Here, I take in the tremendous view over the Seine Valley, at the border between the Paris region and Normandy, border of France its, from above a castle that embodies major events in French, even European, history over the past 1000 years. Since not all who enter the castle are willing to make the climb, the few visitors entering down below are fewer still to share this view.

Each time I’ve made the climb I’ve thought, “That was certainly worth the detour and the effort. Too bad the castle down below is so empty. And too bad no one bothers to inform visitors about the history of this carcass.”

But that isn’t what I thought when I reached the top this summer.

The rewarding view earned after an athletic climb is the same, but La Roche-Guyon, just six miles from Giverny, has now upped its game. An artistic and cultural project that came into fruition this summer marks a turning point for the chateau as several rooms have been graced with historic furnishings and complemented by new works by artists-in-residence. La Roche-Guyon feels less the carcass passageway to the summit and more a place to linger. A site that I used to think as a detour is now en route to becoming a destination.

With 90,000 visitors last year, the Château de La Roche-Guyon is the most visited heritage site in the department (or subregion) Val d’Oise of the Greater Paris region, yet it’s generally off the radar for international travelers. That’s undoubtedly due to the difficulty of access without a car and the absence of organized tours from Paris.

Compare that with the international reputation of Monet’s House and Gardens at Giverny, a wide bend in the river downstream along the Seine and just six miles away by road. Giverny (pronounced shjee-ver-nee) draws over 750,000 visitors per year. Already, in 2014, I suggested to readers planning a visit to Giverny to consider combining it with a stop at La Roche-Guyon. (See that article.) La Roche-Guyon now inspires more than a stop. Indeed, Giverny could now be the “stop” after visiting La Roche-Guyon. More on that toward the end of this article.

From hollowed carcass…

The La Rochefoucauld family has owned the Château de la Roche-Guyon nearly continuously since 1659. Call the current head of the household Duke de La Roche-Guyon if you wish. Though titles that formerly conferred a superior legal status, rights and privileges no longer have judicial significance, they may still used honorifically.

For generations, centuries even, the chateau’s interior maintained the allure of a noble household. Prized paintings, tapestries and furniture decorated the major reception rooms. The vast library held a large, valuable collection of books. Curiosities filed shelves in an adjacent room. The death of a proprietor duke in 1964 then of his duchess in 1984 put an end to that. Rather, the inability of heirs to agree to a less dramatic way to pay the inheritance tax than selling most of the furnishings did. The historic rooms were emptied. Their contents were taken to Sothby’s auction block in 1987, leaving a tremendous void to increasingly decrepit spaces. La Roche-Guyon became a decaying carcass of a castle.

… to public funding and restoration

A branch of the La Rochefoucauld family still owns the chateau. The family has private apartments on the upper floors, which can’t be visited. Much of the rest, however, is open to the public since  the chateau has been managed and enriched by over 30 years by a public entity working under the auspices of Val d’Oise and other local administrations. Throughout France, such multilayered arrangement allows certain privately owned heritage sites to be maintained and open to the public so as to continue to be a part of the cultural landscape for more than a simple drive-by view,

Restoration of the château was the main objective in the 1990s. I made my first visit in the mid-90s, soon after it had opened to the public. The pervasive feel was of a hollow carcass, but at least it was now receiving funding for repair and could be visited. The 2000s saw the replanting and recreation of the chateau’s kitchen garden and orchard in its 18th-century configuration. Situated across the street from the chateau, that 9.4-acre enclosed garden/orchard is the second largest of its kind in the Paris region, after the Potager du Roi, the royal kitchen garden at Versailles. It earned the national label Jardin remarquable (Remarkable Garden) in 2011. By then, attention was slowly turning to refurnishing the succession of 18th-century rooms that had been emptied in 1987.

… to refurnished rooms

Within the site’s thousand-year history of construction, the 18th century marks La Roche-Guyon’s intellectual, artistic and architectural heyday. Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld (1690-1762), Duke of La Roche-Guyon, then his daughter (1716-1797), known through her marriage as the Duchess of Enville, led the way.

The duchess built what is now the main portion of the castle complex. She, especially, gave La Roche-Guyon and the La Rochefoucauld mansion in Paris their status as gathering places for writers, philosophers, political thinkers and scientist. At her home in Paris, she hosted Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, among other Americans seeking to draw France into the fight for independence.

In 2000, funding provided by the department of Val d’Oise and the state secured the purchased at auction of a series of four tapestries from 1769 presenting the Biblical story of Esther that had originally been ordered by the Duchess d’Enville for one of the chateau’s drawing rooms. The four were being auctioned off by the designer Karl Langerfield, who was then parting ways with an 18th-century collection that he’d constituted in part from the La Rochefoucauld sale of 1987. Other objects have returned under similar circumstances. A precious 18th-century inlaid desk that had graced that same room until 1987 was purchase in 2017 by a private citizen who then donated it to the state on the condition that it return to La Roche-Guyon. Others made similar gestures, as gift or loan.

Compare my photo above, taken in June 2026, with the black-and-white photos from the early 20th-century on this page showing the desk and the tapestries, among other furnishings in the grand salon.

Contemporary artists add a breath of fresh air

These small, significant and expensive steps gave a hint of the life and elegance of the chateau as a noble center for enlightened discussion, yet those furnishings were also a reminder of how much more was needed to enliven the place.

This summer marks a turning point for the chateau as the void now further recedes thanks to the addition of additional precious period furnishings and especially of works created by artists-in-residence. Going forward, a contract recently signed with the Mobilier National, the public entity that stores, maintains and lends out historic furnishings, will bear fruit next year with additional furnishings on display, ensuring that additional spaces within the chateau feel less forlorn.

In an artists-in-residence program now reaching fruition, eight artists or teams of artists were selected to help breathe fresh air into La Roche-Guyon. The program is carried out by artistic and cultural director Emmanual Morin. Three of the artists were tasked with updating visuals, maps, brochures and the chateau gift shop/ticket desk. The others were invited to create works that reveal, enrich and dialogue with the décor, the furnishings, the architecture and the prior use of certain rooms and spaces. The result is a series of accessible and often playful works anchored in specific locations. They lead visitors to linger longer both in appreciation of the works themselves and to consider the ways in which they revive and revisit the spirit of their location.

Here are some of the artists who have taken part in this enrichment campaign.

Castle map and descriptive brochure

For years, visitors purchasing their entrance ticket were handed a photocopied information sheet intended guide them through the then empty-castle. It was better than nothing, but not truly helpful in understanding the site.

Now, visitors are given an upbeat map of the castle along with an attractive information booklet providing an important primary understanding of the rooms to be visited. These are the work of graphic artist and illustrator Mathilde Arnaud. The map and the booklet, which appeal to children and adults alike, are as much souvenirs as on-site guides.

Entrance and grand staircase

Designers and plastic artists Baptiste Sévin and Jaïna Ennequin, who form Atelier Baptiste & Jaïna, have enriched the entrance and Classical grand staircase with Mineral Cuttings, as they’ve titled their work here, of ceramic and blown glass. The staircase, though lit by windows featuring the arms of La Rochefoucauld family, felt severe and incomplete prior to the introduction of their work. As with all of the artists participating in the current project, their works are not intended to transform their assigned space but rather to dialogue with the architecture and elements in which they’re integrated. Rather than draw attention to themselves, Baptiste & Jaïna’s “cuttings” soften the severity of the space while resonating with the rounded stone of the stairs, walls and banister, the window that lights the landing, and the fruit from the castle’s orchard. Their work will remain in place until 2030.

The dining room and 18th-century drawing rooms

Camille Chastang’s flamboyant, entertaining and floral creations in ceramics and textile present a trail of pleasures in the dining room and the main 18th-century drawing rooms. She has given the title Menus Plaisirs to the collection of objects that she has fashioned. That term refers to the service and budget of an aristocrat, notably a king, dedicated to small or minor (menus) pleasures (plaisirs) such as festivities, entertainment and courtly events. The artist’s Menus Plaisirs will enliven those rooms only until Nov. 1, 2026. For another room, she has designed a floral, watercolor-like wallpaper called Femmage! in honor of the women who have reigned here, in particular the Duchess of Enville. That will remain in place until 2028.

Echoes, a subtle soundtrack

Physical objects—tapestries, paintings, armchairs, tables, desks, and Camille Chastang’s trail of pleasures—help fill the void that once permeated these rooms. Add to that a subtle soundtrack created by sound designers Simon Cacheux and Julia Griner, who collectively form Atelier Blip Bloop.

Their elusive acoustics allow us to overhear the spirit of the succession of 18th-century reception and drawing rooms. It gives voice and breath to the stone architecture, the wood floors, beams and doors, the metal hinges and locks, and the nearby stables and great kitchen garden and orchard. Their soundtrack will play until 2028.

The library, the cabinet of curiosities and the orangery

From that succession of rooms, we enter the large library. Formerly home to a vast and prestigious collection of knowledge, reflections and stories, it now tells of nothing but absence. White faux book covers don’t so much fill the shelves as turn them into wordless ghosts. I would hope that an artist-in-residence will be invited before long to reconsider these shelves. Meanwhile, looking down on visitors from the upper level of the ghostly library, a mysterious creature hints at the curious menagerie in the next room.

While the library of an aristocratic family reflected a desire for knowledge and understanding as books become increasingly available, a cabinet of curiosities, adjacent here, was a more intimate, more personal space.

Cabinets of curiosities developed in Renaissance Europe as places to store, catalogue, present and examine precious objects of study, from a dinosaur fossil to a taxidermy parrot, and much in between. Numerous aristocrats designated a room for their “curiosities” in the 17th and 18th centuries, and beyond. Here, as in his enlightened library, the curator-aristocrat, whether noble savant or wannabe, could demonstrate to himself and to visitors his curiosity about the widening world as explorers, botanists and archeologist traveled the globe.

Now, sculptor Yoshikazu Goulven Le Maître has revived that spirit of curiosity with a menagerie of his own creations, titled Mirabilis and curated by Jean-Marc Dimanche.

Yoshikazu’s was the longest residency of the artists described here, leading to the most prolific creation. After viewing his works, visiting artists, crafters, scrappers and tinkerers of every age will want to pick up string, metal, fabric, buttons and minutia of any kind to start creating when they get home. Mirabilis will remain in place until 2028.

