The Château de Maisons (now Château de Maisons-Laffitte), designed by

François Mansart François Mansart (; 23 January 1598 – 23 September 1666) was a French architect credited with introducing classicism into Baroque architecture of France. The '' Encyclopædia Britannica'' cites him as the most accomplished of 17th-century Fr ...

from 1630 to 1651, is a prime example of

French baroque architecture French Baroque architecture, sometimes called French classicism, was a style of architecture during the reigns of Louis XIII (1610–43), Louis XIV (1643–1715) and Louis XV (1715–74). It was preceded by French Renaissance architecture and Ma ...

and a reference point in the history of

French architecture French architecture consists of numerous architectural styles that either originated in France or elsewhere and were developed within the territories of France. History Gallo-Roman The architecture of Ancient Rome at first adopted the ext ...

. The

château A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Now ...

is located in

Maisons-Laffitte Maisons-Laffitte () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the northern Île-de-France region of France. It is a part of the affluent outer suburbs of northwestern Paris, from its centre. In 2018, it had a population of 23,611. Maisons-Laf ...

, a northwestern suburb of

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, in the department of

Yvelines Yvelines () is a department in the western part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207.Île-de-France , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 = +01:00 , timezone1_DST = CEST , utc_offset1_DST = +02:00 , blank_name_sec1 = Gross regional product , blank_info_sec1 = Ranked 1st , bla ...

History

The Longueil family, long associated with the ''Parlement de Paris'', had been in possession of part of the

seigneurie In English law, seignory or seigniory, spelled ''signiory'' in Early Modern English (; french: seigneur, lit=lord; la, senior, lit=elder), is the lordship (authority) remaining to a grantor after the grant of an estate in fee simple. ''Nulle terre ...

of Maisons since 1460, and a full share since 1602. Beginning in 1630, and for the next decades,

René de Longueil René de Longueil, marquis (1658) de Maisons (1596–1677), ''le président de Maisons'', was Surintendant des Finances under Louis XIV. He built the Château de Maisons. Biography He was born to a family of Parisian ''parlementaires'' of long s ...

, first president of the ''

Cour des aides The Courts of Aids (French: ''Cours des aides'') were sovereign courts in ''Ancien Régime'' France, primarily concerned with customs, but also other matters of public finance. They exercised some control over certain excise taxes and octroi dutie ...

'' and then ''

président à mortier The ''président à mortier'' () was one of the most important legal posts of the French ''Ancien Régime''. The ''présidents'' were principal magistrates of the highest juridical institutions, the ''parlements'', which were the appeal courts. ...

'' to the ''Parlement de Paris'', devoted the fortune inherited by his wife, Madeleine Boulenc de Crévecœur (who died in 1636), to the construction of a magnificent château. By 1649, he was able to spend the summer months in his new house, but works on the outbuildings continued after that date.

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ver ...

visited Maisons in April 1651. The attribution to

was common knowledge among contemporaries. Charles Perrault reported its reputation: "The château of Maisons, of which he ansarthad made all the buildings and all the gardens, is of such a singular beauty that there is not a curious foreigner who does not go there to see it, as one of the finest things that we have in France." Nevertheless, the sole surviving document mentioning Mansart's name is a payment of 20,000 ''livres'' from Longueil in 1657, apparently occasioned by the final completion of the château. A pamphlet with the title ''La Mansarade'' accused the architect of having realised, after completing the construction of the first floor, that he had committed an error in the plans and razed everything built so far in order to commence anew. Perrault emphasizes that the architect had the habit of remodelling certain parts of his buildings more than once, in a search for perfection. At the death of René de Longueil, in 1677, the château passed to his heirs until 1732, and then in succession to the marquise de Belleforière, then to the marquis de Soyécourt. In 1777, it became the property of

King Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was e ...

's brother, Charles Philippe, comte d'Artois, who carried out important interior transformations under the direction of his house architect

François-Joseph Bélanger François-Joseph Bélanger (; 12 April 1744 – 1 May 1818) was a French architect and decorator working in the Neoclassic style. Life Born in Paris, Bélanger attended the Académie Royale d'Architecture (1764–1766) where he studied u ...

. These works were interrupted in 1782 for lack of funds. Maisons then ceased to be kept up. Confiscated during the

Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

as "national goods", the château was sold in 1798 to an army provisioner, M. Lauchère, resold in 1804 to '' Maréchal d'Empire''

Jean Lannes Jean Lannes, 1st Duke of Montebello, Prince of Siewierz (10 April 1769 – 31 May 1809), was a French military commander and a Marshal of the Empire who served during both the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He was one of Napoleon's ...

, and then resold once again, in 1818, to the Parisian banker

Jacques Laffitte Jacques Laffitte (24 October 1767 – 26 May 1844) was a leading French banker, governor of the Bank of France (1814–1820) and liberal member of the Chamber of Deputies during the Bourbon Restoration and July Monarchy. He was an important figu ...

