Episode 13 - The Venus de Milo

On April 8, 1820, Greek farmer Yorgos Kentrots was searching his property on the island of Mélos in the south Aegean Sea, part of the Cycladic archipelago, today’s Greece, when he uncovered the torso of a statue.  Looking for some stones to build a fence, he made a discovery that would alter the attendance of the Louvre long before the Mona Lisa and became the first celebrity of the museum.

There are many questions that surround the statue to this day, over 200 years after her discovery. Sifting through the accounts to find the most accurate information  of her discovery has been a struggle to say the least. Who created her, why is she so famous, and more importantly, who she actually is are even bigger questions we will dive into.

The small island of Mélos, which had been inhabited since 3000 BC, was known for its fine Obsidian marble. In 1820, the islands were still under Ottoman control, another important factor in how this scene will play out. What we know as Greece today was simmering, about to boil over into a Revolution that would begin on February 21, 1821, a year after the discovery of Venus.

France and the Ottoman Empire had close ties since the early 16th century, nurtured by François I.  The first Greek antiquities arrived in France in the 17th century, under Louis XIV, on behalf of the Marquis de Nointel. Under Louis XVI, the duc de Choiseul raided the many islands, taking anything he wanted. He didn’t get very far, and everything was confiscated and returned to the rightful owners. 

Napoleon cut his way through Europe, taking anything that lay in his path and damaging relations between France and many European countries. He had stayed away from the islands but his damage was widespread.

Following the fall of Bonaparte, the French military presence in Greece and the fleet in the Cyclades after 1816 focused on a diplomatic mission and rebuilding relationships.

The island's location in the south Aegean Sea and the large harbor on the route from Malta and northern Africa brought great prosperity to Mélos beginning in the 4th century BC. In the northeastern upper edge of the harbor, a large amphitheater was built overlooking the sea, surrounded by pavilions, churches, porticos, and, of course, statues.  In 1810, archaeological exploration began on the island of Mélos, and in 1814, Carl Haller von Hallerstein, on behalf of the Prince of Bavaria, excavated the amphitheater, but not the surrounding land.

On this spring day, Yorgos had walked a little over a thousand feet from his home and a short walk above the amphitheater in hopes of finding stones for a fence. Digging into the earth, he found a carved sculpture, heavily covered in dirt and a little over 3 feet tall. He took the statue home and kept it safely in his kitchen until he decided what to do. 

There are many figures that play into this moment and the ones that follow, and there doesn’t seem to be a concise decision on which one is accurate. How easy it must have been to create your own story or description of events, especially when the publication and dissemination of the details didn’t reach very far. 

Many men aligned themselves with the discovery of the Greek statue, from viewing its discovery, to purchasing and even transporting Venus to Paris. Some of the accounts weren’t released until decades after the discovery, and they were heavily embellished.

Our first, and the man most closely tied to the discovery, is Olivier Voutier, a young officer on the L’Estafette schooner that had been anchored in the Milo harbor since February 1820.  He claimed to be digging not far from Yorgos and saw the very moment she was lifted from the earth and ordered the farmer to keep digging. While he watched, he sketched her torso, lower body, draping, and two pillars. Although these drawings never saw the light of day until 1892, more than seventy years after her discovery. 

Louis Brest, vice-council of France, was told of the discovery immediately and wrote a letter to the French Ambassador of Constantinople, the Marquis de Riviére.  Charles-François de Riffardeau de Riviére was chosen in February 1815 by Louis XVIII and appointed on June 4, 1816, to help rehabilitate the relationship between France and the Ottoman Empire. Falling out of favor and almost out of a job, he was ordered to return to France, and in fear of losing his job, he thought a little gift for the king would work in his favor. 

Riviére asked his embassy secretary, Louis de Martin du Tyrac de Marcellus, who knew how to negotiate and deal with Ottoman officials, to broker a deal.

Our other player in the story, who claimed to play a large part in the discover is Jules Dumont d’Urville. In 1819, he joined the expedition to the Greek islands with Captain Pierre Henri-Gauttier du Parc. Dumont d’Urville claimed that he, not Louis Brest, was the one to alert the Marquise de Riviére of the discovery and advised him to purchase it immediately, as it would be of great glory for the French. 

Dumont d’Urville described what he saw in great detail "The statue whose two separate parts I measured was about six feet high; it represented a naked woman, whose raised left hand held an apple, and the right supported a belt skillfully draped and falling carelessly from the kidneys to the feet: moreover, they were both mutilated, and are currently detached from the body. The hair is curled from behind and held by a headband. The figure is very beautiful and would be well preserved if the tip of the nose had not been damaged. The only foot that remains is bare: the ears were pierced and had to receive pendants[4]. "

He rode the wave of this story until his death and into the afterlife. A visit to the Montparnasse cemetery in the 15th division, near the western edge, is the final resting place of the Dumont d’Urville family, who tragically died on the same day in a train accident in Meudon. I first spotted this grave years ago and noticed the Venus de Milo carved in relief on the side. She is there beside a ship with a lone figure who is pointing at the statue. Way to hold onto your story long after you are gone. 

The fight to own Venus was down to the wire. Oikonomos Verghi, a monk from Milo, said he purchased the statue from Yorgos, who discovered it.  Verghi had the statue loaded onto his ship, bound for Constantinople. 

A storm rolled in and prevented the ship from leaving the harbor, and thus one of the tallest tales of her discovery.

In 1874, Victor Jean Aicard published a piece in the Paris Temps paper and later a book based on the account of embassy secretary Marcellus and  Dumont d’Urville, and that when the statue was unearthed, she had both arms intact.  His account reached the New York Times on April 28, 1874, claiming that the statue had been dragged across the rocks in a fight for control between Ottomans and the French.  Aicard said that a battle between fifty Frenchmen against fifty Ottoman soldiers ended in a blood fight, some even say it was closer to over two hundred men that died. 

Threatened that if Venus wasn’t given to the French officials immediately, they would invade and capture the island.  In 1912, the entire episode was found to be made up, but that doesn’t stop it from being retold to this day. 

After two days of negotiations, the Ottomans agreed to sell the statue to the French ambassador for 1,000 piastres; he tossed in another 300, bringing the price to less than $50, or about $2,000 today. 