In addition to that wondrous menagerie, the artist has created larger works that can be seen in the former dog yard, situated shortly beyond the cabinet of curiosities, and a monumental bestiary in the dimly lit former orangery or greenhouse dug into the cliff, seen at the end of a visit. That bestiary, titled Fauna Fabulosa, will remain in place only until Nov. 1, 2026.

The theater

The Duchess of Enville created a precious little theater at La Roche-Guyon that is need of much restoration before being open to the public anytime. Photos of that space can be seen after the cabinet of curiosities.

As a reminder of its existence, Héllène Gaulier and Gwenolé Gasiner, of Agence GG, have designed theatrical games using pre-Industrial mechanics. One is shown by the theater and the other is shown within the medieval keep atop the cliff. Their works will remain here until 2030.

The truncated castle tower

Eventually, following an athletic climb, visitors are rewarded by the view that leads off this article, over the Seine Valley from the top of the tower of a castle keep. The tower, dating from about 1190, was at least one third taller before being beheaded, so to speak, in 1793, during the French Revolution. It was truncated to cut the notion of nobility down to size (hereditary nobility was first abolished in 1790) and to prevent such a prominent position from falling into the hand of counter-Revolutionaries. This had been a strategic location for nearly 900 years by then.

In 911, the Treaty of Epte set the border of a territory to be controlled by the Norsemen who’d conquered the territory and their descendants—the territory of Normandy. The Epte River, which flows into the Seine, runs about half a mile from here as the crow flies. On and off for centuries, that was the border between Normandy and France proper. It still represents the border between Normandy and Ile-de-France, as the Paris region is officially called. (Giverny is on the opposite side of the border.)

See this France Revisited video of the view.

Rommel at La Roche-Guyon

The Château de La Roche-Guyon’s strategic location at the border between Normandy and the Paris region explains why it served as German Marshall Edwin Rommel’s headquarters after his appointment by Hitler to oversee a large swath of the Atlantic Wall during the Second World War. The territory that he oversaw included the section of Normandy that would become the D-Day Landing Beaches.

During the Occupation, the Germans built casemates into the limestone cliff so as to protect their artillery as much as possible from Allied aerial bombing. Meanwhile, resistance activities took place in the village itself. An audiovisual installation called The Voice of the Casemates, 1944, by the French-Polish artist Tomasz Namerla will remain within the gloom of cliffside casemates until 2030.

For its WWI history alone, I’ve often suggested that those driving to the Normandy Landing Zone from Paris for several days stop here for a visit, just a 15-minute detour off the highway. Also, it makes for a nice break in the drive. Thanks to the recent cultural and art program, La Roche-Guyon now makes for an even richer break.

Visiting La Roche-Guyon with respect to Giverny

All told, the Chateau de La Roche-Guyon deserves a place on the traveler’s radar, perhaps not (yet) as a significant detour, but at the very least a stop for an hour or two or three for those driving to/from Normandy, or those planning on visiting Giverny, or those interested in also visiting the nearby natural and preserved zone called the Vexin Français.

Château de La Roche-Guyon is open daily 10am to 18am from April 1 to November 1, which more or less coincides with the opening season of Monet’s House and Gardens at Giverny. Additionally, and for the first time, the chateau will open from Dec. 5, 2026 to Jan. 4, 2027, with seasonal decorations and the creation by children’s book author Elisa Martin of a graphic novel whose action takes place at the Château de La Roche-Guyon.

Many touring companies based in Paris propose a Giverny + Versailles day trip from April 1 to Nov. 1. A Giverny + La Roche-Guyon combo, though less blockbuster, is a more natural and unhurried combo.

DIYers without a car can reach Giverny by taking the train to Vernon from Paris’s Saint Lazare Station then a shuttle or taxi or bike from Vernon. With no offense to Giverny, that’s a lot of travel and timing for relatively low touring ROI, unless you’re a hardcore Monet fan. An interesting cycling day could be made by taking the train to Vernon from Paris, renting a manual or e-bike near the Vernon train station, then visiting Giverny and La Roche-Guyon before cycling back to Vernon. That’s about 20 miles in all, mostly on narrow roads rather than designated cycling paths. (I haven’t yet done that and would like to hear from anyone who has.)

There’s a full-men restaurant by the river in the village of La Roche-Guyon, but keep it simpler, I say, by opting for lunch or a snack at the bakery near the foot of the castle or at the friendly café-bistro next to that. If La Roche-Guyon maintains its upward trajectory en route to becoming a destination, other worthy options will undoubtedly open.

© 2026 by Gary Lee Kraut

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Despite its significance in 20th-century history and its role in transforming the United States into a world power, the First World War sights, cemeteries and museums of France typically hold little interest for American travelers. Yet several are at Paris’s doorsteps: the Suresnes American Cemetery and the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial are both in the suburbs while the Musée de la Grande Guerre (Museum of the Great War) in Meaux is just 25 miles east along a meander in the Marne River.

In the history of the war, Meaux and the surrounding region are particularly associated with the First Battle of the Marne of September 1914 that pitted French and British forces against rapidly advancing German forces. By halting the German advance before its forces could reach Paris, the battle helped stave off a German victory while putting the belligerents on course for a long slog of trench warfare. Nearly four years later, in July 1918, the Second Battle of the Marne involved a final major German offense followed by an Allied counteroffensive that, with the participation now of American forces, would lead to the Armistice of November 11 and the defeat of Germany.

Meaux itself was not a battleground of the Second Battle of the Marne. It took place farther east and north, so the battlefields where Americans fought are therefore further out from Paris, such as in and around Chateau-Thierry, 35 miles northeast of Meaux. Yet long before the Museum of the Great War opened in 2011, Meaux had its American Monument. Also known as Tearful Liberty, the sculpture by Frederick William MacMonnies was dedicated in 1932, a gift from the United States to honor “heroic sons of France who dared all and gave all in the day of deadly peril.” The museum was created right nearby.

The core of the Museum of the Great War is the tremendous collection of objects from the First World War that had been amassed over more than 40 years by the historian and collector Jean-Pierre Verney. Under the guidance of Mayor Jean-François Copé (pictured at top of page addressing WWI reenactors), who continues to head this town of 56,000 and presides over the wider agglomeration of 107,000, the Greater Meaux region (Pays de Meaux) purchased Verney’s collection of 48,000 objects in 2005 and set about creating this museum to house them. The collection has since been enriched by thousands of additional telling objects from the war of 1914-1918, including major pieces such as a tank, a plane, a truck and artillery.

The museum’s permanent display begins by dialing back its historical clock to France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 and the ensuing decades of conflict and rivalry between France and the powerful, newly unified Germany. Through objects rather than lengthy descriptive panels, the displays then cover the First Battle of the Marne, trench warfare, weaponry and protections, uniforms, the daily lives of soldiers, treatment of the wounded, the United States’ entrance and participation in the war, the Second Battle of the Marne, women and society, attempts at creating a lasting peace, and more.

As interesting and accessible as the museum can be for uninformed visitors, it will be especially appealing to war buffs and collectors due to the depth and breadth of the collection.

Reenactment Weekend in September

Uninformed and informed visitors alike will find no more pleasurable time to visit the museum than the first weekend in September when First World War reenactors parade through the streets of Meaux then set up camp alongside the museum.

This year’s Saturday morning parade started at the covered food market and ended an hour later at the town’s war memorial, just past the medieval cathedral. There, the reenactors gathered for the laying of wreaths and the playing of La Sonnerie aux Morts, France’s bugle call for military funerals and memorial ceremonies. (The Sunday morning parade marched through other quarters.)

The museum is informative and insightful at any time of year, yet visiting over reenactment weekend additionally gives visitors the opportunity to meet reenactors and share in their comradery and their passion for the historical period from 1914 to 1918 and its uniforms and paraphernalia and ways of life.

Meet some of the reenactors in this France Revisited video, which also contains a presentation of the museum by its director, Audrey Chaix.

Along with its vast permanent collection, the museum is currently hosting two temporary exhibitions. The first, “Trenches,” explains the complexities of the trench system that so defined fighting and near-stalemate during the war. It runs until Jan. 2, 2023. The second, Women in the Great War presents, in the forecourt of the museum, photography and archival material revealing the role of women during the war. It runs until Aug. 14, 2023.

Museum of the Great War / Musée de la Grande Guerre, Rue Lazare Ponticelli, 77100 Meaux. Open 9:30AM to 6PM daily except Tuesday. Entrance: 10€; 7€ with regional public transportation Navigo Pass and for over 65; 5€ for under 26. Free on Nov. 11 and the first Sunday of each month.

The Meaux Tourist Office, 1 place Doumer, is a 10-minute walk from the train station and several minutes past the Gothic Saint Etienne Cathedral.

Brie cheese

Meaux has more to offer than wartime memories. As cheese lovers in France are well aware, Meaux is a part of brie country. Brie is the historic name of the region directly to the east of Paris. As a location, the name has largely disappeared from the map other than at the tail end of the names of several small towns. As a cheese, brie is known around the world.

Yet Brie without a geographical title of nobility is not a protected appellation of origin—it can be produced anywhere in the world as a style of soft cow’s milk cheese. Brie de Meaux, however, can only be produced in the swath of the region that passes this way starting just east of Paris. It’s much tastier than the pasteurized bries made beyond the region and abroad. Brie de Melun (Melun is a town in the southeast of the Greater Paris region), also made from raw cow’s milk, is slightly stronger and saltier. So Brie de Meaux and Brie de Melun are the bries to seek out when in France. If you’ve got a nose for cheese, it can be particularly interesting to compare the two. Cheese hunters setting out to discover the variety of regional bries might also seek out Brie Noir, a far less common brie that has been aged for about one year to the point of becoming dark, crumbly, chewy and more earthy and still stronger in taste.

In the same general area of town as the museum, one can learn about the production of appellation brie cheeses at Fromagerie de Meaux Saint Faron on rue Jehan de Brie.

Getting to Meaux from Paris

By train, Meaux is 30-40 minutes from Paris’s Gare de l’Est (East Station). No ticket is necessary for holders of the 5-zone Navigo Pass. The museum is two miles from the station. A regular bus from the Meaux station takes about 10 minutes to get there. There’s also a free shuttle to the museum from the station on weekends and during school vacations in the region.

By car, Meaux might be visited as a first stop on a day or more of touring war sights further to the east, before heading on to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, Belleau Wood and the American Monument at Chateau-Thierry.

