iva Ivanovna, who lends her name to the most beautiful apartment in the chateau. In a return to a more democratic ‘Ancien Regime’, your carriages will set you down in the special place of Parisis, just half an hour from Paris.
Within an immense walled park there stands in Yerres this privileged estate where “Les Menus Plaisirs” now flourishes.
And it is here that we can hear the song that Fontaine sang:
“O Solitude! whose secret charms I know, Retreats that I have loved when shall I go, To taste, far from a world of din and noise, Your shades so fresh, where silence has a voice?”
https://www.chateaudumarechaldesaxe.com

Château du Maréchal de Saxe

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The château de Grosbois is a French castle in Boissy-Saint-Léger, Val-de-Marne.
History
In 1190, Philip II of France gave the abbaye de Saint-Victor de Paris lands at Grosbois in exchange for lands in the bois de Vincennes. The abbey ceded these lands in 1563 to Raoul Moreau, treasurer of Spain, whose relation Nicolas Harlay de Sancy, surintendant des Finances et des Bâtiments du roi, built a château there at the start of the 17th century. This was still incomplete in 1616, when it was sold to Charles de Valois (1573–1650), count of Auvergne then duke of Angoulême (1619), illegitimate son of Charles IX of France by Marie Touchet. de Valois completed the château around 1640, notably building the enclosing wall (1623) and the two wings. On his death in 1650 the estate passed to his granddaughter, wife of Louis, Duke of Joyeuse.
In 1718, the estate was bought by Samuel-Jacques Bernard (1686-1753), son of the financier Samuel Bernard, who commissioned the woodwork in the salon Régence. He then sold it to Germain Louis Chauvelin in 1731, who in 1762 sold it in turn to François Marie Peyrenc de Moras. She left it to her great-niece Anne Marie de Merle de Beauchamps in 1771 - Anne Marie was daughter of an ambassador to the king of Portugal and wife of Pierre Paul Gilbert des Voisins, président to the parlement de Paris. She and her husband sold it to the comte de Provence in 1776.
It was confiscated as national property on the French Revolution and sold on 9 November 1797 to Barras, known as 'the king of the Directory'. After 18 brumaire, Barras was exiled to Belgium and sold the château, in 1801, to général Moreau. In 1804, after Moreau's arrest, Napoleon I bought the château via Fouché and in 1805 granted it to maréchal Berthier, prince of Wagram. Berthier spent much money embellishing it, expanding the library, the galerie des Batailles, the salon de l'Empereur and the salon des Huissiers. He also built two more pavilions and the entrance gate across the road. He enlarged the estate to make it the best hunting-ground in the French Empire and gave grand festivals there. His son Napoléon Berthier expanded the library, which included over 3,000 works.
The last prince of Wagram, Alexandre Louis Philippe Marie Berthier, died without issue in 1918, leaving Grosbois to his sister, the princesse de la Tour d’Auvergne, and to his nephew, prince Godefroy de la Tour d’Auvergne. In 1962, René Ballière, president of the Société d’encouragement à l’élevage du cheval français, bought the estate to set up a training centre for racehorses.
Architecture
Designed by an unknown architect, the château de Grosbois is clearly influenced by those designed by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau. On a U plan, it is made up of a central wing curved into an exedra, flanked by two pavilions of the same height and by two lower wings at right angles. It is built on a rectangular platform in the middle of a once water-filled moat, now dry. It is reached by three bridges.

Château de Grosbois

The Château de Brie-Comte-Robert is a castle in the town of Brie-Comte-Robert in the Seine-et-Marne département of France.
History
12th - 13th centuries
The castle of Brie-Comte-Robert was built at the end of the 12th century, when Robert I of Dreux, brother of the king Louis VII, was lord of Brie. Archaeological clues, elements of decoration and the choice of construction techniques, suggest the architecture of this turning point in history.
14th century
The castle remained in the Dreux family until 1254, then passed to the family of Châtillon. Through successive dowries and inheritances, it came to Marguerite d'Artois and then her daughter, Jeanne d'Évreux.
Jeanne d'Évreux, who held the manor of Brie-Count-Robert by inheritance, became the wife of the last Capetian king, Charles IV the Fair. After his death in 1328, she profited from comfortable revenues (a royal dower of many fiefdoms in Brie and Champagne), which enabled her to devote important sums to the maintenance and the improvement of her own possessions, including Brie-Comte-Robert. She did important work to the castle, as her accounts preserved at the Archives Nationales (national archives) attest.
The castle became a prestigious residence which the large lords of the kingdom, in particular the dukes of Burgundy, did not hesitate to visit. It was also the site, in 1349, of the marriage of Philip VI of Valois and Blanche d'Évreux, niece of queen Jeanne.
The lady of Brie made the siegneurial residence luxurious, particularly in the area located against the south-western and south-eastern curtains and, above all, in the north-east. She had a chapel built dedicated to Saint-Denis, joined to the Tour Saint-Jean (St John Tower), and laid out vast pleasure gardens. Jeanne d'Évreux died in the castle in 1371, aged 69.
At the end of the 14th century, the castle returned into the royal domain, then later to the Orléans family.
15th century
Louis I de Valois, Duke of Orléans led a sparkling life at the castle of Brie-Count-Robert (tournaments, receptions of great nobles), but, faced with growing insecurity, he strengthened the castle from 1405. Following his assassination by John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, and the founding of the Armagnac Party in 1407, the castle passed under the control of the Burgundian Party, thus securing it as a safe stage on the road from Paris towards Burgundy.
In 1420, the passage of the English army, en route to Troyes, and the siege of Melun which followed, brought some disorder to the town, but did not affect the castle. It is from 1429 that the city was, « par quatre diverses fois en trois ans », ("four separate times in three years"), taken and retaken by the French and the English. The major event remains however the siege begun in September 1430 by the Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham, who caused immense damage, in the town as well as to the castle. The place was repurchased by the French in 1434 and was returned to its rightful owner, Charles of Orléans. His son, the future king Louis XII, placed the castle in the royal domain.
16th century
Starting from the reign of Francis I, the castle and its grounds were entrusted by the king to some of his close associates, either by way of favour (« don pour un temps » - "gift for a time"), or by conditional sale with option of repurchase (« l'engagement »). Among them were, notably: Louis Poncher, Philippe de Chabot, the marshal Jean Caraccioli, Balthazar Goblin and Claude de Bullion, superintendent of the finances of Louis XIII.
In the middle of the century, various families of Italian lords, close to Catherine de' Medici (Aquaviva, Pierrevive, Gondi), held the castle, but allowed the building to deteriorate, even causing the burning of the floors and some frames.
A 1567 law passed by the Parliament was needed to put an end to this damage. At the end of the century, Balthazar Goblin, follower of Henri IV, made repairs to the castle.
The castle was still in a position to receive the young Louis XIII twice, in 1609 and 1611.
17th century
In 1649, at the time of the Fronde disorders, the town and the castle of Brie-Comte-Robert, were taken by the royal troops commanded by the count de Grancey. The castle was cannonaded by a battery for more than five hours, losing its south-eastern tower.
Later repairs had to be very modest: in 1681, the castle was regarded as "... uninhabitable, the ditches full of rubbish, the garden fallow..." (« inhabitable, les fossés comblés d'immondices, le jardin en friche... »).
Jean-Antoine de Mesmes, first President of the parlement of Paris carried out various maintenance works on the roofs and repairs to the access bridges. Legal documents from this period describe some internal developments. The castle was then inhabited by private individuals.
18th century
In 1750, Germain-Louis de Chauvelin, lord since 1734, asserting the dilapidation of the building, obtained authorisation to reduce the towers and the curtains to the level of the first floor, excepting however the Saint-Jean tower, the manorial symbol.
Repurchased by the king Louis XV in 1766, the manor of Brie-Count-Robert, including the castle, was the subject of an exchange between Louis and his cousin, Louis Charles de Bourbon, Count of Eu. His heirs, the duke of Penthièvre, and then his daughter, the duchess of Orléans, were the last lords.
During the French Revolution, the building was used to imprison the baron de Besenval, colonel of the Swiss Guards and military commander of the Île-de-France. The building was later sold as national property.
19th and 20th centuries
Repurchased by the town in 1803, the castle was sold again in 1813. In 1879, one of the successive private owners during this period unfortunately razed what remained of the Tour Saint-Jean, to build a modern house.
Massive topsoil deposits transformed the court and the jousting yard into a vast vegetable garden. The commune repurchased the castle in 1923 and it was classified as a monument historique in 1925.
From 1982, the municipality undertook a programme to repair the site, including archaeological works. These have guided the later restoration programme of the castle's remains.
Today
2003 saw the beginning of a grand programme of restoration of the castle, with the rebuilding of curtains to a height more than six metres, the restoration of the Tour de Brie, and the demolition of the 19th century house in the courtyard, allowing the partial rebuilding of the Tour Saint-Jean, according to archaeological documents.
Inside the enclosure, the construction of a modern building, the Centre d'Interprétation du Patrimoine (Heritage Interpretation Centre), allows the Association des Amis du Vieux Château (Friends of the Old Château Association) to design and present a permanent exhibition of the site and to undertake teaching activities.

