Royal Palaces and Parks of France

lexion is a deeper drab than that of Saint Denis, and to call the Bois de Vincennes a

royal residence, and the drama which unrolled itself within its walls was most vividly presented. A book might be written upon it, with the following as the chapter headings: "The Royal Residence," "The

r the reason that it to-day ranks only as a military fortress, and an artillery camp is laid out in the quadrangle, intended, if need

e original chateau-fort on the present site is attributed to Louis VII, who, in 1164, having alienated a part of the neighbour

s, the chateau took on no royal importance until the reign of Saint Louis, who acquired the hab

VI of Valois, and his successor, Jean-le-Bon, between the years 1337 and 1370, when it became an entirely new manner of edifice from

utline, its walls forming a rectangle flanked by nine towers, the great donjon which one sees to-day occupying the centre of one side. The chapel was b

ompleted in 1552. This chapel of the sixteenth century, and the two side wings flanking the tower of the reign of Louis XIV, make the Chateau de Vincennes a most precious specimen of medi?val ecclesiastical and military architecture. If Napoleon had n

e existing structure, but little is now to be seen

. Calling his surgeon, Ambroise Paré, to his side he exclaimed: "My body burns with fever; I see the mangled Huguenots all about me; Holy Virgin

attack the outer walls of the fortress should give way. Here at Vincennes a certain massiveness is noted in connection with the donjon, though the actual ground

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tuation. When others were of fantastic form, they were usually so built because of the configuration of the land, or the nature of the soil. But here

t chateau had actually been put by the shutting up in it of Enguerrand de Marigny. Henri IV, in 1574, passed some solitary hours and days within its walls, and Mirabea

y the Baron Daumesnil. Summoned to surrender his charge, "Jambe de Bois" (so called because he had lost a leg the year before) replied: "I will surrender when you surrender to me my leg." A statu

and Raspail, in 1848, and various Republicans, who had been seized as dangerous elements of society after the Co

hout just reason, suspected in connection with the Cadoudal-Pichegreu plot, and was seized by a squadron of cavalry at the Schloss Ettenheim in the Duchy of Baden and conducted to Vincennes. Here, after a summary judgment, he was sh

r the Walls

rteenth Ce

cal future demanded a coup d'état. On the morning of the execution, the emperor, awakening at

hat apologetic kind whic

blet was placed, by the orders of Louis XVIII

f a public park, and not at all fashionable, and not particularly attractive, though of a vast extent and possessed

r the Second Empire the park was considerably transformed, new roads and alleys traced, and an effort made to have it equal more nearly the beauty of t

ry authorities have taken a portion for their own uses as a training ground, a shooting range and for the Batteries of La Faisanderie and Gravelle, it ha

situated at the juncture of the Seine and Marne, but, to-day, the immediate neighbourhood is so very unlovely and dep

; but the old royal abode still lifts a long length of roof and wall to

the Comtesse d'Artois who made of it one of the "plus beaux castels du temps." She decorated its long gallery, the portion of the edifice which exists to-day in the humble, emasculated form o

so lodged here that he might be near the capital in case of events which might require his presence. A contemporary a

hilippe-le-Hardi there organized his tourneys and his passes d'armes with great éclat, on one

f the Paris of its time, surrounded as it was with a resplendent garden and a forest in miniature, really a par

and roof-tops of old Paris being silhouetted against the setting sun, its windows dom

Conflans was the battle and the treaty which followed aft

d archers were sent out from Paris by the king, who fi

cked off on both sides and much carnage actually ensued. Finally a treaty of peace was arranged, by which, at the death of Charles-le-Téméraire, according to

Loire, and Conflans was offered for sale in 1554. Divers personages occupied it from that time on,

y; here Molière and his players first presented "La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes"; a

helieu, and, with the aid of Mansart and Le Notre, considerably embellished it within and without. Madame de S

the Archbishop and "La Belle" Duchesse de Lesdiguières used to promenade therein they were follow

umont, the persecutor of t

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imself was a dr?le, so perhaps it is appropriate. At any rate