Castle of Rambouillet

The castle of Rambouillet , old royal residence become presidential residence since 1896, is located at Rambouillet, Chef-lieu of Arrondissement of the south of the Yvelines in France in a park of 100 hectares within the Forêt of Rambouillet.

History

Origins. The Family of Angennes

In 1368, Jean Bernier, knight, adviser and Master of the requests of the hotel of the king, provost of Paris, buys in Girard de Tournebu simple a Manoir which it makes transform into 1374 in true a Château strengthened and surrounded by ditches. This primitive castle is of irregular pentagonal plan, with a triangular main building confined of turrets, a gross tower, a châtelet of entry and a closed court of curtains. These transformations must include/understand in comparison with the ordinance of Charles V of the July 19th 1367 prescribing to arm all the castles; it is also the time when the king makes strengthen in Paris the Louvre and the Bastille.

As of 1384, Guillaume, wire of Jean Bernier, sells this new castle in Regnault d' Angennes, rider and first sharp servant of the king. It will remain in the Famille of Angennes during more than three centuries, until in 1699.

During the War One hundred Year old, the castle was plundered and set fire to between 1425 and 1428, but was restored in 1484 by Jean II of Angennes and his wife. Jacques d' Angennes (1514-1562), captains of the bodyguards of François I {{er}}, increases the field by buying the grounds of Auffargis and Poigny, the châtellenie of the Essarts-the-King and various grounds neighborhood, thus constituting a splendid field of hunting. Large amateur of Hunting, François Ier often comes to Rambouillet. He dies there the March 31st 1547 of a Septicémie, according to the tradition in the Upper House of the gross tower, which remained until our days in spite of the considerable transformations undergone by the castle.

Jacques d' Angennes makes moreover embellish the castle. At the ground floor, it makes arrange a big room in the Italian taste, with the walls covered with plates of Marbre, by the master mason Olivier Ymbert, author, in the surroundings, of the Château of Thoiry. It also makes build the large staircase out of brick and stone.

In 1612, Louis XIII sets up the ground of Rambouillet in Marquisat with the profit of the family of Angennes. It is the time when Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise of Rambouillet, wife of Charles d' Angennes, holds living room in her hotel from Rambouillet to Paris. Their daughter, Julie d' Angennes, is the dedicatee of famous the Guirlande of Julie . She marries the Duc of Montausier to which she brings in dowry the field of Rambouillet. This one increases the field by important acquisitions between 1670 and 1681 and makes redraw the gardens. It is possible that celebrates it Jean-Baptiste of Quintinie created an orchard there.

Fleuriau d' Armenonville and the creation of the gardens

Following the marriage of the second girl of Julie d' Angennes, the field passes to the duke of Uzès. This one has financial problems and must sell the field in 1699 with the one of its creditors, Joseph Fleuriau d' Armenonville.

Fleuriau d' Armenonville, which had spent only 140.000 books to acquire the field, there absorbs more than 500.000 books in the space of a few years. According to the tradition, it is him which makes transform the gardens with the Frenchwoman by creating a succession of floors and water levels, supplied with the many sources of these marshy grounds. A channel is dug in the axis of the south-western frontage of the castle and prolonged by a green carpet Another channel, perpendicular, skirts the floors of embroideries which extend to the foot from the castle. Beyond these floors three basins of different forms are arranged. The park is decorated sculptures by Simon Mazière, Pierre Legros and Rene Frémin.

The castle of the Bourbons

Louis-Alexandre of Bourbon, count de Toulouse, wire naturalness legitimated of Louis XIV and Madam de Montespan, Admiral de France, wishing to have a field of hunting around Paris, throws its reserved on Rambouillet. Fleuriau d' Armenonville is constrained to yield the field in to him 1706 for the sum of 500.000 books.