. Starting in 1834, Lafitte proceeded to develop the surrounding park as building lots; he tore down the fine stables to furnish construction materials for the purchasers. After his daughter, the Princesse de la Moskowa, sold the château in 1850, it passed to M. Thomas de Colmar, and to the painter , who farmed out the small park and demolished the entrance gateway to the forecourt, enclosing the severely reduced space with a wrought-iron

grille Grill or grille may refer to: Food * Barbecue grill, a device or surface used for cooking food, usually fuelled by gas or charcoal, or the part of a cooker that performs this function * Flattop grill, a cooking device often used in restaurants, ...

brought from the

Château de Mailly A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Nowaday ...

Picardy Picardy (; Picard and french: Picardie, , ) is a historical territory and a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region of Hauts-de-France. It is located in the northern part of France. Hi ...

. Grommé died in 1900. In his last will, he ordered his whole property to the city of Viipuri, which decided to keep his art collection but sell the château. In 1905, the State purchased the château to save it from demolition. It was classed as a ''

monument historique ''Monument historique'' () is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which National Heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a coll ...

'' in 1914.

Architecture

Maisons-Laffitte Chateau de Maisons 2011 71

The Château de Maisons was built between the

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

and the forest of

Saint-Germain-en-Laye Saint-Germain-en-Laye () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris, from the centre of Paris. Inhabitants are called ''Saint-Germanois'' or ''Saint-Ge ...

, with its garden front oriented to the southeast. Originally it comprised the garden, a small park of and a large outer park of . The visitor arrived by one of two avenues that crossed in a T intersection before the gate to the ''

cour d'honneur A ''cour d'honneur'' (; ; german: Ehrenhof) is the principal and formal approach and forecourt of a large building. It is usually defined by two secondary wings projecting forward from the main central block ('' corps de logis''), sometimes w ...

''. The principal central axis led to the forest, the cross axis through the village to the southwest and to the river, thence on to Paris. Three gateways stood at the far ends of the avenues. On either side of the '' avant-cour'', Mansart constructed the stables, masterworks of architecture whose monumental character gave a preview of those that would be built at

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, ...

and

Chantilly Chantilly may refer to: Places France *Chantilly, Oise, a city located in the Oise department **US Chantilly, a football club *Château de Chantilly, a historic château located in the town of Chantilly United States * Chantilly, Missou ...

. Of these works, there remains only a grotto, which had served also to water the horses. The château stood on a rectangular platform outlined in the French manner with a dry moat. The ''cour d'honneur'' was defined by terraces. The central block extends symmetrically into short wings, composed of several sections, each with its own roofline, with raked roofs and tall chimney stacks, in several ranges, with a broken façade reminiscent of the planning in work of

Pierre Lescot Pierre Lescot (c. 1515 – 10 September 1578) was a French architect active during the French Renaissance. His most notable works include the Fontaine des Innocents and the Lescot wing of the Louvre in Paris. He played an important role in t ...

and

Philibert Delorme Philibert de l'Orme () (3-9 June 1514 – 8 January 1570) was a French architect and writer, and one of the great masters of French Renaissance architecture. His surname is also written De l'Orme, de L'Orme, or Delorme. Biography Early care ...

in the preceding century. The single pile construction, typical of its

epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...

, carries three storeys, a basement supporting a ground floor, and '' piano nobile'' with three attic floors above.

Interiors

The grand central entrance vestibule of stone was originally enclosed by exceptionally fine wrought-iron grilles, which are today at the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

. Large

bas-reliefs Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

of The Seasons were executed by Gilles Guérin after drawings provided by

Jacques Sarazin Jacques Sarazin or Sarrazin (baptised 8 June 1592 in Noyon – died 3 December 1660 in Paris) was a French sculptor in the classical tradition of Baroque art. He was instrumental in the development of the Style Louis XIV through his own work ...

, who oversaw all the sculpture provided for Maisons. There are

lunette A lunette (French ''lunette'', "little moon") is a half-moon shaped architectural space, variously filled with sculpture, painted, glazed, filled with recessed masonry, or void. A lunette may also be segmental, and the arch may be an arc take ...

s representing The Elements, for which Sarazin's drawings also survive. This vestibule gives onto two state apartments. The apartment on the left, called the Appartement des Captifs, was that of René de Longueuil; it has retained its original decor. The chimneypiece of the corner room, the ''chambre de parade'' represents a bas-relief medallion of

Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...

supported by captives and a

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

of the triumph of Louis XIII, works of Gilles Guérin that have given a name to the suite of rooms. The apartment on the right, called the Appartement de la Renommée, was entirely redecorated by Bélanger for the comte d'Artois, in a discreet

neoclassical style Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing sty ...

quite in keeping with the general classic style of the château. The staircase was of a type that Mansart originated at the

Château de Balleroy The Château de Balleroy is a seventeenth-century château in Balleroy, Normandy. Outlook The fief of Balleroy, near the forest and abbey of Cerisy, was acquired on April 1, 1600 by Jean de Choisy, wine supplier at the court of Henry IV. The ...

