Castle of Bellevue (Meudon)

History

In 1748, Louis XV buys a ground located on the plate of Meudon, between the Château of Meudon and that of Saint-Cloud. The managing director of the Bâtiments of the King Normalizing It of Tournehem supplements the property by negotiating purchases and exchanges with private individuals and of the monks, and the First architect of the King, Angel-Jacques Gabriel, proposes projects to build there a residence of pleasure which must be called Bellevue , in reference to the splendid panorama which is discovered since this property. As of the following year, the King yields the ground to Madam de Pompadour, which is addressed to its architect, Jean Cailleteau says “Lassurance” (Lassurance the young person). Assisted by Jean-Charles Garnier d' Isle for the gardens, this last very quickly builds the castle of Bellevue, whose work is completed as of 1750. While at the same time the bad quality of the ground required deep foundations, the building site was carried out beating drum: to 800 workmen worked there. Louis XV came itself to supervise work, dined quickly on the spot and discussed with the men Article.

Downwards, at the edge of the Seine, Madam de Pompadour acquires in 1750 a small house built under the Régence, called Brimborion , which is connected to the plate by the part of the garden arranged in the east of the castle and is integrated into the field.

To died from favorite in 1764, the whole of the property is allocated to the King who makes alter the distribution and the interior decoration under the direction of Angel-Jacques Gabriel. This one built in 1767, two wings in return in ground floor, absorptive in 1773 in an extension which connects them to the principal building. It makes work Jacques Verberckt, Jules-Antoine Rousseau, Jacques Caffieri, Jean Restout, Chardin and Fragonard.

To the death of Louis XV in 1774, the castle is allotted to his/her daughters, Mesdames Adélaïde, Sophie and Victoire. Those make transform the interior decoration by Richard Mique and carry out in Brimborion a decorated English garden of factories of which some point out those of the hamlets of Chantilly or of Trianon.

Under the Revolution, Mesdames take the way of the emigration. The castle is delivered to plundering and is disfigured by adventitious constructions. As of year XI, the house known as “of the Columns” bites thus on the English garden.

The castle itself is demolished in 1823 on the initiative of the promoter Achille Guillaume, who parcels out the field in 1825. It makes build beautiful houses by the architect François Guenepin (V. preserved examples 62 route des Gardes and, perhaps, 2 rue du Bassin) on vast pieces by respecting the general plan of the field, transforming the wings of the castle to create a place which will bear its name. With its death, the allotment is not completed. It is crossed towards 1838 by the railway line where Dumont d' Urville will find death in 1842. With the passing of years, the vast pieces are redivisées in more modest batches. In 1925, the Pharos company carries out an ultimate allotment between the avenues of November 11th, Eiffel and the street Bussières.

The last vestiges of the castle disappear from 1943 with 1972, except for the refrigerator and of the terrace. Most of the English garden Mesdames, respected by Guillaume, in particular one of the factories, the “Tower of the Ladies of France”, remains until in the years 1960.

External architecture and gardens

By its design, Bellevue marks an important date in the evolution of the French castle. The building, of massed plan, almost square, is a construction on two floors, typical of the country cottages which become then with the mode and which one will find the development perfect with the Petit Trianon. It includes/understands nine spans in frontage and six on the sides. The almost identical decoration of the four frontages, simply crowned triangular pediments decorated in high relief by Guillaume II Coustou, still underlines the collected character of the building. On the first floor, eighteen consoles placed between the spans carry busts, for the majority of the portraits of Roman Emperors selected by Tournehem in the store of the marbles of Folichancourt.

Of relatively modest size, Bellevue more makes think of the house of a particular rich person that to a royal castle. In fact, it was conceived at the origin not for the King himself but for the marchioness of Pompadour, which wished to receive Louis XV in the intimacy there.

Inside, one preserved on the main axis the traditional row hall-living room, but the parts located at the center on the small sides are directed according to a perpendicular axis. At the ground floor, the hall and the living room, also being used as dining room pageantry, are paved of marble. The principal staircase is capped with a glazed Lanterneau. The reduction in the number of parts is accompanied by a drastic reduction by reserved spaces to the service, rejected into the dependences which are ordered in a quadrilateral rejected in the south of the castle. The two buildings low built on both sides main courtyard, of oval plan closed by a grid, shelter for that of north the apartment of the baths, decorated paintings of François Boucher, the caretaker's lodge, the menagerie and the hen houses, and for that of the south a theater “to Chinese”, the service of the mouth, the stables for thirty-seven horses, the handing-over and the vault of the commun run.

Drawn by Garnier d' Isle, the park is divided into two parts: one, in the east, is staged skilfully above the Seine, while adapting ingeniously, by curved alleys crossing in X, with an inclined ground very strong; the other, in the west, beyond the court, includes/understands two series of thickets on both sides of a green carpet the access is done according to a North-South transverse axis parallel at the large side of the castle.

Interior decorations

In Bellevue, Madam de Pompadour made carry out interior decorations of greatest refinement. The two niches of the hall are decorated of “the Music” of Etienne Maurice Falconet and of “the Poetry” of Lambert-Sigisbert Adam (Adam the elder one) (two works are today with the Musée of Louvre). The large living room and the living room of company are decorated woodworks of Jacques Verberckt, overdoor of Jean-Baptiste Oudry and piers of Carle Van Loo. The staircase is painted in trompe-l'oeil by Paolo Antonio Brunetti. On the first floor, the vault, located at the center, comprises a table of furnace bridge of François Boucher, the Worship of the shepherds (Lyon, museum of the Art schools). The apartment of the king includes/understands a cabinet gilded carried out by Verberckt and Boucher.

The furniture of the castle, style rubble, ordered by the Marchioness of Pompadour will integrate the royal collections at the time of the resale of the field into Louis XV. Mesdames Victoire, Adelaide and Louise de France, owners of the castle at the time of Louis XVI, will order there important movable whole with the neo-classic latest fashion. Today, certain pieces of furniture of cabinet work and joinery of Bellevue are preserved at the Museum of Louvre, the Castle of Versailles and the Museum of decorative Arts in Paris.

Remaining elements

There remains only little of things of the field of Bellevue:

the central part of terrace (IMH);
the building of Guards (IMH - 61 route des Gardes);
artificial cave created for Mesdames (IMH - 62 route des Gardes);
refrigerator of 1755 (IMH - 1 allée Pompadour);
house says “Small Bellevue”, with a small circular living room, and house of music of 1785, allotted to Mique (IMH - 59 route des Gardes).

Posterity

the castle of Bellevue was imitated, little of time after its construction, with the Château of Leeuwergem builds in 1764 with Zottegem (Belgium) for Pierre Emmanuel Joseph d' Hane (1726 - 1786).

Random links: