Everything about Ch Teau De Rambouillet totally explained
The
château de Rambouillet, which is the summer residence of the
Presidents of France, is located in the town of
Rambouillet,
Yvelines department, France, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of
Paris.
The
château was originally a fortified manor dating back to 1368 and, although amputated of one of its sides at the time of
Napoléon I, it still retains its pentagonal
bastioned footprint. King
King François I died there, on
March 31,
1547, probably in the imposing medieval tower that bears his name. Like the
Hôtel de Rambouillet in Paris, the château was owned by Charles d'Angennes, the
marquis de Rambouillet during the reign of
Louis XIII. Avenues led directly from the park of the castle into the adjacent game-rich forest. More than 200 square kilometres of forest remain, the remnant of the forest of Yvelines.
In 1783, the château became the private property of king
Louis XVI, who bought it from his cousin the
duc de Penthièvre as an extension of his hunting grounds. Queen
Marie-Antoinette, who accompanied her husband on a visit in November 1783, is said to have exclaimed: "
Comment pourrais-je vivre dans cette gothique crapaudière!" (How could I live in such a gothic toadhouse!) However, to induce his wife to like his new acquisition, Louis XVI commissioned in great secret the construction of the famous
Laiterie de la Reine, (the Queen's dairy)
, where the buckets were of
Sèvres porcelain, painted and grained to imitate wood, and the presiding nymph was a marble
Amalthea, with the goat that nurtured Jupiter, sculpted by
Pierre Julien. A little salon was attached to the dairy itself, with chairs supplied by
Georges Jacob in 1787 that had straight, tapering stop-fluted legs
During the
French Revolution of 1789, the domain of Rambouillet became
bien national, the castle was emptied of its furnishings, the gardens and surrounded park neglected.
During the reign of
Napoléon I, Rambouillet was included in his
liste civile (list of government-owned property at the disposal of the head of state). The emperor came several times to Rambouillet, the last being on the night of June 29 to 30, 1815, on his way to exile to
Saint Helena. Among the reminders of Napoléon are the Pompeian style bathroom with its small bathtub and the exquisite balcony built to link the emperor's apartment to that of his second wife, the empress
Marie-Louise. Another reminder of Napoléon was the splendid
Allée de Cyprès chauves de Louisiane, a double-lined bald cypress (
Taxodium distichum) avenue.
At the time of the Bourbon Restoration, Rambouillet was also included in the
liste civile of the new kings, and it's there that, on
August 2,
1830,
Charles X signed his abdication in favor of his son, the
duc d'Angoulême who, twenty minutes later, signed his own abdication in favor of his nephew, the nine year old
duc de Bordeaux. Fifteen years after Napoléon I, Charles X's road to exile started also in Rambouillet.
From 1830 to 1848, the domain of Rambouillet, which had belonged to his grandfather, the duc de Penthièvre, wasn't included in the
liste civile of
Louis-Philippe I, King of the French; however, the emperor (1852-1870)
Napoléon III requested its inclusion in his.
After the fall of Napoléon III in 1870, which saw the beginning of the
French Third Republic, the domain of Rambouillet was leased from 1870 to 1883 to the
duc de la Trémoille. In February 1896, Rambouillet received a visit from President
Félix Faure who had decided to spend his summers there. Since then, Rambouillet has become the summer residence of Presidents of the Republic, who entertain, and used to invite to hunting parties many foreign dignitaries, princes and heads of state. As a part-time residence of the French president, it's sometimes referred to as the
Palace of Rambouillet.
In November 1975, the first "
G6" summit was organized in the château by French President
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing for the heads of the world's leading industrialized countries. Attending were:
Gerald Ford, United States,
Harold Wilson, United Kingdom,
Aldo Moro, Italy,
Takeo Miki, Japan, and
Helmut Schmidt, Germany.
The
château de Rambouillet continues to be used as a venue for bilateral summits and, in February 1999, was host to the negotiations on
Kosovo (see
Kosovo War).
On December 26, 1999, a hurricane hit the northern half of France, wreaking havoc to forests, parks and buildings. The forest of Rambouillet lost hundreds of thousands of trees, and among the over five thousand downed trees in the park of Rambouillet, was the handsome
Allée de Cyprès chauves de Louisiane, the bald cypress avenue planted in 1810.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ch Teau De Rambouillet'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://ch__teau_de_rambouillet.totallyexplained.com">Château de Rambouillet Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