On May 25, 1820, the upper and lower bodies of Venus and a scattering of smaller pieces, including a hand holding an apple, the chignon of her hair, a forearm, and pillars, were packed and loaded onto the L’Estafette schooner and began its very slow journey to France. 

Stops in Santorini, Rhodes, and Athens, where they remained for over a month and took every chance they could to show her off before changing and moving to a larger ship In Constantinople and picking up the Marquise Riviére.

On October 29, 1820, Venus and the Marquise left his post in Constantinople and headed to Paris via Toulon, finally arriving and presenting the statue to Louis XVIII on March 1, 1821, in the Palais des Tuileries. 

The very next day, the pieces of  Venus were placed in the Musée du Louvre. Now the question was how to restore her. 42 years later, when Winged Victory was discovered in more than 115 pieces, it was difficult to determine who the statue represented. They didn’t have the same problem with Venus, which was in two large pieces that could easily be placed together. Even the pieces were easy to understand, except for the hand. 

The curator of antiquities, Charles de Clarac, and restorer Bernard Lange were the first to get their hands on the statue with a complete investigation into her condition as well as when she might have been created. 

The rules of restoration, as far back as the 17th century was to fully restore any broken part of a statue. This would change drastically after 1860, but in 1821, with the arrival of Venus, it was a heavily debated question: how to repair and recreate the new Greek treasure. 

A fight between the curator Clarac and the director Forbin, who himself had visited Milo just a few years before, when he uncovered a helmet and vase that were brought to the Louvre.  Exactly who was she, and how should she be restored?

Greek and Roman statuary of mythological figures can be very easy to decipher if they are created with their attributes. Zeus or Jupiter has an eagle and thunderbolt, Diane or Artemis has her tiara, bow, and arrow or dog, Juno or Hera has a peacock, Neptune or Poseidon has a triton, and Hermes or Mercury has a caduceus, winged shoes, and helmet.   

Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, was known to be the most beautiful goddess in the world. The mother of Cupid was the personification of beauty and the image of the perfect woman. When she was first discovered, a hand holding an apple was unearthed within a few feet of the larger pieces. In the recount of Dumont d’Urville, he said: “It represented a naked woman, whose raised left hand held an apple”. And with that statement, they called her Venus. 

One of the more famous mythological tales of Aphrodite/Venus is the great contest between Aphrodite, Paris, Athena, and Hera. A wedding feast of the gods, a golden apple inscribed “to the fairest,” was tossed into the center of the table by Eris, the goddess of discord. She was upset that she wasn’t invited to the party. 

Zeus wanted nothing to do with it and instead ordered Hermes/Mercury to take them all to Mount Ida with Paris, the Trojan prince who would have to decide which of the three goddesses was the most beautiful. He chose Aphrodite/Venus because she promised Paris that she would bring him the beautiful Helena to marry.  The story is known as the Judgment of Paris and would be the impetus of the Trojan War.

Venus is often depicted holding the golden apple, which is why our beautiful statue was given this name. However, since she was found on a Greek island, shouldn’t she actually be Aphrodite? 

Some scholars believe she actually represents Amphitrite, a Greek sea nymph and the wife of Poseidon. In 1877, a large statue of Poseidon was found in Milo, in the same area where Venus had been found 57 years earlier. Carved from the same Paros marble and roughly the same size, there is much more evidence pointing to her being Amphitrite. 

We can date the sculpture to the Hellenistic period based on the marble used and the island's great prosperity at that time. The Hellenistic period covered over 300 years from the death of Alexander the Great to the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC. It was a period when the Greek islands and culture were at their peak. It is also the same period we were blessed with the creation of Winged Victory, the true queen of the Louvre. 

Further investigation dates her having been created between 150 and 125 BC.  Winged Victory is a bit older to 200 to 175 BC. 

Michelangelo is well known for saying the stone block would tell him what it wanted to become. Massive statues sculpted from one large piece, but long before the Renaissance, these large statues were created in pieces and joined together. 

Venus was carved from two large blocks of Paros marble, a nearby island known for its translucent quality and one of the finest marbles in Greece. Her lower body was covered with draped fabric, and her upper body and head. The sculptors of the time conserved every inch of marble, which might give us some clues about her arms. Her right arm was sculpted and placed close to her body. As for her left arm, which is missing today, it would have been a separate piece attached to her shoulder with a mortise-and-tenon joint, creating a perfect fit without any glue or cement. 

Using other statues of the goddess of love as a base, the restorers imagined different scenarios of what she would have looked like.  Venus stands at 6”6’and was most likely placed inside a niche. She stands contrapposto, meaning her weight is on one leg, the other bent at the knee. This was an aesthetic choice to allow the fabric to drape and fold over her legs. 

It’s thought that her right arm rested against her stomach, holding the drapes of the fabric between her fingers. If you look closely, southwest of her belly button, you can see a rough patch where her arm would have lain.

As for the other arm, there are many hypotheses. Was it holding the golden apple like in the portion discovered? Likely not, as the fragment is of lesser quality than the statue itself. Was it straight out to her side, holding a shield, that she was looking at her reflection? Also unlikely, as her head is looking straight and not down. Could it have been resting on one of the pillars discovered nearby as well? Doubtful, as each pillar is topped with a head, and the size doesn’t line up. Many ideas drawn from other statues of Venus/Aphrodite inform the scenario. 

In the end, they showed great restraint in her restoration, an uncommon practice at the time. Instead of adding in their own interpretation of the statue, they left her as she was discovered with the smallest bit of surgery.  The tip of her nose, lower lip, big toe of her left foot, a few of the edges on the folds, and her right foot were restored or replaced in record time. Louis XVIII wanted her on display as quickly as possible. 

Held together in the center by metal rods of her upper body, which slide into two mortises of her lower body. Her body went through a lot between its discovery and transport to the various boats and arrival in Paris. Considering her age, she was in relatively good condition. Close up, you can really see the damage on her upper back and near her stomach of layers of stone that have disappeared. 

A portion of a base with Greek lettering that was found near her was believed by the men who found her to include the name of the artist. Incomplete and missing the first letters, it reads “andros son Menides, from the city of Antioch of the Meander made.” 

