Madame de Pompadour's Private Apartment

  Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (1721-1764), was a woman of bourgeois origins, she did not descended from a family of the French nobility. In 1745, she had the good fortune to meet the king at a masked-ball organised in Versailles, where she managed to seduce the monarch with her beauty and her intelligence. He formalized her as his favorite, six months after their first meeting.
 Seven years later, the king and the marquise were no longer in love, but they kept a strong friendship. Jeanne-Antoinette even provided the king with young women, so that he would not choose a woman among these at Court. The king also sometimes asked for advises to her on state matters. He even kept her close to him, at the Palace. He bought for her the Hôtel d'Evreux, today known as the Presidential Palace de l'Elysée. While being the king's favorite, she used her influence to protect artists and writers (Voltaire, she permitted the publication of the two first volumes of L'Encyclopédie by Diderot and D'Alembert). 

Portrait en pied de la Marquise de Pompadour,
 by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Musée de Louvre (RMN)

  In 1745, the king installed his lover in the apartment right above his own. This apartment hosted the monarch's previous favorite (Madame de Chateauroux). This small apartment offers an impressive view of the northern part of the gardens.

The stairs to access the apartment (photo by me)

View on the Northern Aisle, from the apartments of the Pompadour (photo by me)

  When I visited, luckily for me, the weather was incredible, the sun enterred joyfully in the rooms.
The apartment has been completely refurnished and redecorated few years ago, thanks to a generous sponsorship from a jewelry brand. These rooms are accessible with a special guiding tour focused on hidden apartments of the castle.

Cabinet of the marquise (photo by me)

Bedchamber (photo by me)

photo by me

photo by me

Madame Husset's (marquise's maid) room, a very small room usually closed to the public (photo by me)

Further informations:

* Article about the apartment on the site of the Palace
* Gallery from the Facebook account of the Palace
* Le Bal Des Ifs, by Franck Ferrand, an interesting biography of Madame de Pompadour by famous French writer and Versailles specialist Franck Ferrand. I found it easy to read and to understand all the mechanisms of the mid. 18th century French court.
* Article about the marquise on Encyclopaedia Universalis by Louis Trenard (in French)
* Article about the marquise on Encyclopaedia Britannica by Nancy Mitford (in English)
* Extract from the show Secrets d'Histoire about the marquise (in French)

Marie Antoinette's Inside Cabinets

The tradition in Versailles had always been for sovereigns to have apartments for "apparat", apartments for the court life, for public appearances, for public ceremonies (Grand Lever, Grand Souper,...), but the kings and queens in Versailles also could enjoy more private apartments, where they could spend some private time, with their close relatives and friends. If you've seen the 2007 Sofia Coppola film 'Marie Antoinette' you might remember that the queen spends some of her time alone in rooms quite smaller than the official ones.

L'escalier des porteurs d'eau,
 first step into a quiet little world (photo by me)

I am going to try to describe you a part of the Queen's private apartments, or as we call them in French 'les Cabinets Intérieurs de la Reine', which I had the privilege to visit last summer.


We access them through a hidden door in the end of the Queen's Great Apartments, door obviously locked for most visitors. It was quite an amazing feeling to pass from the crowded apartments to this empty quiet staircase.











Once we climbed these stairs, and after two or three rooms with no particularity, we arrived at the entrance of the Cabinet Doré (Golden Cabinet), in which we could not enter for security reasons, but with the door entirely open, we were still able to see the beautiful room.

© EPV/ Christian Milet

It is the largest room of all Marie Antoinette's private apartments. it was there that the queen received most of her private guests, including her Ministre des Modes (Fashion Minister) as she liked to call her, Rose Bertin, or her official poraitis Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (whom we saw here). It was also in this room that she liked to take her music lessons. We can see a harp in the background, it actually belonged to the Queen and was crafted by the luthier and composer Jean-Henri Naderman in 1774 (he is reknown among harpists for writing several sonatas, inspired by the cour of Versailles).

We then moves on towards another room, much smaller than this one, the Cabinet de la Méridienne.

© EPV/ Jean-Marc Manaï

This little room was sort of a refuge for the Queen. She used to come here to rest on the sofa, whithout being disturbed. Indeed, she could lock herself in from the inside, thanks to the lockets on both doors. It was installed in the years 1780, when Marie Antoinette was pregnant with the second royal baby, whom everyone was hoping to be a boy, so that he kingdom would have its "dauphin". On the wooden walls are crafted some dolphins (symbol of the heir to the throne of France), eagles (symbols of the Austrian empire where the queen was born), and other feminin and royals symbols. On the fireplace is displayed a bust representing the son that Marie Antoinete finally had, who was destined to become Louis XVII, born in 1785 (he died during the Revolution).

Detail of the window  (photo by me)

Details of the door (photo by me)

After this quiet moment in this beautiful cabinet, we continued our visit to a series of small rooms, all quite ravishing, and impressively small, when we know the reputation marie Antoinette had for the "grandiose".

photo by me

photo by me

photo by me

photo by me

We then went down a flight of stairs and arrived right on the other side of the door that we can see in the Queen's Great Bedchamber.

On the other side, we can see usual tourists (photo by me)

Versailles at Night

Recently, several photos were posted on the Versailles Facebook page. They were picturing the magnificent castle at night, with a very special lightning.

The clock, photo : EPV / Thomas Garnier

The Entrance, photo by : EPV / Thomas Garnier

The facade of the palace under the light. photo: EPV / Thomas Garnier

Hall of mirrors : EPV / Thomas Garnier

Attique Chimay

When coming in Versailles, many people usually think of the palace as a symbol of the absolute monarchy in place until the early 1790's.
This summer, when I was working with one of the curators, I discovered the Attique Chimay, a gallery of rooms, all of which containing painting concerning the French Revolution (from 1789 to about 1794). This gallery is only open to the public on few occasions (for the Journées du Patrimoine in September for example). When I visited it, I was alone with the curator and another person from the Palace.

picture of one of the rooms of the Attique Chimay [X] 

When enterring the gallery, the first thing you can see is actually the masterpiece of the Attique. It is an sketch of the monumental painting by Jacques Louis David representing the Serment du Jeu De Paume.

The skecth (4.00 x 6.00 m), Photo RMN

On June 20, 1789, representatives gatherred in Versailles. They were all wishing dor a change in French political life. They locked themselves inside the Jeu De Paume court of Versailles (the jeu de paume being a sort of indoor tennis) and took the oath of not going out until they have found and written a constitution for France. This assembly is considered to be the first French National Assembly ever held. It is therefore a founding moment of the French democracy.

"June 20, 1789. They had sworn, they accomplished their oath" Photo taken in the Salle du Jeu De Paume by me,
July 2013

A year later, in 1790, paintor Jacques-Louis David began a gigantic painting, being funded by the people, representing this historical moment. Unfortunately he never had enough money to finish it, and he left esquisses but no finished painting. Also around 1792, the Revolution started radicalising and David, in his idea of the painting, wanted to represent the people who took part in the Oath, but most of them were moderate Revolutionnaries, so with the befonning of the Terror, it did not appeared as such a good idea to represent people who were now in sort of disgrace.

 In 1883, the French Republic wished to establish a Museum of the Revolution in the Salle du Jeu De Paume of Versailles and charged paintor Merson to paint from all of David's sketches, the final picture.

In the Attique Chimay of Versailles is diplayed one of the rare sketches of the original painter. It is a very impressive picture, first by the size of it (the characters are almost life-scaled) and by the fact that David draw every muscle of their body. It shows how a great artist like him worked at the time.

The finished painting by Merson, photo RMN

A few days after, I went visiting the Salle Du Jeu De Paume in the city of Versailles, and it was a very impressive thing. I think I was mostly impressed by the fact that it is the birthplace of our democracy, and also that it is still in place and un-altered after 225 years ! Every representative's name was written on the walls (it was fun to look for the deputy from my area ! ), and some engravings representing this moment were displayed around the room.

Salle du Jeu de Paume in Versailles. Photo by me, July 2013

I think the Attique Chimay can be visited with a French revolution special guided tour of the Palace

Here is a link to the guided tours program, I gather it might be in the "De la prise de la Bastille à la chute de Robespierre 1789-1794" visit, but I am not absolutely sure about it.

Versailles on Wiki Commons

If you're not following the Chateau de Versailles on Facebook or on Twitter, you definitely should ! I met the people in charge of these accounts, and they explained to me what they were doing with these. They try to make discover hidden places, organizing little contests, talking about press articles about the Palace. It is really interesting and very fun.
 A few days ago, they published a little article about the recent partnership they had with Wiki Commons, offering a great range of beautiful aerial pictures of the domain.

All of them are really amazing ! I post some of them here, and leave you the link to see them all.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Aerial_views_of_the_domain_of_Versailles

Closing Days

One of the best privileges I got when working at the Palace, was to be allowed in on mondays, the closing day.

If you follow the Palace on social medias (Twitter and Facebook), on monday, you can see pictures of the empty rooms and corridors. 

Empty Queen's Bedchamber (photo by me)

Empty Hall Of Mirrors (photo by me)

You may think that, since its closed, there is nothing inside, but you're wrong. There are less people than any other day, but still. There are people cleaning statues, floors, chandeliers. On monday, the Palace also offers visits for VIPs (for example, Leonardo Di Caprio came in June, or Kim & Kanye in May 2014). While wandering through the empty corridors, you can encounter curators watching paintings and art to see if there's any problems with it. Finally, monday is usually a shootingday for television documentaries or movies. For example, on my last monday at Versailles, I met three BBC journalists making a film about Louis XIV.

Salon de l'Oeil-De-Boeuf (photo by me)

One monday, we also realised a photoshoot of some furniture. The pictures we take are for the Réunion des Musées Nationaux (National Museums Reunion) and will be used for posters, postcards, and posted on the RMN's website .

photo by me

Salon de la Paix (photo by me)