The count of Toulouse considerably will develop and embellish the field. He carries out important land acquisitions, adding to the marquisat of Rambouillet the grounds of Saint-Leger-in-Yvelines, Montfort-l' Amaury, Gazeran and a good part of the duchy of Épernon. He thus carries the field up to 13.000 hectares. He makes build splendid stables and vast commun runs, connected to the castle by an underground. He also makes complete important work on the castle itself.

A first work campaign takes place of 1706 with 1709 under the direction of Pierre Cailleteau says “Lassurance”. The frontages on court are homogenized and the court is closed by a semicircular grid. The north-western wing (destroyed today) is equipped with a frontage curved on the garden and with an external horseshoe staircase. In August 1707, whereas the essence of this work are completed, the castle receives the visit of the Grand Dolphin, the duke and the duchess of Burgundy, of the princess of Conti and many courtiers. Louis XIV itself twice comes to return visit to his/her son, in company of Madam de Maintenon, the second time little before its death in 1714.

When it leaves the council of Regency in 1722, the count of Toulouse withdraws himself in Rambouillet. He launches 1730 to 1736 one second campaign work under the direction of the Desgots architect says “Legoux”. It aims at doubling the western wing by the creation of an apartment says “apartment of assembly”. In spite of the importance of the project, the intervention of Desgots is relatively discrete. It makes move the turret of angle not to upset the balance of the castle. The principal originality is a balcony running on the frontage along the new apartment, provision which had for a long time passed from mode. The interior installations carried out at the same time and essentially always in place are on the other hand of a very great luxury. A very beautiful whole of carved woodworks is carried out by the ornementists François-Antoine Vassé, who worked also with the Hotel of Toulouse, and Jacques Verberckt.

To died from the count de Toulouse in 1737, the field passes to his/her only son, the duke of Penthièvre. Born in Rambouillet, it there spends much time and is devoted mainly to the embellishment of the gardens. It makes develop the canal system to constitute a whole of islands and makes arrange 25 hectares of the landscaped garden with factories, according to a fashion which then starts to be spread. The thatched cottage with the shells, the hermitage and the house Chinese (see below) date from the years 1770 - 1780.

Louis XVI which, like Louis XV, often drives out in forest of Yvelines but finds too exiguous sound Château of Saint-Hubert, request with his cousin the duke of Penthièvre to yield its castle of Rambouillet to him. The sale is concluded in December 1783 for the considerable sum from 16 million books. Louis XVI first of all plans to make rebuild the castle, but the plans requested from the architect Jean Augustin Renard are not conclusive, taking into account the constraints of the site, in particular the proximity of the city and the presence of the canal.
Ultimately, the king decides to preserve the castle but made build under the direction of the architect Jacques Jean Thévenin vast commun runs, being able to accommodate 400 servants, in the place of the old stables, and of new stables for 500 horses. In the city moreover are built the Hotel of the Government, the bailliage, the building of the Vénerie as well as a hotel for the governor of Rambouillet, Charles Claude Flahaut of Billarderie, count d' Angivillers.

Marie-Antoinette hates Rambouillet from which it finds the pace “Gothic”. To try to allure it, Louis XVI fact of building in the greatest secrecy a splendid dairy, inaugurated in June 1787 (V. below), and of altering the gardens by Hubert Robert.

Rambouillet at the XIXe century

Under the Revolution, the field is forsaken. Napoleon i makes restore the castle, which is registered on its civil list. He likes Rambouillet for the huntings possibilities that the field offers. He engages of work of refitting. A first campaign, under the direction of the architect Guillaume Trepsat, ends in 1805 in the demolition of the north-western wing, unbalancing in an irremediable way the composition of the main courtyard. One then thinks of entirely rebuilding the building, and several projects are elaborate in 1809 by the architect Auguste Famin, of which none is finally retained. Famin is however charged to re-examine a certain number of interior circulations as well as decoration with several apartments. In the park, it sows new factories and makes plant new gasolines, of which an alley of Cyprès bald person S of Louisiana, the first of France, which will be famous (it was unfortunately cut down at the time of the storm of December 1999).