It wasn’t until quite recently in the scope of time that artists began to sign their work. Prior to the Renaissance, in art and architecture, it was more about the person who commissioned or donated it. This is why we still don’t know the name of the first architect of  Notre Dame de Paris, but we know it was paid for by Maurice de Sully.  

Obviously, the artist had to be talented, but it wasn’t about the celebrity of the artist. That all changed during the Renaissance, and it’s still difficult to find many paintings from that period with signatures. For statuary, signatures appeared in the 17th century.  

In the 2nd century BC, Venus/Aphrodite wasn’t just the representation of beauty and the ideal woman; she was also decked out in jewelry. This might be my favorite part of the story.  As far back as the 5th century BC, the figures weren’t just statuettes of white marble in a corner; they were painted and even bejeweled. 

Rosy cheeks, red lips, blonde hair, and wrapped in red fabric? Was that what Venus looked like? We actually don’t know, but that’s how I would color her. Under even the most powerful xrays they have never found any remains of color. 

However, we can see that she loved a bit of jewelry.  Hard to see from the ground, but her hair, pulled back into a chignon, is held by a thin headband. Four small holes suggest that gold or bronze jewelry was once attached, perhaps even a diadem tiara. Sadly, her earlobes are broken, but if you look closely at her left earlobe, you can see a hole where pendant earrings once hung. The easiest to see is on her right arm. Just above the cut of her arm, two distinct holes remain where an upper arm bracelet would have been attached.

The biggest question might be, Why is she so famous? Much like the Mona Lisa, it's based a bit more on circumstances than on the art itself. 

There are many men who inserted themselves into her story, but it was one man who never laid eyes on her who, in a roundabout way, created the global celebrity that is Venus de Milo. As Napoleon Bonaparte rose in power and marched through Europe, he took anything he wanted. Paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, and books, anything and left treaties behind claiming it was on the up and up. In 1814, after his fall and before his return, the countries and the Pope came calling, demanding the return of their treasures. 

In the following few years,  95% of the items he had taken were returned. The 5% that remained was given as a gift to France by Italy and the Pope, or traded for, like Vernoes’s Wedding Feast at Cana. 

By 1821, the rumor had spread throughout the world that the Louvre was filled with stolen items, which wasn’t true by that time. Fast forward 90 years to 1911, and an Italian glass worker, spending his days at the Louvre placing glass over paintings, has an idea to take an Italian painting back to his homeland because he thinks all of them have been stolen. I have even had friends who thought this was true, and we are 200 years after the fact.

In 1821, people didn’t want to come to the Louvre because they thought everything was stolen, so the Louvre had a PR disaster on its hands. Oh, for it to be that simple again. 

Greek antiquities, especially those of the Hellenistic period, were just beginning to see the light of day in museums. Roman copies of Greek statues had already been transported across Europe, including to Versailles and the Musée du Louvre. But an actual Greek sculpture, one left in the form in which she was discovered, was a big deal.

Suddenly, the Louvre realized this and, over the next thirty years, began creating copies of her in various sizes, selling photographs and books featuring her likeness, and sending them across Europe and the Western world.  At the same time as the discovery of Venus in 1820, the era of transatlantic travel by ship from North America really began. A perfect storm of circumstances.

By 1874, the numerous altered versions of her story, especially those contributed by Victor Jean Aicard, spread far and wide, as in the NYT article of April 28, 1874. This gathered even more fame surrounding our armless heroin 

The new star of the Louvre was hard at first to work into the collection of antiquities, mostly dedicated to Roman statuary. She was first placed in the Museum of Antiquities, created under Napoleon Bonaparte, and then in the summer apartments of Anne of Austria from May 1821 to April 1822.  The rooms were far too crowded for our goddess, so she was moved to the Salle Diana, where she remained until her move to her forever home, the Salle Tiber, later renamed the Salle Venus de Milo.  Once placed on a rotating base, she spun, allowing people to take her in without moving. T

Today, she remains in this room, which gets natural light from the sun mid-morning, flooding the red Languduc marble walls. A few items also found on Milo are in a nearby case, including a hand holding an apple, part of an arm, and a foot with a sandal and three pillars. 

Just past her is a fantastic painting by Joseph Warlencourt, painted in 1824, showing Venus in the room she remains in until this day. 

On the first floor in the Salle des Verres, just past the Gallerie d’Apollon, look up at the painting by Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse, Le Temps, showing the ruins he brings and the masterpieces he leaves to discover, 1822.

She is found again in the ceiling of the Salon Denon, just outside of the Salle des États, home of the Mona Lisa. On the west side, the allegory of Taste holds Venus in her hand. 

Venus has inspired many artists since her discovery.  Theodore Chasseriau, Cézanne, and Eugène Delacroix are just a few who sketched her many times. Delacroix had never visited Greece, but the Revolution that began as soon as she arrived had everyone captivated and on the side of the Greek people. In 1823,  he painted the large Massacre at Scio painting held in the Louvre just across from Liberty Leading the People.  Look closely at Liberty. Does she remind you of anyone?  Delacroix was inspired by the draping, stance, her strong face, and of course the bare breasts and idea of what her arm might be holding. 

Napoleon III declared war on Prussia on July 18, 1870. By the end of August, the Louvre decided to remove the most important works from the museum for safety. In the first evacuation of its kind, but not the last. One hundred twenty-three crates were shipped to Brest in Brittany in the first convoy and would continue for months. Venus remained behind in the Louvre, but as the siege entered Paris and created chokepoints on all routes in or out, they had to find a new hiding place for Venus.  

In the dark of night on January 6, 1871, Venus slowly made her escape from the Louvre to the nearby Prefecture at the Palais de Justice on ile de la Cité

Placed in a hidden coridor she was covered in plaster, and a brick wall was built to hide her. Clever workers rubbed the wall with garbage to look like it had always been there, stacked piles and boxes of documents, and then built another wall. The thought was that if they broke through the wall, they would discover the documents and then move on. 

The Siege came to an end on January 28, and just when the art was about to return to the Louvre one of the most destructive periods in Paris history began. On May 21 and for the next ten days, the Communards set fire and destroyed many of the government buildings within the center of the city. 

On May 23, the Palais des Tuileries was torched, and the fire reached the Grande Galerie and was quickly contained. In July, it was time to remove Venus from her hiding place at the Prefecture. During her seven-month slumber, a water pipe had been leaking over her head and had slowly softened the plaster that covered her as well as the plaster used to join her upper body to her legs in 1821 after her arrival in Paris. 