By bike, those who wish to combine sport with a visit to the war museum can reach Meaux from Paris after a 32-mile pedal that largely follows along the Canal de l’Ourcq. The Canal de l’Ourcq begins just after the Bassin de la Villette toward the northeast edge of Paris. After a mile along the canal, the capital is left behind, then apartment buildings, train tracks and office buildings give way to suburban residential housing which eventually disappears in favor of parks, wood, fields, country roads, villages, and finally some more trafficked roads as one enters Meaux. Much of the ride is along the canal’s tow path (mostly paved, some dirt) but there are occasional stretches of road biking. Check the weather, rent a bike first thing in the morning or the previous evening, then set out at 9 or 10 for an athletic 3-hour ride or a more leisurely 4+, have lunch in town, visit the museum, then ease your way back to Paris by riding to the Meaux train station and taking your bike onto the train.

© 2022, Gary Lee Kraut

On November 10, 2022, France Revisited will be hosting Zoom conversation with a Ben Brands, a historian with the American Battle Monuments Commission, to discuss the history of the American WWI cemeteries and monuments of France and how best to visit them. Details will be sent out to subscribers of the France Revisited Newsletter.

Readers interested in private touring of the American WWI sights and other highlights in the regions where they’re located may contact Gary Lee Kraut personally by writing through this site.

The post Meaux’s Museum of the Great War, WWI Reenactors and Brie (Video) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The view from the King’s Pavilion at the Royal Estate of Marly is forlorn. Just over four miles from the relentless restoration of Versailles, all that’s left of what was once Louis XIV’s most precious secondary residence is fragments: a cobblestone ramp framed by a stone wall, an outline of a pleasure palace, an alignment of naked trees, a small trooping of trimmed evergreens, water basins without ornaments—scarcely a hint of splendor.

Some of my sense of desolation undoubtedly comes from visiting in the grey-brown damp of winter. I imagine that in warmer, drier seasons one could spend a wonderful morning here playing Frisbee with a Labrador or golden retriever. But I don’t have one.

Still, I’m glad that I’ve come, even in January and despite the complication of getting here. I’ve come to understand the rise and fall of Marly.

The Royal Estate of Marly, located on the edge of the town of Marly-le-Roi, is only 12 miles west of Paris, but it takes an abundance of historical curiosity and a suburban adventure to get you here. Worth it? Not worth it? You be the judge. The bleak landscape certainly has atmosphere. Ruins put grandeur in perspective. And the little museum that recently opened just within the entrance to the estate tells of Marley’s heyday. Other evidence of Marly’s splendor can be seen in Paris, as I’ll explain later. First some background.

Marly is situated nearly midway between Versailles to the south and Saint-Germain-en-Laye to the north. Saint-Germain-en-Laye has a much older royal castle. Louis XIV was born there in 1638. He was born in the “new” chateau of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to be precise, while only the “old” chateau remains today. By the mid-point in his adult reign, the king had three major residences within a short distance: Versailles, Marly and Saint Germain. Add to those the royal residences of the Tuileries and the Louvre in Paris. Also noted on this map is the location of writer Alexandre Dumas’s Château de Monte Cristo.

The Creation of Marly

King since the age of 4 years and 8 months, Louis XIV took control of the reins of power at age 23, in 1661. He immediately set about developing the palace of Versailles. In 1682, after two decades of construction and landscaping, he declared Versailles the official seat of the monarchy. Though intense construction would continue at Versailles after 1682, Louis XIV simultaneously then set his sights on developing the more private residence of Marly, an easy carriage-ride away.

Corresponding with this period, in 1683, Marie-Theresa, his queen, died, and several months later, Louis married Madame de Maintenon in secret.

As with Versailles, Louis XIV gave much input to plans for the pleasure palace of Marly and to its gardens, basins and fountains. As at Versailles, he followed the construction closely. The lead architect was Jules-Hardouin Mansart, who also marked the latter decades of the 17th century with such monumental works as the Hall of Mirrors, among other developments, at Versailles and the Dome of the Invalides and Place Vendome in Paris. Charles Le Brun, who provided the decorative elements for the Hall of Mirrors, among many other rooms at Versailles, also had a hand in decorating Marly. However, Marly’s brilliance was not of the in-your-face kind as at Versailles but of the luxuriant get-away kind.

Louis first stayed at Marly in 1686, and from then until his death in 1715 this was his primary second home. While the king reveled in the glitz and glamour and omnipresent public at Versailles, he enjoyed frequent breaks at Marly, sojourning at the estate on average every couple of weeks for several days. Here he would spend time with the royal family and with Madame de Maintenon and a relatively limited number of courtiers. The etiquette and the dress code at Marly were more relaxed than at Versailles. “Sire, Marly,” courtiers would plead to the king to allow them to counted among the lucky few. In his final years he would come more often and for longer stays, spending more than one third of the year at Marly.

Garden walks, card games, lawn games and fairground-type rides were among the royal pastimes and especially hunting in the surrounding forest, before his health declined.

Unlike Versailles and other palaces and castles built as a single structure, the constructions on the estate of Marly had a fragmented layout. The king’s pavilion, containing a central reception area and apartments for the royal family, was surrounded by a constellation of 12 smaller pavilions for selects guests.

The Machine of Marly

The pavilions of Marly have been largely forgotten, other than a few glimpses in the Marly Museum. When the history of Marly is evoked today, it’s less to speak of the estate than of its sculpted horses, now in Paris, and its Machine, long gone.

The Machine of Marly was a massive engineering project involving a complex array of pumps and lifts that carried water from the Seine River to feed the insatiable thirst of the fountains and basins first at Marly then also at Versailles. Though pumped from the Seine only two miles away in the town of Bougival, the great feat was to use the force of the river to lift water 531 feet so as to carry it over the hillside and onto an aqueduct that sloped gradually toward Marly, then to Versailles. It was late-17th-century engineering at its finest and likely noisiest.

The quantity of water supplies by the Machine allowed for the operation of cascading fountains at Marly, including one called “The River” that flowed toward the royal pavilion before feeding lower fountains, basins and ponds within the estate’s formal gardens and precisely edged groves. Though in constant need of repair, the Machine as it was more or less designed operated until the early 19th century, when a steam engine was built as its energy source. That was then replaced by a hydraulic process later in the century. Scant evidence of the complex can be seen today by the Seine, where the most visible remnant is the 19th-century pumping station and the rows of trees up the hill that follow the former path along which the water was carried.

A display in the museum on the edge of the estate demonstrates how the Machine operated.

The Horses of Marly

Among the ponds fed by the water network was the Horse Pond or Drinking Pool. At its entrance stood two majestic marble equestrian statues: Mercury Riding Pegasus and Fame Riding Pegasus. They are the work of sculptor Antoine Coysevox in 1702. Several years after Louis XIV’s death in 1715, Coysevox’s horses were placed in the royal garden of the Tuileries in Paris.

Marly was also used by the Louis XIV’s successors, the Fifteenth and Sixteenth of that name, though much less so. Louis XV showed enough interest in Marly to order some restoration work and to stay here occasionally but not enough to detract from the attention he paid to other more modern royal playgrounds that he developed in the middle of the 18th century. Scoring an invitation during Louis XV’s time was easier for courtiers. In place of the equestrian statues of Coysevox in the Tuileries, the king commissioned Guillaume Coustou the Elder, Coysevox’s nephew, to create another pair, called Horses Restrained by a Groom. Both sets are referred to as the Horses of Marly, though the term is particularly used in speaking of Coustou’s pair. Created in created in 1745, these masterpieces of the Rococo period are among the most famous of 18th-century French sculptures. (Coustou’s brother Nicolas also created sculptures for Marly.)

Louis XVI was still less involved in the royal estate of Marly than his predecessor. Nevertheless, he did visit. His final stay took place just three weeks before the storming of the Bastille.

The Marly Courtyard at the Louvre

With the fall of the monarchy, Marly, like Versailles, become property of the French Republic. Statuary, tapestries and furnishings were brought to Paris for public exhibition. Coustou’s horses were placed at the entrance to the Champs-Elysées. Copies stand there today, as the originals have since been brought into the Louvre. So have Coysevox’s.

After visiting the Royal Estate of Marly to feel its absence and to learn its history, I’ve come to the Louvre to admire samplings of that finery. There, in what is now called the Marly Courtyard, Coustou’s horses rear above a collection of brilliant sculptural work from the vanished gardens. As first-time visitors crush toward the must-sees in the Louvre’s Denon (southern) and Sully (eastern) wings, I take the northern escalator into the Richelieu Wing. In the glass covered courtyard, allowing for natural lighting, stands an impressive array of the statuary originally made for Marly. Coustou’s horses are staged in the courtyard as theatrically as the Winged Victory of Samothrace in the opposite wing of the museum, while Coysevox’s horses take flight with Mercury and Fame behind them, and other exquisite works commissioned by Louis XIV toward the end of his reign further display choice samples of the splendor that was Marly.

See this video of the Marly Courtyard produced by the Louvre.

The Dismantling of Marly

While prime pieces of marble artistry were brought to Paris, the furnishings of Marly were sold off by the State. Woodwork was cut up and sold. And in 1799 the estate of Marly itself was sold.

Napoleon bought back the Marly property for the state in 1811. By then the buildings had for the most part been dismantled and sold for scrap. The emperor wasn’t about to rehabilitate a Bourbon adobe anyway. What attracted him to Marly was its forest, prime territory for hunting. The estate therefore became an imperial hunting ground, then after the fall of the Empire a royal hunting ground, and eventually a presidential hunting ground. It remained that way until 2009. Bikers, hikers and Sunday strollers now take to the Forest of Marly.

The Estate of Marly (though not the museum) is now administratively joined with the Estate of Versailles, making for a thought-provoking contrast between the two: on the one hand, the eye-popping views, budget, crowds and commerce of an international bucket-lister; on the other, the ghostly reminder of royal pedigree at what is now essentially a local park and extensive woods.

The Museum of the Royal Estate of Marly

Operated by the local municipality, the museum is dedicated to the history of the estate. Several original paintings and prints and pieces of furniture provide slight glimpses of the estate’s past, but the interest of the museum isn’t so much its historical artefacts as the telling of the history of Marly through its displays, including one that explains the functioning of the Machine. Explanatory notes are only in French for now. Notices in English are planned for the end of the year. Whether you speak French or not, a guide can truly help draw you into the creation and life of this nearly forgotten royal residence. See the museum’s website for guided tour possibilities or to inquire for a private tour.