On the way of the exile, Napoleon passes to Rambouillet the night from June 29th to 30th 1815. With the return of the Bourbons on the throne, the castle is refurnished and of work are carried out to erase the imperial badges. One undertakes to modify the frontage on the garden, but the building site is stopped after having made carry out three bay S in full swifter, which gives today a strange and not very homogeneous aspect to this part of the castle.

Charles X likes to drive out in Rambouillet. It is there that, fascinating him also the road of the exile, it abdicates in favor of its grandson the duke of Bordeaux the August 2nd 1830.

Louis-Philippe I {{er}} does not want to preserve the castle on its civil list and gives it to the administration of the fields, which rents it with various occupants: the baron de Schickler, the count Duchâtel, a restaurant of luxury, a Parisian circle.

In 1852, it reinstates the civil list of Napoleon III which made some stays there.

Rambouillet, presidential residence

After the fall of the Second Empire, the administration considers one moment to transform the castle into hospital, raising the made indignant protests of Adolphe Thiers. But as of 1883, the Presidents of the Republic take again the tradition of huntings in Rambouillet. Jules Grévy, Sadi Carnot, Jean Casimir-Perier like the castle. This one is arranged in residence of summer for Felix Faure and becomes officially presidential residence the February 23rd 1886.

The castle of Rambouillet was the seat of the first meeting at the top of the most industrialized countries (G6), on the initiative of the president Valery Giscard d'Estaing in 1975. Six countries took part in it: the Germany (Helmut Schmidt), the the United States (Gerald Ford), the France, the Italy (Aldo Moro), the Japan (Takeo Miki) and the the United Kingdom (Harold Wilson).

Since, the castle regularly accommodates the Heads of foreign States in visit in France, for example Boris Ieltsine, Hosni Mubarak and Nelson Mandela.

In 1999 was written there the agreement of Rambouillet, a proposal for an peace agreement between the Yugoslavia and the Albanian of the Kosovo. Yugoslavia rejected it, which led to the Guerre of Kosovo.

Since May 2007, the castle is placed at the disposal of the French Prime Minister by the President of the Republic, following the annexation by this last of the house of the Lantern with Versailles, residence of holiday until assigned there to the heads of government.

Structure

Dependences

The thatched cottage with the shells

The thatched cottage with the shells was built towards 1770 - 1780 per Claude-Martin Goupy, architect of the duke of Penthièvre, for the daughter-in-law of this last, the princess of Lamballe.

She is revealing passion for the picturesque countryman who develops starting from 1760 and whose will also attest the Hameau of the Queen to Versailles (built between 1783 and 1787). Of outside, this construction resembles a thatched cottage, and it is again, as at the origin, covered in Chaume, but the interior is very richly decorated (Marbre, Coquillage S, Nacre).

The hermitage

Realized on a escarpée height of the park known as “of Coudray”, the Hermitage also corresponds to a exercise quasi-obliged in the landscaped gardens of second half of the 18th century. It dates, like the thatched cottage with the shells, of the work campaign carried out towards 1770 - 1780 per Claude-Martin Goupy for the duke of Penthièvre. Many vaster than the majority contemporary hermitages, it include/understand several parts of which a vault. Damaged by a fire in 1977, it is in the course of restoration (2005).

Dairy of the Queen

The dairy of the Queen was built in 1785 at the request of Louis XVI for Marie-Antoinette, in order to make him like Rambouillet by pointing out the to him Petit Trianon of Versailles. Later, the dairy was refitted by Napoleon.

Built by the Thévenin architect, it is one of most important the factories of garden of the 18th century. The dairy includes/understands a surmounted round room of a cupola which opens on a cave sheltering a statue of the nymph Amalthée with a goat due to Pierre Julien (1787), several medallions and two low-reliefs.

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