Once she returned safely to the Louvre the 2nd restoration began, the base and the plaster left foot was removed but plaster and even two new large metal dowels were drilled into her body where she was attached. This would all be fixed in her 3rd restoration in 2009.

This was all a test run for what would happen again in 1914 with the advent of World War I. At the end of August, the most important pieces of art were once again packed up as the Great War began. Venus and more than 900 other works of art were packed in crates in a frenzied few days and taken to the Gare d’Austerlitz to be taken to the large Église de Jacobins in Toulouse as German planes flew above Paris. Venus returned once again in December 1918, but her biggest move was yet to come. 

The evacuations of 1870 and 1914 paled in comparison to what the Louvre would go through in 1939. Once again, it was the last week of August when the Louvre would close, and hundreds of people from the École du Louvre, department stores, and the Louvre staff quickly removed the art from the walls and built crates for the statues. Beginning September 1, convoys left the Louvre day and night, but Venus and her friends, Winged Victory and the Dying Slaves, remained securely in the Louvre. 

When they realized the intentions of Hitler and his greedy henchmen, they decided the rest of the Louvre needed to be emptied.  At the end of October on the 29th, Victory, Venus, and the Slaves left in a convoy of 29 trucks for the Chateau de Valencay in the Loire. Former curator Gérald van der Kemp oversaw the precious items, including the Crown Jewels, stored in a hidden wall safe. 

The week before the Liberation of Paris, the Venus de Milo and other works almost became the subject of a tragic event. Between August 10 and 16, the German SS officers and the Milice members, made up of extreme French and European members, came to a head with the FFI and resistance in front of the chateau. Curator André Leroi-Gourhan asked them to move on, but they didn’t take kindly to the suggestion. They eventually broke in and set fire to the stables located next to a small building where Venus was stored. The fire was quickly extinguished as it reached the roof. Four days later, they returned and entered the chateau to question Van der Kemp about his involvement with the FFI. He admitted they were hiding Venus here, and the FFI was helping to protect the treasures. 

The Nazi soldier said they weren’t interested in art and went on their way. Had that been a year or two before, Venus, Victory, the Dying Slaves of Michel Ange, and the Crown Jewels could have been taken. 

On June 29, 1945, Van der Kemp himself drove the truck holding the statues back to the Louvre and they were once again on display on July 10, 1945, within the Louvre.
Venus left the Louvre one more time, less than twenty years later, this time on a diplomatic mission. In 1963, the same year the Mona Lisa traveled across the Atlantic to DC and New York, Venus was going to visit Tokyo.  André Malraux orchestrated the visit of the Greek statue in recognition of the Tokyo Summer Olympics.  

Packed carefully with straw, cardboard, rubber, and encased in lead in a wooden crate, she left Marseilles on the high seas. A month later, she arrived in Tokyo after a ship, train, and finally a truck. Upon arrival, four pieces had broken off: three were plaster from her 1821 reconstruction, and one was an original marble piece from her draped fabric.  Displayed at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo starting April 8, 1964, and then to the National Museum in Kyoto. On August 3, 1964, she was safely back within the marble walls of the Louvre. 

Episode 12 - Renior, the Sunday Painter

On February 25, 1841, Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges, France, into a large family.  Moving to Paris in 1844, the Renoir’s lived on the Rue de la Bibliothèque, steps away from the Louvre. The street was removed during the construction of the Rue de Rivoli, where the Fondation Cartier is today. 

At just 13, he entered Lévy Frères porcelain co as an apprentice, learning to paint tiny floral elements on porcelain to help support his family.  In the evenings, he took free drawing lessons from sculptor Louis-Denis Caillouette. He would go on to paint fans and window blinds and work with his brother Henri, who painted heraldic coats of arms.  Throughout his adolescence, he also took singing and music lessons and once thought that would be the creative direction he would take, but, as we know, it was not. 

In 1860, he entered the Musée du Louvre as a copyist, where he was drawn to Renoir, Watteau, and Boucher, artists who would have a major impact on future Impressionists.  I am often asked what time in history I would want to travel back to, and I think it would be the 19th century, and of course, to be inside the Louvre. Manet, Morisot, Monet, Degas, Sisley, Renoir, and so many more spent their days in the Louvre copying the paintings of the masters as they perfected their own technique. 

Self Portrait 1875

In 1843, Swiss artist Charles Greyer taught classes at the École des Beaux-Arts and opened his own studio on the Rue de Vaugirard, blocks from the Jardin du Luxembourg. In 1861, Renoir walked through his door and met fellow artists Claude Monet, Frederic Bazille, and Alfred Sisley

Renoir and Sisley ventured out to the forest of Fontainebleau, painting landscapes, but unlike his fellow future Impressionsts he didn’t take the countryside and en plein air painting. A close friendship with Claude Monet led the two artists to paint together, including portraits of each other. A Renoir portrait of Monet is often on display on the 5th floor of the Orsay. 

Renoir's first submission to the academic Salon was in 1863 and was quickly rejected, as were most of the soon-to-be Impressionists. The same year, artists' complaints reached Napoleon III, who commissioned a new exhibition, the Salon des Refusés.  In 1864, accepted for his painting of Esmeralda from Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris. Immediately after the exhibition, he destroyed it as it was critically panned.

 In 1865, the jurists of the Salon relaxed the rules and accepted a few more Impressionists, including Manet’s Olympia and Renoir's, Portrait of Madame M.W.S., and Summer Evening.  In 1868, he exhibited in the Salon at the Musée du Louvre.  Lise with a Parasol appeared but brought him very little recognition. After a decade of strife, the famed Salon began to fight back against the Impressionists, and in response, they banded together to create their own show, the Impressionist Exhibition of 1874.  

On December 27, 1873, Renoir and his fellow snubbed artists met for the first time to organize an exhibit of their works. The Société Anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc., was a group of artists who were being turned away from the official Salon. In the spring, the first exhibition of the artists would be held at 35 Boulevard des Capucines, in the former studio of the photographer Nadar.