Musée du Domaine Royal de Marly (Museum of the Royal Estate of Marly), 1 Grille royale – Parc de Marly, 78160 Marly-le-Roi. 7€, free for children under 12. Closed Monday and Tuesday. See website for precise opening times.

Getting to the Estate of Marly

As noted earlier, visiting the Estate of Marly is a suburban adventure, one best reserved for those with an abundance of historical curiosity and a willingness to confront the logistics of navigating the loops of the Seine to the west of Paris.

Consider combining it with other sites in the area, particularly Saint-Germain-en-Laye to the north and the Chateau de Monte Cristo (see below) in Port-Marly, between Marly and Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Including Versailles is an alternative approach due to its proximity both geographical and historical, though I imagine that anyone curious about Marly has already visited Versailles.

Setting aside Versailles then, consider three possibilities ways of a day involving a visit to Marly. All require a GPS or detailed map.

1. From Paris by train

From Paris’s Saint Lazare Station, take the train to the Louveciennes Station, a ride of about 45 minutes. From there it’s a 20-minute (1-mile) walk to the museum, which is at the entrance to Royal Estate of Marly, whose ghosts can then be visited on a stroll. Leaving the estate, you might then take a 30-minute (under 2-mile) walk to the Seine. Not the most beautiful walk either coming or going, though you can pass by the wall surrounding the Chateau de Madame de Barry, 6 chemin de la Machine, now a private property. Madame de Barry was Louis XV’s “favorite” (i.e. official mistress) in the final years of his life. The modest chateau was a gift from the king which she then improved. After the king’s death, and followed by her brief exile to a convent, she lived here from 1776 until the guillotine caught up with her in 1793—a pretty good run. You might time your day to have lunch by the river at La Maison Louveciennes, 2 Quai Conti, 78430 Louveciennes. Return to Paris by train or RER.

2. Exploring the western suburbs by car

You can plan a full day exploring Paris’s western suburbs by a taxi or a car service, if you don’t have your own car.

One possible itinerary if setting out from Paris is to first take the RER (suburban train), line A, to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a 40-minute ride from the center of capital. Visit the castle and its gardens, followed by lunch in town, then take a taxi or car service to the Estate of Marly to visit the museum and ghostly portion nearby. Then take a taxi (though one will not spontaneously appear outside the gates of Marly) or a car service to Monte Cristo. You might ask the driver to take you past the scant remnant of the Machine of Marly by the Seine along the way. Then a taxi or car service (or a 30-minute walk) back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

The Château de Monte Cristo isn’t actually a chateau but rather a large house built in the 1840s to resemble a small castle for the writer Alexandre Dumas, who named it after one of his most famous books and decorated it to his own glory. The house and the smaller castle-like outbuilding that he had built on the property to serve as his writing room are now dedicated to his memory, though he didn’t reside here long. After living high on the hog here for less than two years, a lack of funds led him to sell the property in 1848.

3. Marly and Saint-Germain-en-Laye on a biking day

If you’re into biking—and you needn’t be a long-distance cyclist for this—my top choice for visiting Marly would be by bike. Weather permitting, of course. The 130-acre royal estate is at the edge of the nearly 5000 acres of the Forest of Marly, which is separated by only a mile from the nearly 9000 acres of the Forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Visited together, a leisurely day of cycling and touring can include both forests, with stops at the Museum and Estate of Marly at the edge of the one forest and at the Castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye near the edge of the other.

If coming from Paris, take RER A to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, whether bringing a bike from Paris (your own or a rental) or renting one in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. You can take a bike on the RER A from Paris during the week outside of rush hour, meaning other than 6:30-9:30am and 4:30-730pm, as well anytime on weekends and holidays. In Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Cyclou rents bikes from the edge of the forest, near the swimming pool about 500 yards from the chateau up Avenue des Loges, though with limited weekday opening times (see their site for details). Also see Bikook for e-bike rental.

Begin by visiting the Castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which houses the National Archeology Museum, and the castle gardens. Then bike at your own rhythm for a couple of hours through the two forests before visiting the Museum and Estate of Marly. You’ll use your GPS or a biking app to navigate through the forests. Route des Princesses is the mile-long stretch of non-forest biking between the two. From Marly it’s possible to bike down to the Seine and/or to the Chateau de Monte-Cristo before returning to Saint-Germain. But that involves street biking, so you might want to just keep this as a forest biking day and return the way that you came.

The Saint Germain Tourist Office, a 3-minute walk from the RER station, 3 rue Henri IV, provides information about the town and about surrounding towns along the nearby loops in the Seine, including Marly-le-Roi. This area is located within the department of Yvelines, which includes the western and southwestern suburbs of Paris.

Château Louis XIV

As you travel about in these western suburbs you might not see the wealth, but it’s there. For example, you won’t be seeing Château Louis XIV unless you’re in the habit of hanging out with Saudi royalty. It’s near Marly, in the town of Louveciennes, in the direction of Versailles. Château Louis XIV is a contemporary echo of Marly and Versailles. It was built on a 57-acre property in 2012 by Emad Khashoggi (read: big money from the Middle East further developed in Europe) as a high-tech version of a 17th-century-style chateau. Three years later, the property reportedly sold for 275 million euros, reportedly to the crown prince of the Saudi kingdom. Press reports at the time called it the most expensive private property in the world.

© 2020, Gary Lee Kraut

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In 2008, American pop idol Jeff Koons raised multiple hackles with his giant balloon puppies and lobsters. The exhibition did, however, have its supporters who thought the high kitsch sculptures looked right at home given that Versailles was the original McMansion and nobody “got” glitz and flash more than Marie Antoinette.

By the time that Japanese manga artist Takashi Murakami placed a buxomly cartoonish French Maid a little too close to the Hall of Mirrors in 2010, the opposition had organized. A petition signed by 11,000 stated that the objets d’art, which the artist proposed as a “face-off between the Baroque period and Post-War Japan,” were “degrading and disrespectful.”

Since the Murakami to-do, Versailles curators have confined most of the artwork to the gardens. A sensible plan since, by this time, Tracey Emin was presumably on the invitation short-list. Who wanted to clean up all those condoms in the royal boudoir, especially since the manga maids were banned from the premises?

This year, the protests got nasty. In the wee hours of June 16, barely a week after the unveiling of the current Anish Kapoor exhibit, art vigilantes threw paint over the 33-feet-high Dirty Corner, most likely in response to an interview the artist gave in the Journal du Dimanche (May 31, 2015), in which he described the artwork as “the vagina of the queen taking power.”

In fact, Dirty Corner was not commissioned with Marie Antoinette or one of her predecessors in mind. It’s been around since 2011. When first displayed in Milan at the Fabbrica del Vapore, people were invited to enter the installation and experience disorientation (without royal gynocological implications) as they walked through the narrowing tunnel.

Kapoor acknowledges that the artwork, which rises out of Versailles’s manicured lawn like a giant Dune sand-monster, scattering multi-ton slabs of rock in the process, is supposed to upset the regal symmetry of Le Nôtre’s gardens.

Kapoor is one of the most popular living artists exhibited in France. His 2011 Momumenta exhibition at the Grand Palais attracted nearly 280,000 visitors. Commenting on the attack in The Guardian (June 19, 2015), Kapoor blamed the vandalism on the dark forces of “exclusion, marginalization, elitism, racism, Islamophobia” … a rather puzzling denunciation from the recently knighted, Bombay-born Hindu-Jewish artiste who resides in Britain.

Since the vandalism, visitors at the exhibition, running June 9-November 1, will now be met at the Dirty Corner by rather anxious-looking “Cultural Mediators”, art history students who are ready and willing to wrestle royalist taggers to the mat. Unfortunately—at least during the clean-up phase that features large machines thrusting into the artwork and a work crew diligently scrubbing away at what looks like the mother of all STDs—no one is likely to forget the “V” word.

Text and photos © 2015, Corinne LaBalme

Anish Kapoor in the garden of Versailles, June 9-Nov. 1, 2015. 

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A mustard-color metal barrier was placed across the main entrance a month or so ago, signaling the start of restoration work on the school’s monumental archway and its adjacent wall.

Today, walking by, I saw that a canvas had been stretched across the length of the barrier. There are images of animals on it—dog, cat, owl, chickens, cow—and to one side of the canvas is an image of a painter before an easel.

I touched the cat on the plastic canvas to see if the images had been made with paint rather than printed on. Paint indeed.

To the far side of the canvas is the artist’s name, Gilles Sacksick, and beyond that, on a separate section of canvas, the title of the work: le Peintre Animal (the Animal Painter).

On my way back from the courts several hours later, a man with a paint brush, vaguely resembling the image of the painter, stood looking at the canvas. Rather, the figure on the canvas, made of broad brushstrokes, vaguely resembled the man.

I asked if he was the artist.

“No,” he said. “I’m a painter today, not an artist.”

I asked him to explain. He said that he was touching up the work that he’d first done in his studio.

He set down his palette to talk with me. For him, he said, his task in decorating the barrier also involved a willingness to talk with interested passersby, i.e. the intended audience of his work.

In my own neighborhood there are walls that individuals and groups get permission from City Hall to paint. Tags grow on other walls nearby and, after a time, on the “official” wall as well. I see it every day and pass by its edge on my way to the bakery.

Once, baguette in hand, I said to a fellow holding a can of spray paint, “Hello. Are you the artist?” “Apparently. Who are you?” he answered. “I’m your audience. What are painting?” “The wall,” he said. “What’s it going to be?” “A painted wall.” “And the image?” He looked at the wall. “Too difficult to explain,” he said. “Go ahead,” I said, “try.” “I have to work, sir. You can come back this evening to see, if all goes well,” he said, giving a shake to his can. He could only see me as an intruder, not a participant in the public space he was re-decorating.

Another time, another wall worker, another stick of bread, multigrain perhaps, I asked “What’s it going to be?” “A painted wall,” she said with a smile. Her retort may have resonated with more significance had she not been painting over someone else’s “It’s already a painted wall,” I remarked. The smile dripped from her face. “Then you’ll just have to wait and see,” she said. In a culture that developed the word repartee there’s a surprising lack of on the streets of the capital.

I like the changing wall before it gets over-tagged. Still, I wonder: Is it just my neighborhood or do Paris’s official artistes du jour have attitude? Or maybe the larger the wall—and this is a building-size wall—the larger the ego? On the smaller “official” wall in the neighborhood I once got a “thanks for noticing.”