, in which the central space is left open so that the flights climb the four walls. File:Main vestibule Château de Maisons n02.jpg, Main vestibule, viewed toward the stair hall in the right wing File:Main vestibule Château de Maisons n03.jpg, Main vestibule ceiling File:Château de Maisons - Escalier d'honneur, Rez-de-chaussée - Maisons-Laffitte - Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine - APMH00016575.jpg, Main staircase in 1890 File:ChateauDeMaisonsChambreDesCaptifs.JPG, Chambre des Captifs File:ChateauDeMaisonsSalleAMangerDuComteDArtois.JPG, Appartement de la Renommée or Salle à Manger (dining room) On the parade or main floor, the apartment to the right, called the Appartement des Aigles for the

Empire style The Empire style (, ''style Empire'') is an early-nineteenth-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts, representing the second phase of Neoclassicism. It flourished between 1800 and 1815 durin ...

decoration effected by maréchal Lannes in expectation of the visit of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

, is undistinguished. The one to the left, on the other hand, the Appartement du Roi, is also called ''à l'italienne'' in that it is covered in false vaulting. The apartment consists of a vast Salle des Fêtes employed also in the character of a guardroom, with a

tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the ...

for musicians. It opens into the Salon d'Hercule from the painting of ''Hercules defeating the Hydra'' that used to be featured on the chimneybreast, with sculptures by Guérin. In the end pavilion is a domed room articulated by therm figures, a precursor to the grand salon of

Vaux-le-Vicomte The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte (English: Palace of Vaux-le-Vicomte) is a Baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun, southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne department of Île-de-France. Built between 1658 and 1661 for Nicolas ...

. A small oval ''cabinet'', or private

withdrawing room A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained, and an alternative name for a living room. The name is derived from the 16th-century terms withdrawing room and withdrawing chamber, which remained in use through the 17th cent ...

, the Cabinet aux Miroirs (Mirror Room) bears a refined decor, and a parquet floor inlaid with pewter and bone. File:Bedroom of Marshal Lannes Château de Maisons n01.jpg, Bedroom of maréchal Lannes File:Château de Maisons-Laffitte - chambre du Roi 01.JPG, Bed alcove of the Chambre du Roi File:ChateauDeMaisonsSalonDHercule.JPG, Fireplace in the Salon d'Hercule File:Grande Salle château de Maisons.jpg, Salle des Fêtes, looking towards the fireplace File:ChateauDeMaisonsLaGrandeSalle.jpg, Salle des Fêtes, looking towards the musicians gallery File:Château de Maisons-Laffitte - cabinet aux miroirs 01.JPG, Cabinet aux Miroirs File:Flooring Mirror Room Château de Maisons.jpg, Floor of the Cabinet aux Miroirs File:Château de Maisons-Laffitte - cabinet aux miroirs 03.JPG, Ceiling of the Cabinet aux Miroirs

Influence on architecture

*The Château de Franconville, at Saint-Martin-du-Tertre (Val-d'Oise), built by

Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur Hippolyte Destailleur (27 September 1822 – 17 November 1893) was a French architect, interior designer, and collector. He is noted for his designs and restoration work for great châteaux in France and in England, as well as his collection of bo ...

for the duc de Massa in 1876, takes Maisons for its model. *In the suburbs of

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

, the Chinese multi-millionaire real-estate developer Zhang Yuchen built a copy of the Château, enhancing it by adding two wings from the

Palace of Fontainebleau Palace of Fontainebleau (; ) or Château de Fontainebleau, located southeast of the center of Paris, in the commune of Fontainebleau, is one of the largest French royal châteaux. The medieval castle and subsequent palace served as a residence ...

. The building cost $50 million, contains a hotel and seminar center, and opened in 2004. It is called Zhang-Laffitte. () *The

Constitución Railway Station Constitución railway station () is a large railway station in Constitución, a in central Buenos Aires, Argentina. The full official name of the station is (in English: Constitution Square Station) reflecting the fact that the station is loca ...

in Buenos Aires, Argentina, opened on 1 January 1887 and was rebuilt in 1900.

Notes

References

* Claude Mignot, ''Le Château de Maisons'', Editions du patrimoine, coll. "Itinéraire du patrimoine", 1998. * Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos (dir.), ''Le guide du patrimoine, Ile-de-France,'' Hachette, 1992. * Charles Perrault, ''Les hommes illustres...'', Antoine Dezallier, 1696
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Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

. *''This article is based in part on a translation from French Wikipedia.''
Amis du Château de Maisons-Lafitte
Full history, plans, photographs, details
maisons laffitte
Little History and some pictures

External links

Château de Maisons
- official site {{DEFAULTSORT:Maisons, Chateau de Houses completed in 1651 Châteaux in Yvelines Palaces in France Historic house museums in Île-de-France Museums in Yvelines 1651 establishments in France Monuments of the Centre des monuments nationaux