The château, along with a new model village ( “new town”), was built at the order of Richelieu, who had spent his youth there and bought the village of his ancestors; he had the estate raised to a duché-pairie in August 1631. He engaged the architect Jacques Lemercier, who had designed the Sorbonne and the Cardinal’s hôtel in Paris, the Palais Cardinal (now the Palais-Royal). In the two spandrel shapes enclosed behind the outer walling were matching enclosed outer service courts. Through the arched central gateway the visitor entered the vast basse cour, with common stabling for a hundred horses in a flanking courtyard to the left, with barns and lodgings for gardeners and estate workers, and to the right, an identical courtyard with elite stabling, bakehouse and other offices. Continuing along the axis one passed through a smaller cour d’honneur enclosed by matching ranges each with a central dome and end pavilions. The eighth room is “le Cabinet” of the king, full of beautiful landscape paintings and very rare, given to the cardinal by the duke of Mantua.
Cardinal Armand-Jean de Plessis, Duc de Richelieu
The walled gardens of the château remain and are open as a public park. This building is covered in carved graffiti from visitors to the site, dating back at least as far as 1905, and including dated initials from the periods of both World War I and World War II, plus some graffiti from bearers of the Richelieu name. The garden front looked onto a square parterre that was itself surrounded by moats and reached by a central bridge. Like the two outer courts, it was divided in four plats with a central feature. To either side a major cross-axis extended the patterned gardens.
thoughts on “The Richelieu Wing of the Louvre”
But Richelieu’s fault teaches the world not less than his virtues. Our running readers of French history need here a word of caution. They follow De Tocqueville, and De Tocqueville follows Biot in speaking of the serf system as abolished in most of France hundreds of years before this. But Biot and De Tocqueville take for granted a knowledge in their readers that chicken road the essential vileness of the system, and even many of its most shocking outward features, remained.
The Richelieu Wing of the Louvre
A point to note is that the moneylender’s wife is reading a religious book, but it is not the Bible. In Catholic Flanders in the sixteenth century, reading the Bible was considered a subversive act, something only Protestants would do. In 1543, thirteen years after the death of Quentin Metsys, his sister Catherine and her husband were both put to death for reading the Bible — his head was chopped off and she was buried alive in the square in front of the church.
Enter your E-Mail address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts. There is a small shop and management office at the entrance, and a car park between that and the town. At the Château de Richelieu, the Cardinal maintained one of the largest art collections in Europe and the largest collection of ancient Roman sculpture in France.
These were found in Nancy and taken away by the duke of Lothringen. On the mantlepiece stands a bust of Julius Caesar, the head made of porphyry and the body of alabaster. The sixth is the queen’s antechamber, also hung with silken tapestries and gold painted ceiling. In “le Cabinet”, where the portraits of Henry IV (of France), his spouse, son, and his spouse, as well as other persons of royal blood are to be found, in all 92 paintings. Built between 1631 and 1642 on the site of the former du Plessis family mansion, the château was at the heart of a several-hectare park located south of the current city. The site was designated a historical monument in September 1930.
- The side of the courtyard leading to the entrance of the chateau is not built as high as the other three but has an open gallery on the roof.
- The ninth is the kings chamber with very costly tapestries embroidered with silver and gold, and so are the bedcurtains and the chairs.
- There is a small shop and management office at the entrance, and a car park between that and the town.
- The sixteenth is “la Basse salle”, where the portraits of king Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, the cardinal Richelieu, and the grand duke of Tuscany are found, and after this yet further down we found many, many statues made of marble, so that the overall number of statues exceeds 200.
- This building is covered in carved graffiti from visitors to the site, dating back at least as far as 1905, and including dated initials from the periods of both World War I and World War II, plus some graffiti from bearers of the Richelieu name.
Ahead, at the terminus of the main axis, the woods drew back in an exedra. The third is the Lucrecia-chamber, whose death is also painted on the open fireplace. All these chambers are lined with silken tapestries, some of them embroidered, well dressed, and the beds decorated with curtains and bedcovers in the best possible way, to make it all wonderful and splendid. The sixteenth is “la Basse salle”, where the portraits of king Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, the cardinal Richelieu, and the grand duke of Tuscany are found, and after this yet further down we found many, many statues made of marble, so that the overall number of statues exceeds 200.
Hardly was he in his grave when the nobles perverted the effort of the Paris Parliament for advance in liberty and took the lead in the fearful revolts and massacres of the Fronde. Then came Richelieu’s pupil, Mazarin, who tricked the nobles into order; and Mazarin’s pupil, Louis XIV, who bribed them into order. But a nobility borne on high by the labor of a servile class must despise labor; so there came those weary years of indolent gambling and debauchery and “serf-eating” at Versailles. The cardinal has also made a zoo here, 4 miles in circumference, and is building a church so that this will in time become a most lovely place. The second is the Porcille-chamber, whose story is painted on the open fireplace.
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Richelieu might have crushed the serf system, really, as easily as Louis X and Philip the Long had crushed it nominally. In 2013, I had the great pleasure of spending a day at the Louvre in the company of the Belgian art connoisseur Eddy Dijssel, whom I had met through the now-defunct website VirtualTourist. We decided in advance to concentrate on the Richelieu Wing, where I hadn’t been for six years, because he wanted to show me some of his favorite paintings there and because I wanted to see the large collection of medieval and renaissance tapestries under his guidance. The tenth is the king’s antechamber, very costly and with a representation of Vulcan on the open fireplace. The fittings and locks on the doors, and the window fittings are made from silver in this room too. Then came “the deluge.” The spirit of the serf-mastering caste, as left by Richelieu, was a main cause of the miseries which brought on the French Revolution.