Leopards were appearing on that wall. Here in Maisons-Alftort there were more animals. Perhaps, after watching so many charming pet videos online, I’m especially in tune with animal art.

Or perhaps, now that cultural institutions and other private and government enterprises have converted their scaffolding covers to advertisements in the name of budget wisdom, e.g. this shocker at the very heart of Paris on the judicial complex where passersby are now all sentenced to Life:

… it’s simply refreshing to see dogs and cats being touched up on the barrier at a national veterinary school.

We have been told, in France, that street art is a way in which young, upcoming urban artists can express themselves on the wide urban canvas before possibly entering homes, collections, theaters, museums. But the older artist/painter also has his place on the street.

Gilles Sacksick picked up his palette and prepared to climb the ladder.

“What’s wonderful about painting,” he said, “is that there is nothing and then there is something.”

Gilles Sacksick’s artist biography and more of his work (largely without anmials) can be seen at gillessacksick.com.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

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Over the years I’ve visited Monet’s gardens and lily pond at Giverny at various times during its open seasons, late March to early November, at different times of day. I’ve seen, as Monet did, the gardens’ flora at various stages of bloom and rebloom and its relationship with the water, the sky and the air. As in painting by the master Impressionist himself as he focused more and more on his backyard in his 70s and 80s, the view expresses itself in a different way each time. I visited Giverny again recently in early October (the photos in this article are from then) and was once again impressed by how it had maintained its lushness and color into the fall. The season’s calm, flower-friendly weather had certainly helped.

Visitors following the crowded paths around his pond and through his garden inevitably find the site lovely and photogenic, though it’s Monet’s relationship with the site rather than the site alone that makes it worth a detour. I’m tempted to say that it isn’t worth going out of your way for Giverny if you aren’t curious about the artists. I won’t judge–but there, I said it anyway. So my first recommendation when considering a trip to Giverny is to get curious about Monet (1840-1926), about his sustained form of Impressionism and his family life (two children with his first wife who died shortly after the birth of their second child, cohabitation then marriage with a long-time friend who had six children of her own after their father had abandoned the family), and to visit it with the naked eye rather than through a camera lens, with plans to (re)visit Monet’s work at the Orsay Museum and more particularly at the Orangerie Museum and at the Marmottan Monet Museum.

Combine a view of the (controlled) natural landscape that he created here with a view of the work that he produced (in books or online if not in museums) and Giverny (pronounced jee-ver-nee) can feel uplifting. Though I’d rather visit with sunny skies or gentle white clouds, overcast weather also allows insights into Monet’s world and outlook. I’m less fond of a rainy-day visit, but even from under umbrella the gardens remain Monet’s.

Having said that, I find myself less than encouraging when advising travelers on whether or not to trek out to Giverny, 45 miles west of Paris, on a daytrip. I’m concerned that the weather will be bad (Giverny is, after all, at the entrance to Normandy, which is not known for sunny days) and/or the crowds overwhelming, and that even on a pleasant day you’ll will spend 90 minutes or more getting out there only to find Giverny lends itself to a 45-minute visit.

I know, there’s more to do in Giverny than a visit chez Monet. There’s the Monet boutique (as you can imagine, his paintings lends itself to appealing merchandising), some pretty (yawn) art galleries, an enjoyable and occasionally insightful Giverny Museum of Impressionisms, whose restaurant is a decent place to lunch, and there’s the relatively little visited tomb of Monet in the village churchyard. So it is possible to spend a couple of hours here. Also, though often ignored, the nearby town of Vernon, which is where you stop if coming this way be train, gives a sense of an ordinary small-town France for those who’ve never visited on. Still, I’m not always convinced that it’s worth the time for those who have little of it in Paris. As I say, I’m a big fan of Monet’s place. I just don’t think that making it a destination in and of itself is right for everyone.

La Roche-Guyon

Add La Roche-Guyon to the day, however, and I can be more encouraging. La Roche-Guyon is a village along the Seine just 6 miles to the east Giverny, on the opposite side of the Normand border. Though the castle of La Roche-Guyon is mostly empty inside (that is, the public parts are since a portion is private chateau, which belongs to the La Rochefoucauld family, is still inhabited) it can be visited inside, where it gives glimpse of several strong points in French history.

This was strategic site overlooking a loop in the Seine near the border between Normandy and France proper, at a time when the powerful dukes of Normandy and their kinship with crown of England posed a threat to France. The visitor understands the strategic importance of this site on the French side of the border by hiking through stairs cut into the limestone cliff and ascending into the 12-century tower so as to take in the tremendous view over the Seine Valley.

The Duchy of La Roche-Guyon also made a name for itself in the 18th-century for the interest of leading members of the Rochefoucauld family in the literature, science and politics of the Enlightenment. The main portion of the castle dates from that period as does the recently rehabilitated 9.4-acre vegetable and fruit garden.

Also, there’s WWI history here since the castle served as German Marshall Rommel’s headquarters during the lead up to D-Day 1944. Casements were dug into the cliff were to store munitions used especially by anti-aircraft guns placed at the top of the cliff.

Even without visiting Giverny, I recommend a stop at La Roche-Guyon for those flying into Paris and wishing to drive directly to Normandy to visit the D-Day Beaches. It makes for a nice break in a tiring day between the airport and your hotel in Normandy while introducing the history of Normandy and the German occupation during the Second World War.

Alternatively, you can stop at both Giverny and La Roche-Guyon on the way back from Normandy, but the timing can be more difficult if returning in the afternoon since you’ll want to avoid driving into Paris during rush hour.

In order to do the Giverny – La Roche-Guyon combo or to visit La Roche-Guyon on its own, you’ll need wheels since public transportation is too complicated and infrequent to get here.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut (modified 2026)

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Beyond his responsibilities at Versailles, Baraton is at once a folk historian, a provocateur and an entertainer in writing about the dark side of Versailles in Vice et Versailles: Crimes, trahisons et autres Empoisonnements au palais du Roi-Soleil (Vice and Versailles: Crimes, Treacheries and other Poisonings at the Palace of the Sun King).

“Money is celebrated in every corner [of Versailles],” he writes (in French). “There isn’t a statue or restored vase that doesn’t have its plaque thanking a generous donor… My greatest wish would be that a plaque, however modest, serve as a reminder that this palace of fairy tales is also that of dramas and misfortunes, because I cannot and don’t want to forget those, numerous as they are, who suffered in their flesh and paid with their life to enable us today to contemplate and to appreciate the chateau of kings, Versailles.”

In the absence of such a plaque, Baraton pays homage to the victims of Versailles in this book, though “homage” may not the appropriate term for his account of much the suffering he describes seeing how much he seems to delight in telling it. He spares no gore in telling stories about Versailles that “Historians,” he writes, “scarcely evoke,” “truths that would tarnish the luster of Versailles.”

This zone on the way to Normandy from Paris was once the stomping ground of a less titled band of crooks and hoods before Louis XIII purchased land at the village of Versailles in 1632 and ordered the construction of a hunting lodge. His son Louis XIV, upon assuming the reigns of power, would then use that lodge as the inner shell around which his expansive palace would develop beginning in 1662, a project that he would pursue for the next 50 years. Versailles was built a tremendous theater where Louis XIV always stood center stage, whether in the palace or in the garden, asserting and ensuring his role as the Sun King, the power and the glory around which all rotated.

Always quick to point out the murky side of this story, Baraton writes: “It’s fear that brought Louis XIV to Versailles, frightened by the Fronde [a rebellion against the royal government during the king’s minority]. It’s blood that allowed him to remain there. The sweet paths that we visit and the fabulous luxury of a palace that we admire are built on an open grave that would make the worst tyrant nauseous.”

At the time of its construction, Versailles was the largest construction site in Europe: 36,000 men worked on the site and there were 22,000 soldiers in the area. Malnourished and poorly paid, they worked under horrible conditions, suffering from cold, fever and frequent accidents. Baraton writes: “While I don’t know how many men died—the number 8,000 that has been mentioned by some sounds optimistic to me—I know that three hospitals… were built to care for the victims of a project worthy of a pharaoh.”

Beyond the sufferance of those who created Versailles, he invites the reader to revel in shadowy corners of the history of Versailles over the past 400 years whether telling us that the Grand Trianon was built on the site of a cemetery, noting that the last court-ordered public execution in France took place in the town of Versailles in 1939, or speaking of a of tortures, crimes, acts of vengeance and the occasional bloodletting.

Poisoning, Baraton explains, was all the rage during Louis XIV’s reign, “an arm for women that was very fashionable at the time.” As to elixirs of love, he has dug up the recipe of the love potion that Madame de Montespan supposedly managed to sneak into the king’s bloodstream: testicles of wild boar, artichoke, cat urine, fox excrement, toad powder, an eye of viper.

The author playfully lets us know that a bit of the macabre can await us, too, when we visit the great palace. In the name of history and beauty, mercury, despite its known toxicity, was recently used in the Hall of Mirrors to restore and replace those of the famed mirrors that had deteriorated over the centuries. “The level of toxicity is certainly beneath the safety level established by the WHO, but I recommend visitors who are particular about their appearance to not gaze upon themselves too long in the Hall.”

Though haphazard in its telling of the horror stories of Versailles, “Vice et Versailles” is a pleasant and easy trot of a read—in French only—full of anecdotes, ironic asides, juicy tidbits, black humor and broad historical strokes.

Published by Grasset in 2011, “Vice et Versailles” is one of a number of books that Baraton has written about the grounds where he has been employed since 1976 at the age of 19. He is also the author of more cheerful books including “Le Jardinier de Versailles” (Grasset, 2006), “Versailles vu par Alain Baraton” (Hugo et Cie, 2007) and “L’Amour à Versailles” (Grasset, 2009), along with other books on gardening, landscaping and trees. Baraton is especially known to a wide public in France through his weekly gardening show on the radio station France Inter. (Think a French version of “You Bet Your Garden” on NPR.)

During the height of Louis XIV’s reign at Versailles, 7000 people worked in the gardens of Versailles. Nowadays, with 800,000 flowers to plant each year along with general upkeep and various restorations, there are now 48 permanent gardeners for 2100 acres (850 hectares) along with surveillance agents and employees of ten private companies that periodically intervene “without,” Baraton said during a presentation of his book, “the same personal attachment [to Versailles] that the permanent gardeners have.”