Château de Brie-Comte-Robert

The Château de Vincennes is a massive 14th and 17th century French royal fortress in the town of Vincennes, to the east of Paris, now a suburb of the metropolis.
History
Like other more famous châteaux, it had its origins in a hunting lodge, constructed for Louis VII about 1150 in the forest of Vincennes. In the 13th century, Philip Augustus and Louis IX erected a more substantial manor: Louis IX is reputed to have departed from Vincennes on the crusade from which he did not return.
Vincennes was more than a grim fortress: Philippe III (in 1274) and Philippe IV (in 1284) were each married there and three 14th-century kings died at Vincennes: Louis X (1316), Philippe V (1322) and Charles IV (1328).
To strengthen the site, the castle was greatly enlarged replacing the earlier site in the later 14th century. A donjon tower, 52 meters high, the tallest medieval fortified structure of Europe, was added by Philip VI of France, a work that was started about 1337. The grand rectangular circuit of walls, was completed by the Valois about two generations later (ca. 1410). The donjon served as a residence for the royal family, and its buildings are known to have once held the library and personal study of Charles V. Henry V of England died in the donjon in 1422 following the siege of Meaux.
The relics of the Crown of Thorns were temporarily housed there while the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris was being readied to receive them. A fragment that remained behind received its own chapel at Vincennes, probably built by Peter of Montereau (who may have designed the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris), which survives (illustration, below). Henri IV was imprisoned at Vincennes in April 1574, during the Wars of Religion.
In the 17th century, the architect Louis Le Vau built for Louis XIV a pair of isolated ranges mirroring one another across a parterre to one side of the keep, suited for the Queen Mother and Cardinal Mazarin, but rebuilding was never pursued once Versailles occupied all attentions. Some splendid apartments show the earliest phase of Louis XIV style, before the example of Vaux-le-Vicomte presented the Sun King with a worthy model. The unlucky builder of Vaux-le-Vicomte, the minister Nicolas Fouquet, found himself transferred to Vincennes, to much less comfortable lodgings. In 1691, another unwilling lodger was John Vanbrugh, soon to become a playwright and architect, who drew some of his Baroque "gothick" from his experience of Vincennes, it has been argued.
Abandoned in the 18th century, the château still served, first as the site of the Vincennes porcelain manufactory, the precursor to Sèvres, then as a state prison, which housed the marquis de Sade, Diderot, Mirabeau, and the famous confidence man, Jean Henri Latude, as well as a community of nuns of the English Benedictine Congregation from Cambrai. At the end of February 1791, a mob of more than a thousand workers from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, encouraged by members of the Cordeliers Club and led by Antoine Joseph Santerre, marched out to the château, which, rumour had it, was being readied on the part of the Crown for political prisoners, and with crowbars and pickaxes set about demolishing it, as the Bastille had recently been demolished. The work was interrupted by the marquis de Lafayette who took several ringleaders prisoners, to the jeers of the Parisian workers. It played no part during the remainder of the Revolution. From 1796, it served as an arsenal.
The execution of the duc d'Enghien took place in the moat of the château on 21 March 1804.
General Daumesnil who lost a leg, which was replaced by a wooden prosthesis, at the battle of Wagram (5–6 July 1809), was assigned to the defence of the château de Vincennes in 1812. Vincennes was then an arsenal containing 52 000 new rifles, more than 100 field guns and many tons of powder, bullets, canonballs... A tempting prize for the Sixth Coalition marching on Paris in 1814 in the aftermath of the Battle of the Nations. However, Daumesnil faced down the allies and replied with the famous words "I shall surrender Vincennes when I get my leg back" (Je rendrai Vincennes quand on me rendra ma jambe, with a polysemic pun in French that is lost in translation). With only 300 men under his command, he resisted to the Coalition until king Louis XVIII ordered to leave the fortress.
The park was recreated in the English landscape style in the 19th century. In 1860, Napoleon III, having employed Viollet-le-Duc to restore the keep and the chapel, gave the Bois de Vincennes (9.95 km² in extent) to Paris as a public park.
Vincennes also served as the military headquarters of the Chief of General Staff, General Maurice Gamelin during the unsuccessful defence of France against the invading German army in 1940. It is now the main base of France's Defence Historical Service, which maintains a museum in the donjon.
On 20 August 1944, during the battle for the liberation of Paris, 26 policemen and members of the Resistance arrested by soldiers of the Waffen-SS were executed in the eastern moat of the fortress, and their bodies thrown in a common grave.
Description of the Château
Only traces remain of the earlier castle and the substantial remains date from the 14th century. The castle forms a rectangle whose perimeter is more than a kilometer in length (330 x 175m). It has six towers and three gates, each originally 13 meters high, and is surrounded by a deep stone lined moat. The keep, 52m high, and its enceinte occupy the western side of the fortress and are separated from the rest of the castle by the moat. The keep is one of the first known examples of rebar usage. The towers of the grande enceinte now stand only to the height of the walls, having been demolished in the 1800s, save the Tour du Village on the north side of the enclosure. The south end consists of two wings facing each other, the Pavillon du Roi and the Pavillon de la Reine, built by Louis Le Vau.
The castle was one of the first buildings in history to use steel to reinforce the walls.