On April 15, 1874, thirty-one artists exhibited, including Renoir, Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, and Morisot, but not Manet. The exhibit ran for one month, concluding on May 15, and 3,510 visitors mostly visited to make fun of the event. Renoir exhibited six paintings and a pastel, including La Danseuse and La Parisienne, that opened the exhibit. Both figures, seen head to toe, something Renoir rarely did in portraits, have a softness that Renoir captured so well. 

Renoir was one of the few artists who continued to participate and be accepted at the Academic Salon and Impressionist exhibits. 

The early years spent in the Louvre influenced his paintings and resurrected the “galanterie” style of the Rococo period. 

Watteau, Voyage to Cythera

Growing up during the reign of Napoleon III as president, then Emperor, and the extravagance of the Second Empire led to the Siege of Prussia and the Commune that brought incredible hardship for everyone. 

On August 26, 1870, Renoir was drafted into the 10th regiment of the French Army in the Franco-Prussian War, serving until March 10, 1871. Following the fall of Napoleon III and the Bloody Week of the Commune in May 1871, Paris slowly crawled out of the darkness into the Belle Époque. Everything began to change. 

Parisians returned to the cafes and music halls once again. There was a lightness to the city, and the social rules began to relax. 

The year 1876 was a few years into what we call the Belle Epoque, the beautiful era in France. The gayest of times in Paris. Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris depicts the period at Maxime’s with Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec living it up at a can-can. Traveling back to that night, Adriana says it was the best time to be in Paris, and she wanted to stay. 

One hundred and fifty years ago, in the spring of 1876, Renoir rented a house on the slope of th Butte Montmartre, behind Sacré-Cœur, on the Rue Cortot. Today, it is the Musée de Montmartre, and you can visit and step right into one of his famous paintings, La Balançoire (The Swing), which was painted in the Jardin Renoir. The location was chosen by the artists for its proximity to the Moulin de la Galette, a guinguette just five minutes away. 

In the 17th & 18th centuries, the hill of Montmartre, outside the city of Paris, was covered with more than 30 windmills used to grind flour, pepper and spices. As early as 1622, on the rue Lepic that snakes up the hill, two windmills sat. The Bluefin and Radet. In 1809, the Debray family purchased the plot of land that stretched a few blocks further than the restaurant sits today. 

The Radet windmill, which still stands today, has been in many places on the hill. Dismantled and moved a few times, including once by the Debay family, who moved it into a garden, and again in 1924, when it became nothing more than a decoration installed on the roof of the restaurant. 

Head down Rue Lepic a few doors, and you will find a white stone wall that holds back the lush green trees and bushes. Rarely open to the public, the garden hides the Moulin Blue-Fin inside and shows how far the guingette stretched and was filled with artists and working-class residents of Montmartre on Sunday afternoons. 

Nicolas-Charles Debray turned the slightly run-down location into the Bal Debray in 1833. Each Sunday afternoon, people would gather and eat small cakes made from the flour of the mill with a glass of donkey milk. The attraction became quite popular, featuring music and dance lessons, and the milk eventually gave way to the wine made nearby. A platform was built by Moulin Blue-Fin, where they could even take in all of Paris while listening to the music below. 

Only open on Sundays and public holidays, everyone from van Gogh to Toulous Lautrec and the dancers of the Moulin Rouge could be found. The weekly event was a break from the once-rigid rules of society. Women were now seen dancing with men they weren’t married to and even arriving on their own. Something they couldn’t do on the streets of Paris. A new “free love” and a new way for people to meet were beginning to emerge in Paris and would find its way onto the canvases of Renoir. 

Many had painted the famous windmill include Vincent van Gogh and Maurice Utrillo, but Renoir captured a different view without the blades. 

In his young formative years, Renoir often visited the largest painting in the Louvre by Veronese, the Wedding Feast at Cana. Painted in 1563, Veronese filled the large canvas with as many figures as possible against an architectural background.  Of the more than 130 figures, we see Christ in the center, but Veronese purposely didn’t leave a legend of the whos who. It was also the paintings of Watteau who captured the scenes of the “fetes galantes” of the Rococo period of excess and pleasure under the Regency and later Louis XV. The famous Voyage to Cythera, painting by Watteau in 1717, combined with the idea of the Wedding Feast rootted an idea within Renoir. 

n the late spring of 1876, Renoir set up a large canvas and an easel on a staircase overlooking the garden under the moulin and painted a scene of his friends enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon. The current exhibit at the Orsay, which just opened on March 17th, has done a great job of sharing more insight on three of his group paintings.  

In the Bal du Moulin de la Galette, he captured the Sunday afternoon gathering of his fellow artists enjoying a day of drinks, dances, and dancers as far as you can see. Models Margot and Jeanne, who also posed for The Swing, and her sister Estelle, in a blue striped dress, modeled the numerous female figures.  For the many male figures, artists Georges Rivière, Henri Gervex, Franc-Lamy, and Norbert Goeneutte, who also posed for The Swing. Journalist, close friend, and frequent model Paul Lhote, as well as Pierre-Eugene Lestringuez, all stand out in this masterpiece by Renoir. 

Look closely at the main figures; Renoir purposely connected them to each other through a glance or touch. In 1879, his brother Edmond said that “Auguste would settle down there for six months, building relationships with all the people of this little world, and their unique style… he will convey its frenzied motion with dazzling energy.”

Renoir showed it at the 3rd Impressionist Exhibition in 1877. No. 186 in the catalog received a lukewarm reception. Later that same year, wealthy artist, friend, and supporter of the Impressionists, Gustave Caillebotte, purchased the painting and kept it in his studio until his death in 1894, when his collection, or at least part of it, was accepted by the French State. 

A recent acquisition of the Orsay of a self-portrait of Caillebotte, painted in 1879, includes a partial view of the Moulin painting in the background. This painting stayed within the family until sold at public auction in 1986 

With his friend Claude Monet, Renoir would often visit the many lakes, ponds, and rivers surrounding Paris. His Impressionist friends would paint the scenery devoid of people, while he liked to imagine the banks of the Seine, or an island, filled with people enjoying a lazy, warm afternoon. In the 1870s, he discovered Chatou, the small town west of Paris, across the river from Reuil-Malmaison, with a small island that sits in the Seine.  In 1837, the train line from Paris extended out to Chatou, opening the area to boating enthusiasts and artists. Between 1875 and 1881, Renoir produced thirty paintings, including his most famous, Le Déjeuner des Canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party). 

