Royal Palaces And Parks Of France - free ebook by M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

WORKS OF FRANCIS MILTOUN

L. C. Page and Company 53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass....

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Preface

"A thousand years ago, by the rim of a tiny spring, a monk who had avowed himself to the cult of Saint Saturnin, robed, cowled and sandalled, knelt down to say a prayer to his beloved patron saint. Again he came, this time followed by more of his kind, and a wooden cross was planted by the side of the "Fontaine Belle Eau," by this time become a place of pious pilgrimage. After the monk came a king, the latter to hunt in the neighbouring forest." It was this old account of fact, or legend, that l

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INTRODUCTORY

The modern traveller sees something beyond mere facts. Historical material as identified with the life of some great architectural glory is something more than a mere repetition of chronologies; the sidelights and the co-related incidents, though indeed many of them may be but hearsay, are quite as interesting, quite as necessary, in fact, for the proper appreciation of a famous palace or chateau as long columns of dates, or an evolved genealogical tree which attempts to make plain that which co

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THE EVOLUTION OF FRENCH GARDENS

The French garden was a creation of all epochs from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and, for the most part, those of to-day and of later decades of the nineteenth century, are adaptations and restorations of the classic accepted forms. From the modest jardinet of the moyen-age to the ample gardens and parterres of the Renaissance was a wide range. In their highest expression these early French gardens, with their broderies and carreaux may well be compared as works of art with contem

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THE ROYAL HUNT IN FRANCE

Just how great a part the royal hunt played in the open-air life of the French court all who know their French history and have any familiarity with the great forests of France well recognize. The echo of French country architecture as evinced in the " maisons de plaisance " and " rendezvous de chasse " scattered up and down the France of monarchial times lives until to-day, scarcely fainter than when the note was originally sounded. Often these establishments were something more than a mere hun

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THE PALAIS DE LA CITÉ AND TOURNELLES

Not every one assumes the Paris Palais de Justice to ever have been the home of kings and queens. It has not, however, always been a tilting ground for lawyers and criminals, though, no doubt, when one comes to think of it, it is in that rôle that it has acted its most thrilling episodes. The Saint Chapelle, the Conciergerie and the great clock of the Tour de l'Horloge mark the Palais de Justice down in the books of most folk as one of the chief Paris "sights," but it was as a royal residence th

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THE OLD LOUVRE AND ITS HISTORY

A stroll by the banks of the Seine will review much of the history of the capital, as much of it as was bound up with Notre Dame, the Louvre and the Palais de la Cité (now the Palais de Justice), and that was a great deal, even in mediæval and Renaissance times. The life of the Louvre was Paris; the life of Paris that of the nation; and the life of the nation that of the people. This even the Parisians of to-day will tell you. It is scant acknowledgment of the provinces to be sure, but what woul

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THE LOUVRE OF FRANCIS I AND ITS SUCCESSORS

One can attribute the demise of the Old Louvre to the coming of Charles V to Paris in 1539. This royal residence, hastily put in order to receive his august presence, seemed so coldly inconvenient and inhospitable to his host, Francis I, that that monarch decided forthwith upon its complete reconstruction and enlargement. Owing to various combinations of circumstances the actual work of reconstruction was put off until 1546, thus the New Louvre as properly belongs to the reign of Henri II as to

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THE TUILERIES AND ITS GARDENS

No more sentimental interest ever attached itself to a royal French palace than that which surrounded the Tuileries from its inception by Charles IX in the mid-sixteenth century to its extinction by the Commune in 1871. The Palace of the Tuileries is no more, the Commune did for it as it did for the Hotel de Ville and many another noble monument of the capital, and all that remains are the gardens set about with a few marble columns and gilt balls—themselves fragments of former decorative elemen

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THE PALAIS CARDINAL AND THE PALAIS ROYAL

With the Louvre and the Tuileries the Palais Royal shares the popular interest of the traveller among all the monuments of Paris. No other edifice evokes more vivid souvenirs of its historic past than this hybrid palace of Richelieu. One dreams even to-day, of its sumptuousness, its legends, its amusing and extravagant incidents which cast a halo of romantic interest over so many illustrious personages. So thoroughly Parisian is the Palais Royal in all things that it has been called "the Capital

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THE LUXEMBOURG, THE ELYSÉE AND THE PALAIS BOURBON

The kings and queens of France were not only rulers of the nation, but they dominated the life of the capital as well. Upon their crowning or entry into Paris it was the custom to command a gift by right from the inhabitants. In 1389 Isabeau de Bavière, of dire memory, got sixty thousand couronnes d'or , and in 1501, and again in 1504, was presented with six thousand and ten thousand livres parisis respectively. The king levied personal taxes on the inhabitants, who were thus forced to pay for t

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VINCENNES AND CONFLANS

Vincennes is to-day little more than a dull, dirty Paris suburb; if anything its complexion is a deeper drab than that of Saint Denis, and to call the Bois de Vincennes a park "somewhat resembling the Bois de Boulogne," as do the guidebooks, is ridiculous. In reality Vincennes is nothing at all except a memory. There is to-day little suggestion of royal origin about the smug and murky surroundings of the Chateau de Vincennes; but nevertheless, it once was a royal residence, and the drama which u