Château de Vincennes

The Château de Champs is a neoclassical château in Champs-sur-Marne, France. It was built in its present form for the treasurer Charles Renouard de la Touane in 1699 by Pierre Bullet, architecte du roi. After the first proprietor's bankruptcy, another financier, Paul Poisson de Bourvalais, took up the project. Jean-Baptiste Bullet de Chamblain, the son of Pierre Bullet, finished Champs in 1706.
Ten years later, Paul Poisson was in the Bastille on charges of embezzlement and the château was seized by the Crown. In 1718, it was sold to the princesse de Conti, natural daughter of King Louis XIV of France and his first official mistress, Louise de La Vallière. That same year, however, the princess cancelled a debt by deeding Champs to her first cousin, the duc de la Vallière. When the duke died in 1739, he left the château to his son and heir, the famous bibliophile, Louis César de La Baume Le Blanc. The new duc de La Vallière was later to become a trusted friend of King Louis XV and his mistress, Madame de Pompadour.
Around 1750, the duke added a beautiful rococo salon chinois (Chinese salon) to the château with wall paintings by noted artist Christophe Huet. At the château, Louis César entertained many of the famous writers of the day, including Diderot, Voltaire, d'Alembert and François-Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif, with whom he also corresponded regularly.
After the construction of a magnificent new château at Montrouge around 1750, however, the duke gradually abandoned the Château de Champs-sur-Marne. Eventually, he tried to sell the domain, but he could not find a buyer and was forced to rent it out. Between July 1757 and January 1759, he leased the estate to Madame de Pompadour for 12,000 livres per year. The marquise spent 200,000 livres in less than eighteen months to renovate the château. In November 1757, she received the prince de Soubise there after his defeat at the Battle of Rossbach. As the king did not like the château, the marquise left it at the beginning of 1759. In 1763, the duke finally sold Champs to Gabriel Michel de Tharon (1702–1765), a rich shipowner.
In 1820, Armand Santerre, nephew of the Revolutionary General Antoine Joseph Santerre, bought the parc Saint Martin surrounding the château. In 1855, his brother Ernest Santerre bought the château as well. Later, in 1895, it was finally sold to comte Louis Cahen d'Anvers, who thoroughly restored it, installing boiseries designed by Germain Boffrand that had been removed from the Hôtel de Mayenne, Paris, and recreated its parterre gardens in the hands of Achille Duchêne. Marcel Proust was among the guests in this era at Champs. Louis Cahen d'Anvers' son Charles made a gift of it to the state in 1935.
The residence was modernised in 1959 to ready it for visiting heads of state of the French Union. In 1974 it was opened to the public and ceased its official capacity. It has served as a location for many films since then, while the Monuments Historiques employ some outbuildings as research facilities.
The château looks onto a grand parterre with two basins and an extended central axis that sweeps down all the way to the Marne, laid out about 1710 by Claude Desgotz, the nephew and pupil of André Le Nôtre; it is surrounded by a landscape park laid out in the nineteenth century in the English fashion.
Hurricane Lothar, the storm of 26 December 1999, did a great deal of damage to mature woodland in the park.

Château de Champs-sur-Marne

The Luxembourg Palace is located at 15 rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built (1615–1645) to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of the regent Marie de' Medici, mother of Louis XIII of France. After the Revolution it was refashioned (1799–1805) by Jean Chalgrin into a legislative building and subsequently greatly enlarged and remodeled (1835–1856) by Alphonse de Gisors. Since 1958 it has been the seat of the French Senate of the Fifth Republic.
Immediately west of the palace on the rue de Vaugirard is the Petit Luxembourg, now the residence of the Senate President; and slightly further west, the Musée du Luxembourg, in the former orangery. On the south side of the palace, the formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and large basins of water where children sail model boats.
Early history
After the death of Henry IV in 1610, his widow, Marie de Médicis, became regent to her son, Louis XIII. Having acceded to a much more powerful position, she decided to erect a new palace for herself, adjacent to an old hôtel particulier owned by François de Luxembourg, Duc de Piney, which is now called the Petit Luxembourg and is the residence of the president of the French Senate.
Marie de Médicis desired to make a building similar to her native Florence's Palazzo Pitti, and to this effect had the architect Métezeau (either Louis Métezeau or his brother, Clément Métezeau) sent to Florence to make detailed drawings of the building.
Marie de Médicis bought the Hôtel de Luxembourg and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned the new building, which she referred to as her Palais Médicis, in 1615. Its construction and furnishing formed her major artistic project, though nothing remains today of the interiors as they were created for her, save some architectural fragments reassembled in the Salle du Livre d'Or. The suites of paintings she commissioned, in the subjects of which she expressed her requirements through her agents and advisers, are scattered among museums.
Marie de Médicis installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors continued. The apartments in the right wing on the western side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite to the east, for her son, Louis XIII, when he was visiting (floor plan).
The 24 Marie de' Medici cycle canvases, a series commissioned from Peter Paul Rubens, were installed in the Galerie de Rubens on the main floor of the western wing. These paintings were executed between 1622 and 1625 and depicts Marie's struggles and triumphs in life. They are now visible in the Galerie Medicis of the Louvre, one of the treasures of the museum's Flemish paintings department. A series of paintings executed for her Cabinet doré ("gilded study") was identified by Anthony Blunt in 1967.
The gallery in the east wing had been intended for the display of paintings celebrating Henri IV, and buildings housing stables and services were planned to either side of the pavilions flanking the entrance on the street, but these projects remained unfinished in 1631, when the Queen Mother was forced from court, following the "Day of the Dupes" in November. Louis XIII commissioned further decorations for the Palace from Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne.
In 1642, Marie bequeathed the Luxembourg to her second and favourite son, Gaston, duc d'Orléans, who called it the Palais d'Orléans, but by popular will it was still known by its original name.
Upon Gaston's death, the palace passed to his widow, Marguerite de Lorraine, then to his elder daughter by his first marriage, Anne, duchesse de Montpensier, La Grande Mademoiselle. In 1660, Anne de Montpensier sold the Luxembourg to her younger half-sister, Élisabeth Marguerite d'Orléans, duchesse de Guise who, in turn, gave it to her cousin, King Louis XIV, in 1694.
In 1715, the palace became the residence of Marie Louise Elisabeth d'Orleans, Duchess of Berry (1695-1719). The widowed Duchess was notoriously promiscuous, having the reputation of a French Messalina, relentlessly driven by her unquenchable thirst for all pleasures of the flesh. The Luxembourg palace and its gardens thus became stages where the princess acted out her ambitions, enthroned like a queen surrounded by her court. In some of her more exclusive parties, Madame de Berry also played the leading part in elaborate "tableaux-vivants" that represented mythological scenes and in which she displayed her person impersonating Venus or Diana. According to various satirical songs which scurrilously evoked her amours "the Lady of the Luxembourg" hid several pregnancies, shutting herself up from society when about to give birth. Her taste for strong liquors and her sheer gluttony also scandalized the court. On 21 May 1717, Madame de Berry received Peter the Great at the Luxembourg. She welcomed the visiting Tsar splendidly dressed in a magnificent sack-back gown which showcased her voluptuous bosom as well as her mischievous face but also helped conceal her growing corpulence for she was then in an "interesting condition".
On 28 February 1718, the Duchess of Berry threw a magnificent party for her visiting aunt, the Duchess of Lorraine. The entire palace and its gardens were elaborately illuminated. The lavish banquet was followed by a masked ball. Madame de Berry made a dazzling appearance before her guests. She was then in the full splendour of her youthful beauty and pride and acted as if she were the very incarnation of the goddess of love, mirth, beauty and sensual pleasures. On 2 April 1719, after a grueling four-day labour, shut up in a small room of her palace, the young widow was delivered of a still-born baby girl, supposedly fathered by her lieutenant of the guards, the Count of Riom. Berry's delivery was extremely troublesome and almost killed her. The Church refused her the Sacraments thus adding moral infamy to the physical tortures of the labouring woman. Saint-Simon wrote a very sarcastic description of this childbirth. Hoping to regain her health and undeceive the public that she had been confined, Madame de Berry left Paris and the Luxembourg palace. She died in her castle at La Muette on 21 July 1719 and, according to Saint-Simon, was found to be again pregnant.
In 1750, the palace became a museum, the forerunner of the Louvre, and was open two days a week until 1779. In 1778, the palace was given to the comte de Provence by his brother Louis XVI. During the French Revolution, it was briefly a prison, then the seat of the French Directory, and in 1799, the home of the Sénat conservateur and the first residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, as First Consul of the French Republic.
Palace as parliament
From 1799 to 1805, the architect Jean Chalgrin transformed the palace into a legislative building. He demolished the grand central staircase (escalier d'honneur), replacing it with a senate chamber on the first floor, which incorporated and destroyed Marie de Médicis' chapel on the garden side of the corps de logis. Chalgrin also enclosed the flanking terraces, making space for a library. At the same time he created a neo-classical escalier d'honneur in the west wing, a single monumental flight enclosed by an ionic colonnade and covered with a coffered barrel vault, the construction of which resulted in the destruction of the long gallery that had formerly housed the cycle of paintings by Rubens.
Beginning in 1835, the architect Alphonse de Gisors added a new garden wing parallel to the old corps de logis, replicating the look of the original 17th-century facade so precisely that it is difficult to distinguish at first glance the old from the new. The new senate chamber was located in what would have been the courtyard area in-between.
The new wing included a library (bibliothèque) with a cycle of paintings (1845–1847) by Eugène Delacroix. In the 1850s, at the request of Emperor Napoleon III, Gisors created the highly decorated Salle des Conférences (inspired by the Galerie d'Apollon of the Louvre), which influenced the nature of subsequent official interiors of the Second Empire, including those of the Palais Garnier.
During the German occupation of Paris (1940–1944), Hermann Göring took over the palace as the headquarters of the Luftwaffe in France, taking for himself a sumptuous suite of rooms to accommodate his visits to the French capital.
His subordinate, Luftwaffe Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle, was also given an apartment in the Luxembourg palace, and spent most of the war enjoying the luxurious surroundings. "The Field Marshal's craving for luxury and public display ran a close second to that of his superior, Goering; he was also his match in corpulence", wrote armaments minister Albert Speer after a visit to Sperrle in Paris.
The palace was a designated "strong point" for German forces defending the city in August 1944, but thanks to the decision of Commanding General Dietrich von Choltitz to surrender the city rather than fight, the palace was only minimally damaged.
From 29 July to 15 October 1946, the Luxembourg Palace was the site of the talks of Paris Peace Conference.