In 1857, Alphonse Fournaise struck while the iron was hot and bought a small building on the island we know today as l’Île des Impressionnistes, to build and rent boats from. Over the years, he added to the house, including a restaurant and hotel, with the help of his wife and children.

Renoir discovered the island and wrote to friends saying it was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. Frequenting staying in the Fournaise hotel and bringing friends to model for him, including the entire Fournaise family. 

The balcony of the restaurant, with its tomato-red and white-striped awning, was added in 1877 and immortalized in Renoir’s painting.  The well-known scene of figures follows the end of a long, leisurely Sunday lunch. Unlike the Moulin de la Galette, Renoir had not set up his canvas on the balcony for endless days, forcing his figures to hold the same pose; instead, it was pieced together one figure at a time, and we would never know that by looking at it. 

Leaning on the railing are the owner's two children, Alphonse Jr and Alphonsine Fournaise. Aline Charigot, model and future wife of Renoir, plays with her dog at the table with model Ellen Andrée and a man who could be Gustave Caillebotte, while journalist Adrien Maggiolo leans over, rather closely. 

Seated at the table behind with his back to the viewer is Raoul Baron Barbier, and model Angèle. Standing above, left to right, are poet and art critic Jules Laforgue and Charles Ephrussi, a wealthy banker, collector, and supporter of Renoir, who commissioned many paintings, including one of his daughter, stolen by the Nazis in WWII, and with quite a story. There are a few familiar characters that also posed for the Moulin painting, including Pierre Lestringuez, Paul Lhote and Jeanne Samary. 

Again, he creates groups within the piece that interact with each other, giving it the very realistic look of an after-lunch gathering and perhaps a few bottles of rosé. 

The painting was purchased on February 14, 1881, by Paul Durand-Ruel and featured at the 7th Impressionist Exhibition in March 1882. It remained with Durand-Ruel until his death in 1922 and was purchased the next year by Duncan Phillips and is held in the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. 

The boating excursions took a hit at the advent of the bicycle at the end of the 19th century, drastically damaging the Fournaise business. The restaurant would close in 1905, and after the death of Alphonsine Fournaise in 1937, the property was split into rental units and fell into disrepair. The city of Chatou stepped in and purchased the building in 1979, saving it from destruction and continuing its heritage. 

You can visit the fantastic restaurant at the Maison Fournaise on the Île des Impressionists, sit on the balcony, and see the same view that has barely changed in one hundred and forty-six years. Take a walk under the beautiful blooming wisteria and find a handful of plaques placed in the same location Renoir once painted, including a rendition of the piece, many of which are on display at the exhibit. 

Most visitors are excited to see the Boating Party, which rarely leaves DC, but the one I had to find as soon as I walked in was the third of Renoir's trio of paintings, painted in 1883, known as The Dances.  I was first drawn to these paintings after researching Suzanne Valadon's life many years ago. The model-turned-artist who had quite a time in Montmartre, modeling for Toulouse-Lautrec, Jean-Jacques Henner, Berthe Morisot, Théophile Steinlin to name a few, and a lengthy roster of lovers. 

She first met Renoir in 1882 in Montmartre. The two would spend endless days in his apartment on Rue Saint Georges, and there might have been a more romantic involvement as well. Renoir imagined three life-size paintings featuring two figures dancing in different settings, inspired by his own Moulin de la Galette, painted six years earlier. Suzanne was originally going to pose for all three, but there was a bit of a disagreement with Aline, the then mistress but future wife of Renoir. 

In the very elegant Dance in the City, Suzanne’s back is turned to us, showing the details of her beautiful, billowy white dress. The very formal setting of a high-society event includes only the couple, unlike the more informal paintings in the series.  Paul Lhote, a close friend of Renoir, also appears in each of the group paintings I shared today, posing as the tall gentleman whose face is hidden. 

Two of these paintings are held in the permanent collection of the Orsay. The Dance in the City and the Dance in the Country. In the Country, our female dancer is looking out and appears more engaged with someone in the distance. Renoir wasn’t known for his dancing abilities, but his mistress, Aline, loved to dance under the trees of the many guingettes of Paris. Jean Renoir recalls the story his father once told him about watching her dance for hours, and it brought him true happiness. 

In the Dance in the Country, which looks like it was straight out of the Moulin de la Galette, Aline dances with model Paul Lhote, revealing a bit more of his face. The two appear to have just finished their lunch on a balcony where the music sweeps them into a dance. His hat is discarded on the floor, and a female figure watches from below. 

The third painting in the series, the Dance at Bougival, was first called the Dance at Chatou before it was displayed, and it now lives in Boston at the Museum of Fine Arts. It had always been my dream to see the three together, and that dream comes true in this exhibit. 

The Dance at Bougival was the last to be done, and missed the exhibition at the Durand-Ruel gallery in April 1883. The couple are captured mid-spin and held tightly together while others behind them enjoyed a chat, drink, and smoke on a warm autumn day. The female model is a bit of both Suzanne and Aline combined, and the male figure is thought to be Alphonse Fournaise Jr. Take a look back at the Boating party at the figure at the railing, the two both share the same reddish beard. The yellow straw hat we saw discarded in the Dance in the County is now on the male dancer's head.

Aline was a bit fed up with the lovely Suzanne in his studio for days and weeks on end, and one day walked in and attacked the painting, almost destroying it. Renoir had to recreate much of it and changed the face to look a little less like Suzanne. 

The fantastic exhibits held at the Musée d’Orsay this year, dedicated to Renoir and Love, featuring the paintings I mentioned, are wonderful. However, do not miss the second exhibit dedicated to his drawings. 

Of the three dances, Renoir only sketched out one of them, Dance in the Country. Many variations of Lhote’s hair and Aline's face were made with the smallest changes. 

In November 1883, Renoir recreated the Dance in Bougival for Paul Lhote’s story, Mademoiselle Zélia, in La Vie Moderne, with slight changes to the figures. Many of these graphite drawings and the actual printing of Mademoiselle Zélia are on display, and I urge you not to skip it. The drawings exhibit is even better than the paintings exhibit. 