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FONTAINEBLEAU AND ITS FOREST

Of all the French royal palaces Fontainebleau is certainly the most interesting, despite the popularity and accessibility of Versailles. It is moreover the cradle of the French Renaissance. Napoleon called it the Maison des Siècles, and the simile was just. After Versailles, Fontainebleau has ever held the first place among the suburban royal palaces. The celebrated "Route de Fontainebleau" of history was as much a Chemin du Roi as that which led from the capital to Versailles. Ver sailles was g

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CHAPTER XII

On the highroad to Saint Germain one passes innumerable historic monuments which suggest the generous part that many minor chateaux played in the court life of the capital of old. To-day, Maisons, La Muette and Bagatelle are mere names which serve the tram lines for roof signs and scarcely one in a thousand strangers gives them a thought. The famous Bois de Boulogne and its immediate environment have for centuries formed a delicious verdant framing for a species of French country-house which cou

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MALMAISON AND MARLY

Out from Paris, by the cobbly Pavé du Roi, which a parental administration is only just now digging up and burying under, just beyond the little suburban townlet of Rueil (where the Empress Josephine and her daughter Hortense lie buried in the parish church), one comes to Malmaison of unhappy memory. It is not imposing, palatial, nor, architecturally, very worthy, but it is one of the most sentimentally historic of all French monuments of its class. Since no very definite outlines remain of any

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SAINT CLOUD AND ITS PARK

The historic souvenirs of Saint Cloud and its royal palace are many and varied, though scarcely anything tangible remains to-day of the fabric so loved by Francis I and Henri II, and which was, for a fact, but a magnificent country-house, originally belonging to the Archbishops of Paris. To-day the rapid slopes of the hillsides of Saint Cloud are peopled with a heterogeneous mass of villas of what the Parisian calls the "coquette" order, but which breathe little of the spirit of romance and gall

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VERSAILLES: THE GLORY OF FRANCE

" Glorieuse, monumentale et monotone La façade de pierre effrite, au vent qui passe Son chapiteau friable et sa guirlande lasse En face du parc jaune ou s'accoude l'automne. * * * * * * Mais le soleil, aux vitres d'or qu'il incendie Y semble rallumer interieurement Le sursaut, chaque soir de la Gloire engourdi. " These lines of Henri de Régnier explain the aspect of the Versailles of to-day better than any others ever written. Versailles is a medley of verdure,

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THE GARDENS OF VERSAILLES AND THE TRIANONS

Versailles without its court of marble, its fountains, its gardens and its park, and the attendant Grand and Petit Trianons, would hardly have the attraction that it has to-day. The ensemble is something of more vast and varied extent than is to be seen elsewhere, though its aspect has somewhat changed from what it was of old, and the crowds of Sunday and holiday visitors give the courts and alleyed walks somewhat the aspect of a modern amusement resort. The gardens of Versailles were but the fr

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SAINT GERMAIN-EN-LAYE

Saint Germain has not the popularity of Versailles, nor the charm of Fontainebleau, but it is more accessible than either, and, if less known and less visited by the general mass of tourists, it is all the more delightful for that. Saint Germain, the chateau, the town and the forest, possess a magnificent site. Behind is a wooded background, and before one are the meanderings of the Seine which in the summer sunlight is a panorama which is to be likened to no other on earth. Across the river bot

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MAINTENON

Out from Paris, on the old Route d'Espagne, running from the capital to the frontier, down which rolled the royal cortèges of old, lie Maintenon and its famous chateau, some sixty odd kilometres from Paris and twenty from Rambouillet. Just beyond Versailles, on the road to Maintenon, lies the trim little townlet of Saint Cyr, known to-day as the West Point of France, the military school founded by Napoleon I giving it its chief distinction. Going back into the remote past one learns that the vil

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RAMBOUILLET AND ITS FOREST

Rambouillet is one of the most famous of the minor royal chateaux of France. Built under the first of the monarchies, in the midst of the vast forest of Yveline, it has always formed a part of the national domain. Even now, under Republican France, it is still the scene of the hunts organized for visiting monarchs, and, within the last half dozen years alone, the monarchs of Spain and Belgium, Italy and England have shot hares and stags and pheasants in company with a Republican president. The o

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CHANTILLY

Chantilly, because of its royal associations, 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 Condés and the Montmorencys, that are held each y

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COMPIÉGNE AND ITS FOREST

One of the most talked of and the least visited of the minor French palaces is that of Compiègne. The archeologists coming to Compiègne first notice that all its churches are " malorientées ." It is a minor point with most folk, but when one notes that its five churches have their high altars turned to all points of the compass, instead of to the east, it is assuredly a fact to be noticed, even if one is more romantically inclined than devout. Through and through, Compiègne, its palace, its hote

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