Palais du Luxembourg

The Conciergerie is a building in Paris, France, located on the west of the Île de la Cité (literally "Island of the City"), formerly a prison but presently used mostly for law courts. It was part of the former royal palace, the Palais de la Cité, which consisted of the Conciergerie, Palais de Justice and the Sainte-Chapelle. Hundreds of prisoners during the French Revolution were taken from the Conciergerie to be executed by guillotine at a number of locations around Paris.
The Middle Ages
The west part of the island was originally the site of a Merovingian palace, and was known initially as the Palais de la Cité. From the 10th to the 14th centuries, it was the main palace of the medieval Kings of France. During the reigns of Louis IX (Saint Louis) (1214–1270) and Philippe IV (Philip the Fair) (1284–1314) the Merovingian palace was extended and fortified more extensively.
Louis IX added the Sainte-Chapelle and associated galleries, while Philippe IV created the towered facade on the Seine river side and a large hall. Both are excellent examples of French religious and secular architecture of the period. The Sainte-Chapelle was built in the French royal style to house the crown of thorns that was brought back from the Crusades and to serve as a royal chapel. The "Grande Salle" (Great Hall) was one of the largest in Europe, and its lower story, known as "La Salle des Gens d'Armes" (The Hall of the Soldiers) survives at 64m long, 27.5m wide and 8.5m high. It was used as a dining room for the 2,000 staff members who worked in the palace. It was heated with four large fireplaces and lit by many windows, now blocked. It was also used for royal banquets and judicial proceedings. The neighboring Salle des Gardes was used as an antechamber to the Great Hall immediately above, where the king held his lit de justice (a session of parliament in the king's presence).
The early Valois kings continued to modify the palace during the 14th century, but Charles V abandoned the palace during 1358, relocating across the river to the Louvre Palace. The palace continued to serve an administrative function and still included the chancellery and French Parliament. In the king's absence, he appointed a concierge to command of the palace, a fact which gave the palace its eventual name. During 1391, part of the building was converted for use as a prison and took its name from the ruling office. Its prisoners were a mixture of common criminals and political prisoners. In common with other prisons of the time, the treatment of prisoners was dependent on their wealth, status and associates. Wealthy or influential prisoners usually got their own cells with a bed, desk and materials for reading and writing. Less-well-off prisoners could afford to pay for simply furnished cells known as pistoles, which would be equipped with a rough bed and perhaps a table. The poorest, known as the pailleux from the paille (hay) that they slept on, would be confined to dark, damp, vermin-infested cells known as oubliettes (literally "forgotten places"). In keeping with the name, they were left to live or die in conditions that were ideal for the plague and other infectious diseases, which were rife in the unsanitary conditions of the prison.
Three towers survive from the medieval Conciergerie: the Caesar Tower, named in honor of the Roman Emperors; the Silver Tower, named for its alleged use as the store for the royal treasure; and the Bonbec ("good beak") Tower, named for the torture chamber that it housed, in which victims were encouraged to "sing". The building was extended during the reigns of later kings with France's first public clock being installed about 1370. The current clock dates from 1535.
The Conciergerie and the Reign of Terror
The ten month Reign of Terror (September 1793-July 1794) had a profound effect on France. More than 40,000 people died from execution and imprisonment, and France would not be a republic again for nearly half a century.
The National Convention enacted the Law of Suspects on September 17, 1793. This act declared that anyone considered a counterrevolutionary or enemy of the republic was guilty of treason and, thus, condemned to death. The Revolutionary Tribunal was set up in the Palace of Justice. The two fates for those sent before the tribunal were acquittal or death, with no possibility of appeal. Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville, a radical, was named public prosecutor. The Tribunal sat in the Great Hall between 2 April 1793 and 31 May 1795 and sent nearly 2,600 prisoners to the guillotine.
The Conciergerie prison became the main penitentiary of a network of prisons throughout Paris, and was the last place of housing for more than 2,700 people, who were summarily executed by guillotine. The dank dungeons were a stark contrast to the beautiful architecture of the palace above. The quality of life of the prisoners was based mainly on their personal wealth and the whims of the jailers. The revolutionary period continued the prison's tradition of interning prisoners based on wealth, such that wealthier prisoners could rent a bed for 27 livres 12 sous for the first month, 22 livres 10 sous for subsequent months. Even when the price was decreased to 15 livres, the commanders of the prison made a fortune: as the Terror escalated, a prisoner could pay for a bed and be executed a few days later, freeing the bed for a new inmate who would then pay as well. One memoirist termed the Conciergerie "the most lucrative furnished lodgings in Paris".[1] Only celebrity prisoners were assigned cells to themselves. Most of the pistole inmates were stuffed into a single room that abutted a local hospital, making disease an inevitability. The cramped cells were infested with rats, and the stench of urine permeated every room.
All the prisoners, except those locked in the dungeons, were allowed to walk about the prisoners' gallery from 8 a.m. to an hour before sunset. Roll call was always a tortuous proceeding because many of the jailers were illiterate and it could take hours for them to confirm that all of the prisoners were accounted for. A principal jailer, who sat by the door, determined whether visitors would be allowed inside the prison. His decision depended more on his mood than any set proceedings. He was also in charge of resolving disputes between jailers and their charges.
Trials and executions progressed in a rapid, unpredictable manner; one could be tried by the court and executed before the next morning. The condemned would be walked through the Salle de la Toilette, where their personal belongings were confiscated. Carts loaded them in the May Courtyard and brought them to guillotines throughout Paris.
Prisoners held at the Conciergerie included Marie Antoinette, poet André Chénier, Charlotte Corday, Madame Élisabeth, Madame du Barry and the 21 Girondins, purged at the beginning of the Terror. Georges Danton later awaited his execution here, and, during the Thermidorian Reaction, Robespierre himself was interned for a brief time before his execution.
Post-Revolution and present
After the Restoration of the Bourbons during the 19th century, the Conciergerie continued to be used as a prison for high-value prisoners, most notably the future Napoleon III. Marie Antoinette's cell was converted into a chapel dedicated to her memory. The Conciergerie and Palais de Justice underwent major rebuilding during the mid-19th century, drastically altering their external appearance. While the building looks like a brooding medieval fortress, this appearance actually only dates from about 1858. A description from 1825 gives this impression of the structure before the rebuilding:
The buildings which form this prison still retain the hideous character of feudal times. The préau presents a kind of area or court, one hundred and eighty feet in length by sixty in breadth, round which is a gallery leading to the cells, and communicating by stairs to the upper storeys. It was partly constructed in the thirteenth century, and partly rebuilt in modern times, and is ten or twelve feet below the level of the adjacent streets; it serves as a promenade for the prisoners. The dungeons, which have not been used for the last thirty years, are twenty-three feet in length by eleven and a half in height.
The Conciergerie was decommissioned during 1914 and opened to the public as a national historical monument. It is presently a popular tourist attraction, although only a relatively small part of the building is open to public access; much of it is still used for the Paris law courts. It has been listed since 1862 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.