In a conversation with the author-gardener it’s clear that he sees a certain amount of horror in the effects of contemporary tourism in Versailles, albeit far less bloody horror. He cites the eyesore of garbage cans now placed everywhere as a consequence of picnickers having so much waste. He also doesn’t like the idea of visitors listening to audio devices rather than to the natural environment. And he’s no fan of the golf carts that visitors can use to visit the garden but in which people don’t even look at what they’re passing but simply use to get from point A to point B. He would rather have us remember that beyond the palace the park of Versailles is a 17th-century creation that ought to be approached in the spirit of that era, meaning with lots of walking, perhaps in the wind or the cold, and with moments of silence so as to listen to the birds.

Though “Vice et Versailles” doesn’t present the technical aspects of his work overseeing the garden and park of Versailles, Baraton, as heir of sorts to André Le Nôtre, the landscape gardener who created Louis XIV’s backyard at Versailles, lets it be known that he has “an account to settle” with his forebear.

ALAIN BARATON, LE JARDINIER DE VERSAILLES… par AJPAT

In the interview video above conducted by Michel Shulman, president of the French Assocation of Heritage Journalists (Association des journalistes du patrimoine), Baraton explains (and I translate):

“Le Notre is a truly competent professional who left us with a unique and remarkable work, except that Le Notre didn’t invent anything—it’s worth bearing in mind—and Le Notre didn’t transmit anything either. When one has the opportunity, as Le Notre did, to be titled, to be near the king, to be wealthy—to keep everything for himself and take to the grave the secrets of his work, it’s not honorable. So I love Le Notre’s creation but I like the man himself a lot less… When one does work such as his it’s one’s duty to perpetuate it… I’m mad at Le Notre and that’s why from time to time I take a perverse pleasure in damaging a little his memory.”

Recognizing his role as a media personality, Baraton concludes that “My own obsession today is to transmit not only my own knowledge but that of my colleagues and to do exactly what he, Le Notre, didn’t have the courage to do.”

For those who read French, “Vice et Versailles” is a enjoyable and bloody introduction to some of that transmission.

Vice et Versailles: Crimes, trahaisons et autres empoisonnements au palais du Roi-Soleil by Alain Barton. 203 pages. Published by Grasset, 2011.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

Other articles, photographs and videos about Versailles on France Revisited include:
Your, Mine and Le Nôtre’s: An American Photographer Examines the Garden of Versailles  (photography)
Jealousy and the Thrones at Versailles  (exhibtion)
The Gardens of Versailles in Winter (photograph/video)
Versailles, an Alternate Approach (advice)
Versailles, Versight, Versails, Versighs, Versize, Versache: How I learned to Forget the Crowds and Appreciate Versailles (3-part article)

The post Vice & Versailles: A Master Gardener Delves Into the Dark Shadows of the Louis XIV’s Palace appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

By Elise Prudhomme

André Le Nôtre designed the Garden of Versailles to display, reflect and serve as the backdrop for the pomp and glory and power of the reign of Louis XIV. As such the garden functioned as a direct extension of the palace itself.

Piqued by Nicolas Fouquet’s audacious success with the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte which he visited in 1661, Louis XIV enlisted the three men who had contributed to that success—the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter-decorator Charles Le Brun and the landscape gardener André Le Nôtre—to create the palace of all palaces: Versailles.

Over more than 50 years of adult reign, the king would devote much of his time and energy, when France was not at war, to enlarging and embellishing the 800 hectares (1977 acres) of land called the Domain of Versailles which now contains 200,000 trees, 50 fountains and 620 water jets fed by 35 km (21.7 miles) of water pipeline. In a monumental example of man’s attempt to balance order and disorder, culture and nature, spontaneity and reflection, Le Nôtre served the king by creating architecture from nature.

Through his self-incarnation as the Sun King, Louis XIV used metaphor and symbolism as constant echoes and demonstrations of his power. From the king’s ceremonial dressing and rise in the morning (le lever du Roi) to his ceremonial undressing and putting to bed at night (le coucher du Roi), by way of a well-regulated day that included a walk in the garden under the watchful eye of the Court, Louis XIV exposed his lives to the public eye with the aim of concentrating and asserting their power. Integral part of this goal, the Garden of Versailles served the strategic purpose of promoting the king’s power while amusing and containing the masses of Court subjects, twin arms in preventing them from plotting against him.

The garden was an immediate reflection of his public image as the Sun King. An important quantity of statuary representing classical themes was ordered in 1674 by Louis XIV to embellish the parterres, and in the same year the king ordered the addition to the Grand Canal called Little Venice where gondolas and decorative boats were docked to serve the pleasures of the Court. Louis XIV’s strongest ally, Apollo (the Greek Sun-god or God of Light), is represented in fountains and grottos and statuary throughout the garden to allude to the king’s omnipresence.

The mastermind behind this colossal project was André Le Nôtre. The king himself poured over the plans. Careful and strategic planning was required to create a garden that was at once opulent, in phase with the palace, able to reveal and dissimulate through nature so that discovery of the garden became an adventure and a distraction in itself, all the while speaking of the power and glory of Louis XIV.

The foundation of André Le Nôtre’s creation was shear manpower; millions of men, regiments even, were involved in transforming the landscape and diverting water here. Chariots and wheelbarrows containing countless tons of earth were required to transform the prairies and swamp land which originally constituted the Domain of Versailles. Trees were brought to Versailles from all over France to stabilize and maintain this earthly base, transforming flatlands into hilled woodland. Andre Le Nôtre worked with subtlety and mathematical know-how, tried and tested at the Tuileries Gardens and Vaux-le-Vicomte, to create illusions of perspective which evolve as the garden unfolds.

André Le Nôtre’s genius is particularly evident in the walls of the Sun King’s “outdoor palace.” Masses of hedges form bosquets, behind which follies and fountains reveal themselves like little theaters or tableaux vivants. Walking through the gardens, one is struck by the density and size of these thickets and the quantity of trellis work that prevents the untamed forest areas from invading the paths. While providing shade, these geometrically trimmed vegetal walls protect from wind and give shelter to birds and small wildlife. It is interesting to notice today that the areas of the garden that are in the process of being replanted are initially delimited by trellis work, as if the first step in the garden’s construction.

André Le Nôtre did not content himself with the construction of just one wall, however; there are walls within walls. The bosquets are often doubled with a second wall of vegetation, trimmed and adorned with statuary which offers heightened visual complexity and a shady path. The final flourish is a third row of topiary statues, notably along the east-west axis extending from the palace to the Grand Canal and the north-south axis leading to Neptune’s Basin. Nature in this case, serves a decorative rather than functional purpose, heralded by white marble or dark stone statuary providing contrast in texture and color to the pervasive green of the garden.

This is the orderly representation of the Garden of Versailles, where nature is trimmed (they cut the topiary statues using life-size cardboard models for accuracy), trained, maintained. This is also a visually unstructured aspect of André Le Nôtre’s garden architecture which is demonstrated in the King’s Garden: here an aboretum coexists in harmony and color with low topiary hedges and grassy lawns. The trees act like a bosquet, preventing the viewer from seeing out beyond his immediate surroundings, while providing shelter from wind.

The Park of Versailles begins past the Apollo Fountain and beyond the wrought iron gates that delimit the Garden of Versailles. If the Garden of Versailles is Louis XIV’s outdoor palace, the park—which includes forests, fields and the gardens of the Trianon Palaces—can be seen as the garden of the Garden, in that it is just as carefully maintained and planned in its “wooded” form as the former is in its “constructed” form.

Walking past the garden gates one leaves beyond the imposing formality of the Garden of Versailles to visit the Grand and Petit Trianons and their respective gardens and beyond the Petit Trianon to the Queen’s Hamlet, a quaint working farm as desired by Marie-Antoinette. These gardens are exceptionally charming because they are smaller in size and scope as well as being less formal and more romantic, making them a treat for any photographer willing to venture beyond the crowds.

While André Le Nôtre successfully built Louis XIV’s garden to reflect the king’s power and to capture the attention of the masses, I don’t believe that he could have imagined in his wildest dreams that this glorious place would attract some many visitors for many years to come. Yet the garden still manages to conquer in splendor. Now, if only they would replace the golf carts and tourist “trains” with Apollo’s chariots and horses.

Text and images © Elise Prudhomme.

A Philadelphia-born photographer living in Paris since 1990, Elise Prudhomme developed a passion for photography during university years at Smith College. In addition to her own photography, she directs Studio Galerie B&B, an art gallery, photo studio, darkroom facility and digital imaging center in Paris, 6 bis rue des Récollets, near Canal Saint-Martin in the 10th arrondissement. More images can been seen at www.eliseprudhomme.com.

Also see Elise’s text and images concerning the Tuileries Garden.

The post Yours, Mine, Le Nôtre’s: An American Photographer Examines the Garden of Versailles appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

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Notre-Dame de Reims

The Gothic cathedrals of Europe were very much the skyscrapers of their time both for their reach to the sky and their intent to demonstrate the stature of the cities and of the bishoprics (a Roman Catholic cathedral refers to the church that is the seat of the bishop) in which they were built.

In 469 Clovis, King of the Franks, was baptized in Reims by Bishop-cum-Saint Remi. That fundamental consecration of the marriage of Church and King in France, is shown on the façade of Notre-Dame de Reims as it is in many other cathedrals in France. (The marriage was formally dissolved during the French Revolution. There were attempts at national therapy to patch things up in the 19th century, but for over a hundred years now the marriage has been declared over, with the separation of assets clearly identified by the law of 1905.)

In memory of the baptism of Clovis, it became firm tradition as of the 9th century that a king of France should come to Reims, 80 miles northeast of Paris, to confirm his divinely-inspired power over his kingdom and the Church’s intimate role in that power. That confirmation required anointing by a holy ointment kept in a holy vial. By the time this Notre-Dame was begun, in 1211, the construction of a cathedral in keeping with Reims’s stature and role as the site of royal unction was long overdue.

Since the coronation of Louis VIII in 1223, all but three of the French kings were crowned in this cathedral. Those three are: Louis VI, who received unction in Orleans in 1108 because he felt it would be dangers to travel to Reims; Henri IV, who was crowned in Chartres in 1594 because Reims was in the hand of his enemies; Louis XVIII, who returned from exile in England to become king in 1814 and for whom no coronation ceremony was held in France.)