Orsay Renoir exhibits Renoir and Love until July 19 and Drawings until July 5 

Episode 11 - La Fontaine Medici

The city of Paris is filled with thousands of stone buildings that line its historic streets and boulevards. In the mid-19th century, under Emperor Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann, the city was transformed. Streets were widened, buildings adopted a unifying design aesthetic, and every neighborhood would have a green oasis in the shadows of its limestone facades. 

The once-large Hotel Particulares, owned by a singular family, would become multiple apartments, some very small with little space to gather and relax. In Napoleon III's plan, he wanted a park within a ten-minute walk of every neighborhood. Some are quite small with a singular bench, like the Jardin Alice Saunier Seïté on the Rue Visconti, the smallest in Paris. Then there are the larger parks: the Jardin des Tuileries, the Bois de Boulogne, and, most beautiful of all, the Jardin du Luxembourg. 

I first discovered the Left Bank garden on my first trip to Paris a decade ago. With a few of the photos my grandfather took in the 1970s and 80s, I would walk through the garden looking for the same thing he captured on those early spring and autumn mornings. It was September 20, 2016, that I first discovered and sat under the historic plane trees of the Fontaine Medici, taking in the ivy swags, cascading water, and the dotted sunlight through the leaves. At that very moment, I knew I had to return and, dare I dream, live in Paris. 

The Jardin du Luxembourg was created under Marie de Medici, the Florentine wife of King Henri IV. After his death on May 14, 1610, she wanted to create a home that reminded her of her childhood in Florence, at the Medici Palazzo Pitti and its Boboli Gardens. 

Purchasing the land in 1611, once owned by the Duc de Luxembourg, which seemed far from the walls of the Palais du Louvre, Marie first asked Italian architects to create a palace reminiscent of the Pitti. Serving as the Regent of France while Louis XIII was too young to rule, her advisors recommended that it wasn’t the best idea for the head of France to use foreign designers. 

In turn, she sent French architects to Florence to soak up everything they could, then returned to Paris to bring her vision to life. The palace would take quite some time, and Marie never saw it fully finished, as she was often sent away from Paris because she was constantly at odds with her son, Louis XIII, and plotting to end Richelieu's power over him. In the end, she lost when Louis sent her away on “vacation,” which really was an exile. She died in Cologne on July 3, 1642, ten months before Louis XIII died. 

The garden came to life in 1612 under Jacques Boyceau, gardener to Henri IV and Marie, who would have a great influence on the early work of Andre Le Nôtre, who often gets credit for the great gardens of Paris and Versailles. Keeping with the classic French style of very deliberate placement and adding low, boxed shrubs to create spaces for colorful flowers. 

While the garden, even today, is heavily influenced on French design, one aspect is very Italian: the fountain or its first intention, the grotto of Marie de Medici, just east of the palace. 

In the 16th and 17th centuries, running water for decorative fountains, or even for water fountains, wasn’t a high priority. While the city was born in the center of the Seine, capturing the water was a different story. Under Henri IV, the Samaritan pump was built at the Pont Neuf to bring water to the Louvre and the right bank, but it didn’t have the power to reach Marie’s garden. 

In 1612, the project for what would go by many names, including the Medici Acqueduct, began in the Val-de-Marne region. Louis XIII laid the first stone on July 17, 1613, but it would take fifteen years for the water to flow into the Jardin du Luxembourg. This is partially why the beautiful oasis we call the Fontaine Medici today was once just an Italian grotto, and the basin we know today was only created in the 1860’s.

Marie’s distant cousin, the former Queen Catherine de Medici, commissioned the Palais des Tuileries in 1564 after the death of her husband, Henri II, on July 10, 1559. The palace, once considered outside Paris, included a large garden and a grotto created by Bernard Palissy, a great naturalist and ceramist of the 16th century, whose work remains relevant today.

Not to be outdone, the next Florentine Medici wanted her own country estate and grotto, although with her own taste. Marie was able to skirt the rules a bit when asking Florentine garden designer and engineer Tommaso Francini to create a fountain for her. Once the designer to her uncle Ferdinand I de Medici, he was brought to Paris by Henri IV in 1599, a year before he ever intended to marry a Medici himself. Francini and his two brothers moved to France and became French citizens, and worked on Saint Germain-en-Laye, Fontainebleau, Saint Cloud, and the Luxembourg, where his engineering of water came in handy.

The original fountain sat against a wall that formed the eastern edge of the garden, about 98 feet from its current location. It was aligned with the southern edge of the palace and stretched to what is today Boulevard Saint Michel. It was much wider, with niches that extended on either side of the current configuration we know, and topped with decorative urns and fire pots that weren’t able to survive the 18th-century Revolution. 

Francini worked with Solomon de Brosse, often identified as Jacques, who carried out the work and added the most Italianate moniker of the “frosting” or dripping water to just about every surface of the grotto. Tuscan columns that are a bit larger on the bottom than at the top, while banded columns were reserved for the palace itself. 

In the very center above the niche, the personal arms of Marie de Medici were added. The left holding the dots or coins of the Medici family, and the right holding the fleur-de-lis reserved for the royal Bourbons. Normally, the Medici side also has large banned stripes, and it’s unknown if the original relief held that or not, since it was destroyed in the Revolution. 

On either side are allegories of the Seine and Rhone, specifically chosen by Marie. On the left, a water nymph representing the Seine, and on the right, a water god of the Rhone with a cornucopia of produce found along its banks. Both by Pierre II Biard. 

Marie never saw her fountain filled with water, and after her exile, it was given to her other son, Gaston, the Grand Monsieur. It then passed to his daughter Anne-Marie Montpensier, the Grande Mademoiselle, who was once the richest woman in Europe. It then went to her younger sister, Elisabeth, who, in turn, gave it to Louis XIV. It remained under the crown until the Revolution, when, in 1799, it became the seat of the Senate of France and remains so to this day. 

During the Revolution, the fountain wall was attacked and the royal markings removed, and the statues of the Seine and Rhone were badly damaged. The palace itself had been used as a prison during the Terror and held Jacques Louis David behind its lavish walls. At the start of the 19th century, Napoleon ordered the palace and gardens restored. 

Architect Jean-Francois Chalgrin restored the damaged elements with sculptor Claude Ramey bringing the Seine water nymph back to life, and Francisque Duret was  tasked with the Rhone. They opted not to recreate the arms of Marie de Medici and added a statue of Venus into the central niche. 