Conciergerie

Château de Ferrières is a French château built between 1855 and 1859 for Baron James de Rothschild in the Goût Rothschild. Rothschild ownership of the Château de Ferrières was passed down through the male line according to the rule of primogeniture, until it was donated by the family in 1975. Considered to be the largest and most luxurious 19th-century château in France, it is reached from rue Rucherie in Ferrières-en-Brie in the Seine et Marne département of France, about 26 km east of Paris.
Early history
Sitting at the crest of a long entry drive, the château was designed by the British architect Joseph Paxton. The inspiration for the design of Ferrières was Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, England, the house that Paxton had built for Baron James's cousin, Mayer Amschel de Rothschild. On seeing Mentmore, Baron James is reputed to have summoned Paxton and ordered him to "Build me a Mentmore, but twice the size".
Built in the Neo-Renaissance style inspired by the architecture of the Italian Renaissance, with square towers at each corner, the house sits on a formal terrace that gives way to 1.25 km² of gardens in a parkland landscaped à l'anglaise that was part of a surrounding 30 km² forest contained in the estate. The showpiece central hall is 120 feet (37 m) long and 60 feet (18 m) high, its roof a full glass skylight. The sculpting of the interior atlas columns and caryatids was by Charles Henri Joseph Cordier, and the decorative painting was supervised by Eugène Lami. The massive library held more than 8,000 volumes. Because lavish entertaining was important, in addition to the private Rothschild apartments, the Château de Ferrières was built with eighty guest suites. Ferrières was inaugurated 16 December 1862 with a gala attended by Napoleon III.
Baron James acquired a vast collection of works of art, and statues adorned a number of the château's rooms. Several of the many sculptures were by Alexandre Falguière and the 18th-century Italian, Antonio Corradini and the Baron's son later added works by René de Saint-Marceaux.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the Château de Ferrières was seized by the Germans and was the site of negotiations between Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of the North German Confederation, and the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jules Favre. The Germans again seized the château during the occupation of France in World War II, and this time, they looted its vast art collections.
The château remained empty until 1959, when Guy de Rothschild and his new wife, Marie-Hélène de Zuylen van Nyevelt, set about refurbishing it. From 1959, they hosted regular parties at the château, the theme of which would be personally designed by artists or designers such as Yves Saint Laurent. Their parties would mainly consist of aristocrats, but they always included many of her friends from a wider society, such as Brigitte Bardot, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn.
Recent history
In 1975, Guy de Rothschild and his wife donated the château to the chancellery of the University of Paris.
The property is now used as a school called "École Ferrières" (Ferrières School), which opened in late 2015 and focuses on gastronomy and the hospitality industry. There are also two restaurants on site, named "Le Baron" and "Le Chai".