The historical events surrounding the 1429 coronation of Charles VII in the presence of Joan of Arc, who’d heard voices telling her that that the king must quit cowering in the Loire Valley and assume his god-given role in France, is celebrated each year in Reims over the first weekend of June in an annual Joan festival called les Fêtes Johanniques. The major event of the weekend is the Sunday afternoon reenactment of the procession to the cathedral from Saint Remi Basilica, Reims’ other important and impressive architectural monument.

Visitors arriving by car will find that the frontal approach leading to Rue Rockefeller and then the vast square in front of the cathedral is regal indeed. American industrialist John D. Rockefeller got the honors of a street named after him in thanks for the enormous funding he provided in the 1920s to rebuild the cathedral which had been heavily damaged by bombardment during WWI. (Another sizable donation by the American industrialist Andrew Carnegie allowed for the construction of the beautiful Art Deco public library that’s near the cathedral.)

There are lots of 20th-century windows here because of war damage, including the bright blue windows that draws your gaze the far end of the cathedral when you first enter were created by Marc Chagall in 1974.

Unlike Chartres, where the cathedral is the destination, Notre-Dame de Reims often plays second fiddle to the town’s main attraction: its champagne houses. After all, Reims along with Epernay, 18 miles south, are the main centers for champagne production, with many small producers nearby along the slopes between the two towns. Millions of bottles lie fermenting in tunnels north and east of the cathedral. Those bottles will eventually see the light of day—or night—dressed in the labels of Taittinger, Pommery, Mumm, Ruinart, Veuve-Cliquot, and other champagne houses.

There’s no escaping the influence of bubbly in Reims, even in the cathedral, where a series of stained glass windows donated by the region’s winemakers show it being made as though a scene from a regional bible.

But the most joyful symbol of the marriage of Church and champagne is the smiling angel on the façade of the cathedral that has come to represent the city itself. It wasn’t created with sparkling wine in mind, yet no visitor now admires the angel without associating the two.

Like Chartres and Amiens, Reims also had a labyrinth on its floor, but it was removed by the Church in 1779. Nevertheless, its image, taken from drawings made when the labyrinth was in place, is now the French Ministry of Culture’s logo designating historical monuments.

Notre-Dame d’Amiens

The final spoke in these radiating Notre-Dames leads north to the Cathedral of Amiens, 80 miles north of Paris, which has the largest interior of all the medieval mastodons of France, twice as voluminous as its elder sister Notre-Dame de Paris.

Amiens is perhaps the most harmonious of these cathedrals because, following the destruction of a previous cathedral destroyed by fire in 1218, it was built in a relatively short period of 50 years, from 1220 to 1270, making this the rare cathedral that an individual might see started and consecrated during his lifetime.

Along with its architectural prowess, the cathedral reveals a treasure chest of biblical, spiritual, political, and local anecdotes in stone, wood, and glass, all in tip-top condition thanks to cleaning and restoration in the 1990s. That work brought to light evidence of the extent to which the sculptures on the facade were painted in the Middle Ages. We often think of these medieval churches as being the color of the naked limestone, but in fact they were highly colored. An impressive 40-minute sound-and-light show (after nightfall in spring and summer and again in December) projects estimates of the original colors on the façade. Reims and Chartres also have sound-and-light shows against the façade of their cathedrals.

For the quality and drama of its sculptural works inside and out, Amiens is a remarkable monument to the talents of 13th century sculptors. Among its most celebrated details are the cartoon-like images of Hell on the central door, the crying angel behind the choir that came to be dear to soldiers visiting during the First World War, and the Golden Virgin which has been brought inside from its original pedestal on the southern entrance, where a copy now stands.

By the time Amiens’ cathedral was underway, the French style of architecture had gone mainstream and was spreading throughout Europe; Gothic cathedrals then sprouted up in surrounding kingdoms and empires until the 15th century. Then new winds of architectural and artistic change, those of the Renaissance, began to blow across the continent, this time set in motion by Italy. Follow those winds on another architectural trip abroad.

Practical information for visiting the five Notre-Dames

The Notre-Dames of Paris, Chartres, Laon, Reims and Amiens are all open daily and free for all visitors. These cathedrals are designated as national monuments; they are property of and largely maintained by the state, with the Catholic Church having permanent use of them for religious purposes. Visitors can enter at all times during the day except in the case of special events. Portions designated for religious service may be cordoned off for those attending service.

Church policy requests modest dress, such as covered shoulders and skirts or shorts that aren’t too short, and men should remove any hats upon entering. But authorities are fairly relaxed about it these days. In any case, visitors should respect the fact that the buildings do have a religious function along with their secular appeal as historical monuments.

If traveling in spring and summer consider attending a sound-and-light show after nightfall at the cathedrals of Chartres, Reims and Amiens (whose show also takes place in December).

While you can visit any of those outside of Paris by radiating out from the capital, Amiens, Laon (to which can be added the Gothic Saint-Quentin Basilica between Amiens and Laon) and Reims can be visited in a driving tour of the regions north and northeast of Paris. These can be combined with explorations of WWI sites in the countryside, making for a fascinating two or three or four days of historical touring, ending with a glass or three of champagne in and around Reims. The central tourist offices of those towns can provide information about WWI sites (including those with an American and Canadian presence) and specialized tours in the surrounding area.

Paris: The official website of the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau gives much practical information about visiting the city. The Catholic’s Church’s own information site about Notre-Dame provides details about the edifice as well as mass times, church-organized tours and concerts (the latter include free Sunday afternoon organ concerts which have been suspended during work on the instrument in 2012 and will resume in January 2013). Paris’s other great Gothic structure, the Saint Chapelle (Holy Chapel), the royal chapel of exquisite construction and mostly 13th-century glass, is just a few hundred yards from Notre-Dame in what was formerly a royal palace complex and is now the city’s judicial complex.

Saint-Denis: Saint-Denis Basilica, which is considered the first major structure built at the start of the Gothic era when reconstruction of its apse began in 1144, is located in the suburb/city of Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, and can be reached on metro (subway) line 13 at station Basilique de Saint-Denis. In 1966 it was also given the status of cathedral, so it is officially called the Basilica-Cathedral of Saint Denis. In addition to presenting extraordinary and luminous architecture, the basilica-cathedral contains dozens of royal tombs and funerary monuments since this was the traditional burial place of the royals of France. There is an entrance fee to visit the tombs and monuments. More information can be found here.

Chartres: 56 miles southwest of Paris; 1¼ hour by car; an hour by train departing from Paris Montparnasse Station; about $21 one way. In addition to its daytrip appeal, Chartres can be visited on the way to/from the Loire Valley or Brittany or as a detour to/from Normandy. Tourist information can be found here.  The church’s own website is here. A sound-and-light show takes place on the facade of the cathedral from April 20 to September 21.

Laon: 85 miles northeast of Paris; 2 hours by car; 1½-2 hours for direct trains departing every hour or two from Paris North (Nord) Station; about $30 one way. The Laon Tourist Office is beside the cathedral. Tourist officials have told me that few Canadians or Americans visit the town, so North Americans should stop into the tourist office while here and ask to be counted. Cathedral tours are worthwhile even when only in French because they give access to portions of the building that are otherwise inaccessible. Also see this photo reportage about Notre-Dame de Laon.

Reims: 80 miles northeast of Paris; 1¾ hours by car; 45-50 minutes by high-speed train (TGV) from Paris East (Est) Station; about $44. The tourist office is next to the cathedral and can provide information about visiting champagne house in the city. The church’s own website is here. A 25-minute sound-and-light show takes place at the cathedral certain evenings from June to September.

Amiens: 80 miles directly north of Paris; 1 ¾ hours by car; 70-100 minutes for direct trains leaving about every 1½ hours from Paris North (Nord) Station; about $29 one way. Amiens’ tourist information website is found here. Amiens projects a magnificent light show onto the façade of its cathedral. The last train back to Paris from Amiens leaves shortly after 8pm most days, though, so in summer you’ll have to miss either the show or the train. The 40-minute projection begins at 7pm during its December run, when Amiens’ Christmas market may add a bit of an attraction, so those willing to venture north at that time of year can catch part of the show before hurrying off to the station. Also see this article about Amiens.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Radiating from Paris: Our Glorious Ladies of Gothic Architecture (Part II: Reims, Amiens, Practical Tips) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

April 16, 2019. In the wake of the fire that destroyed the roof and steeple of Notre-Dame to Paris, we republish this article paying homage to five glorious ladies of Gothic architecture, written in 2012 as Paris prepared the jubilee celebration honoring the 850th anniversary of the start of construction of the “new” cathedral of Paris.

As Paris prepares the jubilee celebration honoring the 850th anniversary of the beginning of construction of Notre-Dame Cathedral in 1163, France Revisited pays homage to that great Gothic monument at the center of the capital and to four other Notre-Dame Cathedrals within 100 miles of Paris. This article, of special interest to the historical and architectural traveler, is divided into two parts. Part I below concerns Notre-Dames of Paris, Laon and Chartres. Part II concerns Notre-Dames of Reims and Amiens and includes practical tips for visiting all five.

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Think Notre-Dame and the great cathedral of Paris comes to mind. Notre-Dame (Our Lady) needs no last name; it refers first and foremost to the Gothic monument at the heart of the world’s most visited city.

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, to use its full name, is just one the great dames of Gothic architecture in northern France, the region at the hub of European religious architectural evolution in the 12th and 13th centuries and further restyling in the 14th and 15th centuries. Within a hundred miles of the French capital, four other Notre-Dame Cathedrals, each remarkable in its own way and each easily reached by train, offer the artful traveler their treasures of stone, sculpture and stained glass: Notre-Dame de Chartres, Notre-Dame de Laon, Notre-Dame de Reims and Notre-Dame d’Amiens.

Properties of the State, these monuments are now the heritage of secular France as much as they are of Catholic France. Indeed, the great benefit of France’s devotion to maintaining and restoring them is that we, as visitors, have access to their technological and artistic magnificence and their craftsmanship without being asked to accept the doctrine and the politics that gave rise to their construction. One can naturally pray, reflect and/or confess there, but while these cathedrals continue to function as Catholic prayer houses, they do not require practice or belief in order to be appreciated for they also function is historical monuments—and not solely of French history, but of European history and world history as well.