The floor is made from black and white marble, and the ceiling is gilt. We passed the bridge to the chateau and had to our right a nice garden, entered the courtyard in front of the chateau where there is a stable on one side with room for 60 horses. From here we went into the inner courtyard and found us in front of the entrance leading to the main staircase. Next to the doors were four large columns made from red marble and on top of these other, smaller columns made from the same material, on top of these were very large statues in the shape and size of humans.
Château de Richelieu
The seventh is the king’s wardrobe, where the death of Hercules is described, and the window fittings are made of fine silver. After a period of decline, the Château de Richelieu was dismantled in the 19th century — not for any great political reasons, but by an estate agent. Elements of the fabric appear to have been reused on farms in the area. His mind was saturated with ideas of the impossibility of inducing freed peasants to work; the impossibility of making them citizens; the impossibility, in short, of making them men. To his view was not unrolled the rich newer world history, to show that a working class is most dangerous when restricted; that oppression is more dangerous to the oppressor than to the oppressed; that if man will hew out paths to liberty, God will hew out paths to prosperity.
- When we came into the courtyard we turned right and entered the chateau itself on a large staircase.
- He engaged the architect Jacques Lemercier, who had designed the Sorbonne and the Cardinal’s hôtel in Paris, the Palais Cardinal (now the Palais-Royal).
- All these chambers are lined with silken tapestries, some of them embroidered, well dressed, and the beds decorated with curtains and bedcovers in the best possible way, to make it all wonderful and splendid.
- Next to the doors were four large columns made from red marble and on top of these other, smaller columns made from the same material, on top of these were very large statues in the shape and size of humans.
- A true man, not “non-committal,” but wedded to a great policy in the sight of all men; seen by earnest men, of all times, to have marshalled against riot and bigotry and unreason, divine forces and purposes.
A true man, not “non-committal,” but wedded to a great policy in the sight of all men; seen by earnest men, of all times, to have marshalled against riot and bigotry and unreason, divine forces and purposes. Then came the failure of the Revolution in its direct purpose; and of this failure the serf-mastering caste was a main cause. For this caste, hardened by ages of domineering over a servile class, despite 4th of August renunciations, would not, could not, accept a position compatible with freedom and order; so earnest men were maddened, and sought to tear out this cancerous mass, with all its burning roots.
When the Third Estate brought up their “portfolio of grievances,” for one complaint against the exactions of the monarchy there were fifty complaints against the exactions of the nobility. On the general progress of Europe, his work must be judged as mainly for good. Austria was the chief barrier to European progress, and that barrier he broke. But a far greater impulse to the general progress of Europe was given by the idea of toleration which he thrust into the methods of European statesmen. He, first of all statesmen in France, saw that in French policy — to use his own words — “A Protestant Frenchman is better than a Catholic Spaniard”; and he, first of all statesmen in Europe, saw that, in European policy, patriotism must outweigh bigotry. The fourteenth is “le Cabinet” of the cardinal, where are two globes made from metal, one of the sky and one of the earth.
This is another painting by the same artist, Quentin Metsys, called The Moneylender and His Wife. Here we have a contrast between the greedy money-lender, who is weighing pearls, jewels, and pieces of gold, and his pious wife, who is being distracted from the religious book she is reading. The Louvre’s website says that this painting “is an allegorical and moral work, condemning avarice and exalting honesty,” and that it was once owned by the painter Peter Paul Rubens.
Apart from these the courtyard had an additional 31 large statues and 30 smaller ones in the shape of busts. The side of the courtyard leading to the entrance of the chateau is not built as high as the other three but has an open gallery on the roof. When we came into the courtyard we turned right and entered the chateau itself on a large staircase. This ends our series of passages on Cardinal Richelieu’s Administration by Andrew D. White from his book Special Article to Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume XI. This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine.
The ceiling is sculptured and painted with gold and the walls are covered with costly tapestries. First came the chamber of Moses, whose story is painted on the open fireplace. The walls on the other sides are decorated with beautiful tapestries, the ceiling however is sculpted and covered in gold. The cover and curtains of the bed have been embroidered by the cardinals’ mother in gold, silver and silk and is very artistically done. The ninth is the kings chamber with very costly tapestries embroidered with silver and gold, and so are the bedcurtains and the chairs.
Here is also a table 6 ½ feet long and 5 feet wide, made from all sorts of valuable stones, among these agates and jasper, and in the middle a very large agate, 14 inches wide, and this stone alone is valued at a million. The fifth is the queens chamber, decorated with red velvet tapestries, just like the curtains on the bed. The Château de Richelieu was an enormous 17th-century château (manor house) built by the French clergyman, nobleman, and statesman Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) in Touraine. It was demolished for building materials in 1805 and almost nothing of it remains today. It lay south of Chinon and west of Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine, just south of what is now Richelieu, Indre-et-Loire, surrounded by mostly agricultural land.
Then came Louis XV, who was too feeble to maintain even the poor decent restraint imposed by Louis XIV; so the serf-mastering caste became active in a new way, and their leaders in vileness unutterable became at last Fronsac and De Sade. Today’s installment concludes Cardinal Richelieu’s Administration,our selection from Special Article to Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume XI. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.