Château de Ferrières

Louvre

The Palais-Royal, originally called the Palais-Cardinal, is a former royal palace located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. The screened entrance court faces the Place du Palais-Royal, opposite the Louvre. The larger inner courtyard, the Cour d'Honneur, has since 1986 contained Daniel Buren's site-specific art piece Les Deux Plateaux, known as Les Colonnes de Buren. In 1830 the Cour d'Honneur was enclosed to the north by what was probably the most famous of Paris's covered arcades, the Galerie d'Orléans. Demolished in the 1930s, its flanking rows of columns still stand between the Cour d'Honneur and the popular Palais-Royal Gardens.
The Palais-Royal is nowadays the seat of the Ministry of Culture and the Constitutional Council.
History
Palais-Cardinal
Originally called the Palais-Cardinal, the palace was the personal residence of Cardinal Richelieu. The architect Jacques Lemercier began his design in 1629; construction commenced in 1633 and was completed in 1639. Upon Richelieu's death in 1642 the palace became the property of the King and acquired the new name Palais-Royal.
After Louis XIII died the following year, it became the home of the Queen Mother Anne of Austria and her young sons Louis XIV and Philippe, duc d'Anjou, along with her advisor Cardinal Mazarin.
From 1649, the palace was the residence of the exiled Henrietta Maria and Henrietta Anne Stuart, wife and daughter of the deposed King Charles I of England. The two had escaped England in the midst of the English Civil War and were sheltered by Henrietta Maria's nephew, King Louis XIV.
House of Orléans
Henrietta Anne was later married to Louis' younger brother, Philippe de France, duc d'Orléans in the palace chapel on 31 March 1661. The following year the new duchesse d'Orléans gave birth to a daughter, Marie Louise d'Orléans, inside the palace. After their marriage, the palace became the main residence of the House of Orléans.
The Duchess created the ornamental gardens of the palace, which were said to be among the most beautiful in Paris. Under the new ducal couple, the Palais-Royal would become the social center of the capital.
The court gatherings at the Palais-Royal were famed all around the capital as well as all of France. It was at these parties that the crème de la crème of French society came to see and be seen. Guests included the main members of the royal family like the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria; the duchesse de Montpensier, the Princes de Condé and de Conti. Philippe's favourites were also frequent visitors.
The palace was redecorated and new apartments were created for the Duchess's maids and staff. Several of the women who later came to be favourites to King Louis XIV were from her household: Louise de La Vallière, who gave birth there to two sons of the kings, in 1663 and 1665; Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan, who supplanted Louise; and Angélique de Fontanges, who was in service to the second Duchess of Orléans.
After Henrietta Anne died in 1670 the Duke took a second wife, the Princess Palatine, who preferred to live in the Château de Saint-Cloud. Saint-Cloud thus became the main residence of her eldest son and the heir to the House of Orléans, Philippe Charles d'Orléans known as the duc de Chartres.
Françoise Marie de Bourbon, Duchess of Orléans
In 1692, on the occasion of the marriage of the duc de Chartres to Françoise Marie de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Blois, a legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, the King deeded the Palais-Royal to his brother.
For the convenience of the bride, new apartments were built and furnished in the wing facing east on the rue de Richelieu. It was at this time that Philippe commissioned the gallery for his famous Orleans Collection of paintings, which was easily accessible to the public. The architect was Jules Hardouin-Mansart, and the cost of this reconstruction was totaled to be 400,000 livres. Hardouin-Mansart's assistant, François d'Orbay, prepared a general site plan, showing the Palais-Royal before these alterations were made. The garden shown on the plan was designed by André Lenôtre.
After the dismissal of Madame de Montespan and the arrival of her successor, Madame de Maintenon, who forbade any lavish entertainment at Versailles, the Palais-Royal was again a social highlight.
When the Duke of Orléans died in 1701, his son became the head of the House of Orléans. The new Duke and Duchess of Orléans took up residence at the Palais-Royal. Two of their daughters, Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans, later the Duchess of Modena, and Louise Diane d'Orléans, later the Princess of Conti, were born there.
Shopping arcade
Over a decade or so, sections of the Palais were transformed into shopping arcades that became the centre of 18th-century Parisian social, economic and social life. Inspired by the souks of Arabia, the Galerie de Bois, a series of wooden shops linking the ends of the Palais Royal, was first opened in 1786. For Parisians, who lived in the virtual absence of pavements, the streets were dangerous and dirty; the arcade was a welcome addition to the streetscape as it afforded a safe place where Parisians could window shop and socialise. Thus, the Palais-Royal began what the architect, Bertrand Lemoine, describes as l’Ère des passages couverts (the Arcade Era), which transformed European shopping habits between 1786 and 1935.
Designed to attract the genteel middle class, the Palais-Royal sold luxury goods at relatively high prices. However, prices were never a deterrent, as these new arcades came to be the place to shop and to be seen. Arcades offered shoppers the promise of an enclosed space away from the chaos that characterised the noisy, dirty streets; a warm, dry space away from the elements; and a safe-haven where people could socialise and spend their leisure time. Promenading in the arcades became a popular eighteenth century pastime for the emerging middle classes.
Within a decade, new arcades were opened at the Palais site, and it was transformed into a complex of gardens, shops and entertainment venues situated on the external perimeter of the grounds, under the original colonnades. The area boasted some 145 boutiques, cafés, salons, hair salons, bookshops, museums, and numerous refreshment kiosks as well as two theatres. The retail outlets specialised in luxury goods such as fine jewellery, furs, paintings and furniture designed to appeal to the wealthy elite. Retailers operating out of the Palais complex were among the first in Europe to adopt fixed prices and thereby spare their clients the hassle of bartering. Stores were fitted with long glass exterior windows (at the time shop glazing was virtually unknown in Paris), which allowed the emerging middle classes to window shop and indulge in fantasies, even when they may not have been able to afford the high retail prices. Thus, the Palais-Royal became one of the first examples of a new style of shopping arcade, frequented by both the aristocracy and the middle classes. By day the galleries, bookshops, salons, cafés, and restaurants were an important gathering place for the aristocracy, intellectuals, students and financiers. By night, it became the haunt of libertines, off-duty soldiers and prostitutes, many of whom rented apartments in the building. In addition, charlatans, gambling houses, ventriloquists, pimps, and prostitutes held court on the doorstep of the royal palace. Above all, it developed a reputation as being a site of sophisticated conversation, revolving around the salons, cafés, and bookshops, and the centre of Parisian social life.
La Régence and the reign of Louis XV
At the death of Louis XIV in 1715, his five-year-old great-grandson succeeded him. The Duke of Orléans became Regent for the young Louis XV, setting up the country's government at the Palais-Royal, while the young king lived at the nearby Tuileries Palace. The Palais-Royal housed the magnificent Orléans art collection of some 500 paintings, which was arranged for public viewing until it was sold abroad in 1791.
After the Regency, the social life of the palais became much more subdued. Louis XV moved the court back to Versailles and Paris was again ignored. The same happened with the Palais-Royal; Louis d'Orléans, who succeeded his father as the new Duke of Orléans, and his son Louis Philippe lived at the other family residence in Saint-Cloud, which had been empty since the death of the Princess Palatine in 1722.
The Palais-Royal was soon the scene of the notorious debaucheries of Louise Henriette de Bourbon who was married to Louis Philippe in 1743. New apartments (located in what is now the northern section of the Rue-de-Valois wing) were added for her in the early 1750s by the architect Pierre Contant d'Ivry. She died at the age of thirty-two in 1759. She was the mother of Louis Philippe II d'Orléans, later known as Philippe Égalité.
The Palais under the stewardship of Louis Philippe II
A few years after the death of Louise Henriette, her husband secretly married his mistress, the witty marquise de Montesson, and the couple lived at the Château de Sainte-Assise where he died in 1785. Just before his death, he completed the sale of the Château de Saint-Cloud to Queen Marie Antoinette.
Louis Philippe II d'Orléans succeeded his father as the head of the House of Orléans. He was born at Saint-Cloud and later moved to the Palais-Royal and lived there with his wife, the wealthy Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon whom he had married in 1769. The couple's eldest son, Louis-Philippe III d'Orléans, was born there in 1773.
Louis Philippe II, who controlled the Palais-Royal from 1780 onward, expanded and redesigned the complex of buildings and the gardens of the palace between 1781 and 1784. In 1780, he decided to commercialise the residence by letting out the area under the colonnades to retailers and service-providers and in 1784, the gardens and surrounding structures of the Palais-Royal opened to the public as a shopping and entertainment complex. Though the corps de logis remained the private Orléans seat, the arcades surrounding its public gardens had 145 boutiques, cafés, salons, hair salons, bookshops, museums, and countless refreshment kiosks. These retail outlets sold luxury goods such as fine jewelry, furs, paintings and furniture to the wealthy elite. Stores were fitted with long glass windows which allowed the emerging middle-classes to window shop and indulge in fantasies. Thus, the Palais-Royal became one of the first of the new style of shopping arcades and became a popular venue for the wealthy to congregate, socialise and enjoy their leisure time. The redesigned palace complex became one of the most important marketplaces in Paris. It was frequented by the aristocracy, the middle classes, and the lower orders. It had a reputation as being a site of sophisticated conversation (revolving around the salons, cafés, and bookshops)], shameless debauchery (it was a favorite haunt of local prostitutes), as well as a hotbed of Freemasonic activity.
Theatres of the Palais-Royal
The Palais-Royal also contained one of the most important public theatres in Paris, in the east wing on the rue Saint-Honoré (on a site just to the west of what is now the rue de Valois). It was built from 1637 to 1641 to designs by Lemercier and was initially known as the Great Hall of the Palais-Cardinal. This theatre was later used by the troupe of Molière beginning in 1660, by which time it had become known as the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. After Molière's death in 1673 the theatre was taken over by Jean-Baptiste Lully, who used it for his Académie Royale de Musique (the official name of the Paris Opera at that time).
The Opera's theatre was destroyed by fire in 1763, but was rebuilt to the designs of architect Pierre-Louis Moreau Desproux on a site slightly further to the east (where the rue de Valois is located today) and reopened in 1770. This second theatre continued to be used by the Opera until 1781, when it was also destroyed by fire, but this time it was not rebuilt. Moreau Desproux also designed the adjacent surviving entrance facades of the Palais-Royal.
At the request of Louis Philippe II, two new theatres were constructed in the Palais-Royal complex shortly thereafter. Both of these new theatres were designed by Victor Louis, the architect who also designed the garden galleries for the complex. The first theatre, which opened on 23 October 1784, was a small puppet theatre in the northwest corner of the gardens at the intersection of the Galerie de Montpensier and the Galerie de Beaujolais. Initially it was known as the Théâtre des Beaujolais, then as the Théâtre Montansier, after which Victor Louis enlarged it for the performance of plays and operas. Later, beginning with the political turmoil of the Revolution, this theatre was known by a variety of other names. It was converted to a café with shows in 1812, but reopened as a theatre in 1831, when it acquired the name Théâtre du Palais-Royal, by which it is still known today.
Louis Philippe II's second theatre was larger and located near the southwest corner of the complex, on the rue de Richelieu. He originally intended it for the Opera, but that company refused to move into it. Instead he offered it to the Théâtre des Variétés-Amusantes, formerly on the boulevard du Temple but since 1 January 1785 playing in a temporary theatre in the gardens of the Palais-Royal. This company changed its name to Théâtre du Palais-Royal on 15 December 1789, and later moved into the new theatre upon its completion, where they opened on 15 May 1790. On 25 April 1791 the anti-royalist faction of the Comédie-Française, led by Talma, left that company's theatre on the left bank (at that time known as the Théâtre de la Nation, but today as the Odéon), and joined the company on the rue de Richelieu, which promptly changed its name to Théâtre Français de la rue de Richelieu. With the founding of the French Republic in September 1792 the theatre's name was changed again, to Théâtre de la République. In 1799 the players of the split company reunited at the Palais-Royal, and the theatre officially became the Comédie-Française, also commonly known as the Théâtre-Français, names which it retains to this day.
Palais de l'Égalité and the Revolution
During the revolutionary period, Philippe d'Orléans became known as Philippe Égalité and ruled at the Palais de l'Égalité, as it was known during the more radical phase of the Revolution, made himself popular in Paris when he opened the gardens of the palace to all Parisians and employed the neoclassical architect Victor Louis to rebuild the structures around the palace gardens, which had been the irregular backs of houses that faced the surrounding streets, and to enclose the gardens with regular colonnades that were lined with smart shops (in one of which Charlotte Corday bought the knife she used to stab Jean-Paul Marat).
Along the galeries, ladies of the night lingered, and smart gambling casinos were lodged in second-floor quarters. There was a theatre at each end of the galleries; the larger one has been the seat of the Comédie-Française, the state theatre company, since Napoleon laid its administrative reorganisation in the décret de Moscou on 15 October 1812, which contains 87 articles.[24] The very first theatre in the Palais-Royal was built by Lemercier for Cardinal Richelieu, and inaugurated in 1641. Under Louis XIV, the theater hosted plays by Molière, from 1660 to Molière's death in 1673, followed by the Opera under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Lully.
From the 1780s to 1837, the palace was once again the centre of Parisian political and social intrigue and the site of the most popular cafés. The historic restaurant "Le Grand Véfour" is still there. In 1786, a noon cannon was set up by a philosophical amateur, set on the prime meridian of Paris, in which the sun's noon rays, passing through a lens, lit the cannon's fuse. The noon cannon is still fired at the Palais-Royal, though most of the ladies for sale have disappeared, those who inspired the Abbé Delille's lines;
"Dans ce jardin on ne rencontre
Ni champs, ni prés, ni bois, ni fleurs.
Et si l'on y dérègle ses mœurs,
Au moins on y règle sa montre."
("In this garden one encounters neither fields nor meadows nor woods nor flowers. And, if one upsets one's morality, at least one may re-set one's watch.")
The Marquis de Sade referred to the grounds in front of the palace in his Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795) as a place where progressive pamphlets were sold.
Upon the death of the Duke, the palace's ownership lapsed to the state, whence it was called Palais du Tribunat.
Bourbon restoration
After the Restoration of the Bourbons, at the Palais-Royal the young Alexandre Dumas obtained employment in the office of the powerful duc d'Orléans, who regained control of the Palace during the Restoration. In the Revolution of 1848, the Paris mob trashed and looted the Palais-Royal. Under the Second Empire the Palais-Royal was home to the cadet branch of the Bonaparte family, represented by Prince Napoleon, Napoleon III's cousin.
Today's Palais-Royal
Today the Palais-Royal houses the Conseil d'État, the Constitutional Council, and the Ministry of Culture. At the rear of the garden are the older buildings of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the national library of deposit, with a collection of more than 30,000,000 items (14 million books and publications); most of the collections have been moved to more modern settings elsewhere.
Palais Brion
The House of Orléans did not occupy the northeast wing, where Anne of Austria had originally lived, but instead chose to reside in the palais Brion to the west of the main block, where the future regent, before his father died, commissioned Gilles-Marie Oppenord to decorate the grand appartement in the light and lively style Régence that foreshadowed the Rococo. These, and the Regent's more intimate petits appartements, as well as a gallery painted with Virgilian subjects by Coypel, were all demolished in 1784, for the installation of the Théâtre-Français, now the Comédie-Française.
The palais Brion, a separate pavilion standing along rue Richelieu, to the west of the Palais-Royal, had been purchased by Louis XIV from the heirs of Cardinal Richelieu. Louis had it connected to the Palais-Royal. It was at the palais Brion that Louis had his mistress Louise de La Vallière stay while his affair with Madame de Montespan was still an official secret.
Later on, the royal collection of antiquities was installed at the palais Brion, under the care of the art critic and official court historian André Félibien, who had been appointed in 1673.