The five Roman Catholic cathedrals described here are among the magnificent mammoths of French Gothic architecture. “French” Gothic is actually somewhat redundant for these structures begun between 1163 and 1120 since France’s role in developing techniques to build higher and wider structures and then to embellish them was so prominent that what we now call Gothic architecture was long referred to as “French style” or “the French art.”

Notre-Dame de Paris

The term Gothic was invented by culture mavens of the 16th century, dominated by Italian influences, because they saw the prior generation of churches as passé, lacking harmony and refinement, barbaric like the Goths of the Dark Ages. But try convincing the 13-14 million people that visit Notre-Dame de Paris each year that they’ve come to see something crass.

In 1160 Bishop Maurice de Sully of Paris decided that his city’s cathedral—at the time a hodgepodge of older structures built over successive foundations going back to Roman times—needed to enter the modern era. In 1163 the foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid in the presence of Pope Alexander III. The 850th anniversary of that event is being celebrated at Notre-Dame from Dec. 12, 2012 to Dec. 11, 2013, with some events beyond that date.

The anniversary has been the occasion to the replace tired old bells for the towers, design of new interior lighting, restore the organ, and create a new museography in the treasury. Conferences, concerts and other religious celebrations honoring the jubilee will take place throughout the year.

Though the footprint of the Notre-Dames was set in place when construction was launched, evolving techniques and styles would lead to modifications of plans over the decades, even centuries, that it took to complete the project. The central potion and towers of Notre-Dame de Paris took about 77 years to complete, the great rose windows another 20 years, and the light-infused chapels surrounding the choir another 70.

Gothic architecture began with decades in structural development of rib vaults by trial and error, so there is no single inventor of this type of architecture. Glimpses of the evolution toward the rib vault had come from various horizons, including from Moorish and Arab arches. But Saint Denis Basilica, just north of Paris, set the tone for the next three centuries of religious architecture in France (and well beyond) when in 1144 Abbot Segur, the man who gets the most credit, launched the reconstruction of the abbey church that was then affirming its status as the final resting place of the kings of France.

The main features of Gothic architecture such as the ribbed vault, the pointed arch, lancet windows, flying buttresses, even its gargoyles, were solutions to technical problems rather than decorative tastes. Previous techniques (Romanesque vaulting and buttressing) had reached its limits in height and width without the structure collapsing from its own weight. The solution was a new kind of vault able to bear the weight though relatively narrow pillars, with the outward thrust supposed by other arches and eventually supported by flying buttresses. Height and width increased while the most remarkable feature of these new structures was that walls now relieved of the role of bearing the full weight of the structure’s upward reach could now be opened to allow in light through fanciful windows.

While the craft of making colored or semi-transparent glass and joining them together with lead strips existed before the Gothic period, the accomplishment of structural techniques allowing for large opening (lancet windows, rose windows and assorted tracery) led to an explosion of stained-glass making, allowing for a craft to develop into an art.

Using metal oxides, minerals or plants, stained glass makers developed reds, greens, blues and yellows that not only flooded these structures with light but allowed the church to illustrate scenes from the Bible, to speak of the lives of saints, and to represent local life, including that of noble donors and trade guilds that helped finance construction. At a time when the majority of the population was illiterate, being able to present stories in glass and in stone was an educational tool as well as a treat to the eye and a glorification of the subject.

Notre-Dame de Paris represents a feat of technical and artistic prowess for the time. Higher and wider cathedrals exist. Stunning windows can also be seen elsewhere. Yet even first-time 21st-century visitors to Notre-Dame, now accustomed to light-infused interiors, emit oohs and ahs of appreciation when standing with a view of the long, high nave. Imagine then how a visitor entering in the early 1300s, when the cathedral was nearing completion, must have felt. The scene from the Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy and her three traveling companions first enter the realm of the great wizard himself comes to mind.

Visitors today can take a tour or borrow an audio-guide or find an app to better understand the main features of Notre-Dame’s windows, sculptures, paintings, architecture and history. Or you can follow in-depth guidebooks to learn the vocabulary of Notre-Dame: ambulatory, apse, baldachin, bay, chancel, chevet, clerestory, façade, frieze, gargoyles, keystone, lancet windows, narthex, nave, portal, portico, radiating chapel, rose window, stained glass, transept, triforium, vaulting, etc..

Of course, not everyone is interested in all of those details. Still, the impression, the eye appeal, remains and may be sufficient to feel that one has discovered something special in seeing Our Lady of Paris. Even more special, it’s worth noting that Paris is graced with two extraordinary monuments representing major advancements in the evolution of construction over the past 900 years: Sully’s cathedral and Eiffel’s tower. Some may even see in the Eiffel Tower an echo of Notre-Dame’s spire, a 19th-century addition to the cathedral

The height and fame of the Eiffel Tower tends to make it the elevation of choice for visitors who want to see over the rooftops of Paris, but the Quasimodo view from atop Notre-Dame, 402 steps up (and a painful 1½-2½-hour wait in line at most times of year), is actually the city’s most telling view since the cathedral stands on an island at the geographical and historic center of the city.

Notre-Dame de Laon

Laon’s Notre-Dame, 85 miles northeast of Paris, is a luminous cathedral that dominates the surrounding town and countryside from atop the last outlier plateau of the northern edge of the Paris region. This is another first-generation or primitive Gothic structure, begun at about the same time as the cathedral of Paris. Few of the millions of visitors to Paris’s Notre-Dame come this way, primarily because from Paris Laon isn’t on the direct route to any major city or region. It’s well worth the detour and is gratifyingly off the beaten track.

Other medieval churches and cathedrals rightfully boast about their stained glass windows, but on a sunny day the clear windows in the lantern tower of Notre-Dame de Laon allows the naked stone inside to bathe in a seductive, uniform light.

While Laon can’t pride itself on its colored glass, it’s got gargoyles galore. And what would Gothic cathedrals be without their gargoyles? The short answer: infiltrated by water. Indeed, gargoyles, from the French word for gurgle, are firstly water spouts, designed to direct water away from the building. Their decorative aspect is secondary.

We generally think of gargoyles as representing devilish figures warding off evil along with rainwater. Yet gargoyles and other carved figures on the sides and tops of cathedrals aren’t all grotesques or chimeras. Along with the fabulous bestiary of water spouts on its outer walls, Laon has the particularity of presenting sculptures of oxen near the top of its towers, placed here in homage to their role in hauling stones to create the edifice.

Medieval architects, the masons, the craftsman, and the general population clearly had a different sense of time in launching such a massive project. In fact, the towers of many medieval cathedrals were never completed. Two of the seven towers originally planned for Laon were never built.

Guided tours take visitors up to the second-floor walkabout or tribune, giving a rare plunging view from inside a Gothic cathedral as well as the treat of seeing up close a collection of dismantled old gargoyles and weathered original sculptures—they truly are magnificent sight, a kind of medieval-cum-contemporary art that may even be more dramatic and telling now than when first created. Refashioned copies of these now adorn the cathedral outside.

From the second floor, the tour goes up to the towers, near the oxen, for a wonderful view of the cathedral’s heights, the old town below, and the surrounding countryside. Notre-Dame de Laon isn’t the highest of these cathedrals as measured from its base, but built on a plateau and has a wide view over the region. This Notre-Dame fully deserves its place among the great dames of France.

(More views of Notre-Dame de Laon can be found in the photo reportage here.)

Notre-Dame de Chartres

The French sculptor Auguste Rodin, a forward-looking artist who was never afraid to look back, called the Cathedral of Chartres “the Acropolis of France” for the way that it brought together the best that France had to offer in a building: rock for the walls, arches and sculptures; wood for the roof timbers; plants and minerals to color the stained glass, and the sun to stream through them.

Well, maybe not always sun here in northern France, but Chartres, 56 miles southwest of Paris, nevertheless stands out in any weather or season as one of the foremost jewels of Gothic art and architecture.

As all of these Notre-Dames, the cathedral seen today at Chartres stands on the remnants of a succession of religious buildings on its site. War, fire or a need to expand led to the construction of successive churches here. Some claim, without proof, that this site was already sacred to the Druids who led religious affairs for the Celtic tribe defeated during the Roman conquest of 52 BC. Pourquoi pas? The crypt of a 9th-century church that was destroyed by fire still lies under the current cathedral. Another fire in 1194 destroyed much of the 11th and 12th-century Romanesque basilica that replaced, though the western façade and its tower bases remain.

As for most of the rest, that 1194 fire coincided with a period of near mastery of Gothic architecture, and the builders, craftsman and artists involved with the relatively quick construction of Chartres took full advantage of that know-how. The cathedral was consecrated in 1260.

The silhouette of Notre-Dame de Chartres’ two uneven towers can be seen from miles away as you arrive by train or by car through the region’s wheat plains.

More than Notre-Dame de Paris, Chartres, a second-generation or classical Gothic construction, reveals the technological, artisanal and artistic prowess of the 13th century in part because it is exceptionally rich in stained glass from that time. That’s why so many travelers choose Chartres for their primary cathedral excursion from Paris. Though Amiens is a more entertaining town, Laon is more of an off-the-beaten-track discovery, and Reims offers more history plus champagne, Chartres Cathedral is rightfully deserving of its status as the ideal monument, for those willing to spend the time, for an in-depth understanding of Gothic art, craft and architecture.

Though most people now come to Chartres for the splendor of the cathedral rather than for prayer, it’s not uncommon to see some visitors following the 13th-century labyrinth inlaid on the floor beyond the entrance. Walked (or shuffled along on one’s knees) at a steady rhythm in silent prayer or meditation, movement along the labyrinth can symbolize a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the route to Christian redemption. It can also be seen simply as pleasant decoration. (An American company builds copies of the labyrinth for churches in the United States—choose your pavers.)

There are 4000 statues on the entranceways yet the cathedral is most celebrated for its stained glass windows, 28,000 square feet (or just over three-fifths of an acres) of them, mostly dating from 12th and 13th centuries. At a time when the majority of the population was illiterate, these representations in glass and in stone—of scenes from the Bible, of the lives of saints, of local life, and of noble donors and guilds that helped finance construction—were not simply decorative; they were an educational tool and a glorification of their subject.

Notre-Dame de Chartres is so rich in sculpture, stained glass and architectural details that having a guided tour or an audio-guide or book to point out some of the most significant ones can go a long way in helping you understand the cathedral’s hows and whys.

Click here to continue to Part 2 of this article covering Reims, Amiens and practical tips for visiting the five Notre-Dame Cathedrals.

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