Palais-Royal

Château de Guermantes is a Château located in northern France.
Construction and design
Construction of the Château de Guermantes in Lagny-sur-Marne, Seine et Marne, France, was undertaken by Claude Viole (died 1638), whose family had possessed the fief of "Le Chemin" since the mid sixteenth century. Paulin Pondre (1650-1723) purchased the property in 1698. He engaged Jules Hardouin-Mansart for renovations to the building, completed in 1710 (Ministère de la culture), and André Le Nôtre to lay out the garden. Pondre was receveur des finances at Lyon and had become one of the most powerful financiers of the reign of Louis XIV; he was appointed President of the Cour des Comptes in 1713. Guermantes was the scene of memorable fêtes.
Guermantes is built of brick with stone facings and quoins, in an H-plan, with projecting pavilions flanking the corps de logis, under tall sloping slate roofs and tall chimney stacks. The house stands in a large park. The front is now approached in the English manner, with a drive sweeping to the side and an unbroken expanse of lawn. On the garden front, the house stands on a terrace with steps leading down to the former parterre, which is now lawn, and the expanse of water in the formally shaped pièce d'eau, from the far end of which the château is reflected in its entirety.
The original furnishings of Guermantes have been scattered, but rooms retain their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century boiseries. The family Pondre maintained the property until 1929, by which time Marcel Proust had employed "Guermantes" for the family at the top of the French society he was describing. There has never been a duchesse de Guermantes; Proust's "château de Guermantes", unreachably beyond the limits of family walks from Combray then purchased by the Verdurins, was based on the duc de Sully's Château de Villebon, Eure-et-Loir.
Ownership by John Law
In 1719 the Scottish economist and financier John Law purchased Guermantes for 800,000 livres. He only enjoyed possession for a matter of months. When the economic bubble created by his Mississippi Scheme burst, his life came under threat and he begged Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, the Regent, for permission to leave Paris. The Regent initially only granted Law permission to retire to the Château de Guermantes, and it was there that he spent his final days in France. On the evening of 17 December 1720, Law set off from the Château de Guermantes and fled France never to return. Paulin Pondre was able to take possession once more; his family were dispossessed at the Revolution.
Use as a film location
The real Guermantes provided locations for Philippe de Broca for Cartouche (1962), the Polish director Andrzej Wajda for Danton, Miloš Forman for Amadeus (1984) and Stephen Frears for Dangerous Liaisons (1988). Guermantes is not open to the public. It lies 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from Euro Disneyland.