The largest transformation would take place between 1860 and 1862, under Haussmann and Napoleon III.  As they carved through the city, widening the streets, the fountain was directly in the crosshairs. The plan was to destroy it, but a few thousand Parisians took offense and stood their ground. A tense few years of fighting resulted in the entire fountain being taken apart stone by stone and moved. The adjoining walls would not be so lucky or the building it stood against, but I think we won in the end. 

Architect Alphonse de Gisors led the project as well as the restoration of the palace, Theatre l’Odeon, and the Observatory. You can say this entire area around the garden looks the way it does because of Gisors. 

Once the fountain was reconstructed in its new location, the one we know today, de Gisors returned the arms of Marie de Medici, as well as topping it with the Bourbon crown. It was at this time that the fountain’s wildest dreams came true, and water flowed from the base into the large basin before it. 

While the elements dating to Marie returned, new additions were added, rounding out the decoration of the facade. 

It’s hard to miss the center statuary of Polyphemus  Surprising Galetea in the arms of Acis”. Depicting the mythological story of the cyclops giant Polyphemus, who is in love with the marine nymph Galatea, whose heart belongs to the Sicilian shepherd Acis. The story has been told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and in countless plays and operas. 

In white Carrara marble, Galatea lies in the arms of Acis, who has his left hand on his panpipes; perhaps he is about to play her a little tune. Above Polyphemus in bronze looks down on the lovers. His left hand is reaching out to what we can imagine to be a large stone he will remove from Mount Etna and strike the young shepherd, killing him in his fit of jealousy, or maybe a reaction to his pan pipe. 

The beautiful Galatea is devastated and cries and screams out to the gods. Neptune and other water nymphs arrive and bring Acis back to life, but as a river running red at the base of Mount Etna. Acis would be immortal, and Galatea would visit and lie by the water every day for the rest of her life. The river would be named Acis, and its modern name is Jaci, although it no longer runs red. 

The story became quite popular and was performed at Versailles at the court of Louis XV, with the beautiful Madame de Pompadour playing the lovely Galatea. 

The piece was created by Auguste Louis Marie Ottin in 1866, and the two figures were added on either side. On the left, Faunus, god of the forest and father of Acis, holds a pan flute and looks on at the nude couple. On the right, Diane, the goddess of hunting and of the moon,is  one of my favorites. 

Today, it’s hard to imagine the fountain without them, but when the finished fountain was revealed in 1867, the naked marble couple offended many, causing one outraged gentleman to throw a bottle of black ink, striking and covering them in ink. 

When you visit Paris, be sure to walk around to the back of this lovely, lush garden and fountain.

The Medici Fountain wasn’t the only one on the brink of destruction at the start of the 1860s. Thousands of homes, structures, and fountains were under the wrecking ball of Haussmann, including a small fountain not far from the Jardin du Luxembourg. 

During the reign of Marie de Médicis, an aqueduct was extended to the southern bank of Paris. Napoleon Bonaparte brought water to the people. On May 2, 1806 ,he signed a decree that water should flow day and night at the fountains of Paris.  He also had more than twenty fountains added, including the Fountain of the Rue de Regard. The fountain was built in 1636 and fed from the same aqueduct as the Medici fountain, and was demolished in 1792. 

Napoleon ordered a new fountain in 1806, and sculptor Achille Valois was chosen to create a bas-relief design for the small structure. Vallois had his idea for the budget he needed, and the city official had their own idea, which included a smaller number, almost half of what the artist wanted. 

Negotiations went on for over a year, and Valois only backed down when he was threatened with rescinding the entire commission and choosing another artist. Vallois had already started on the project and gave in, making the 5375 francs work instead of the 8742 francs he had asked for. 

Vallois was heavily influenced by the Renaissance master Jean Goujon, who created the Fontaine des Innocents as well as the Louvre of Henri II, and incorporated the same feeling into his bas-relief.

Leda and the Swan, from Greek mythology, was a couple adored by many artists since the Renaissance, especially sculptors. At times, the scene can be quite risque and not for the younger viewers, but this one keeps it pretty low-key until you know the story. 

Léda was a beautiful mortal Spartan queen whom Zeus saw and wanted. The Greek gods couldn’t appear before a mortal in their god-like form, so he had to transform himself into a creature. Zeus chose the elegant swan and appeared before the lovely Léda, who was lying on the banks of the Eurotas River.

She was clearly taken by the sultry swan, and the two had a romantic encounter. Later that same day, she also slept with her husband. The story continues on many months later when the lovely Léda gives birth to two large eggs. One of which has a set of twins of Zeus, Helen and Pollux, and the other a set of twins of her husband, King Tyndareus, Castor and Clytemnestra.  

Zeus’ daughter, Helen, later known as Helen of Troy, was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world. Often a subject of art, Jacques-Louis David captures her in his painting, "Helen & Paris," at the Louvre.  Her brother Polydeuces, more often known as Pollux, and his half-brother Castor are also the Gemini twins, stars in the sky, and once the namesakes of the two elephants at the Jardin des Plantes, which didn’t have a very storybook ending during the Commune of 1871. 

Castor, the son of King Tyndareus and his sister Clytemnestra, was remembered for having two husbands and a penchant for ending the lives of men, who were both mortal but raised with their half-mortal siblings. 

A few years ago, Léda was making the rounds of the outraged on the internet when they wanted to “cancel” the story of the woman attacked by a man. However, I think we need to keep the entire story in mind and remember that it included a swan and gave birth to two large eggs with two different fathers. 

Everyone from Leonard da Vinci to Cézanne has reimagined the scene, and she has even taken to the runways of Paris in the 2021 Dior show. 

In the Vallois version, the beautiful Léda is depicted within the reeds and tall grasses of the river Eurotas, and Zeus, as the swan, lies on her lap, his neck and beak pointing down into the basin below the fountain. The two lovers aren’t alone. On the left edge, Cupid appears to be leaving the scene and putting his arrow back into his quiver, as he is clearly not needed at this time. 

Even the somewhat erotic story of Léda couldn’t keep her from her impending destruction by Haussmann. Thankfully saved by the quick thinking of Gabriel Davioud, who had the bas relief set aside for another use. 

In 1862, when the Medici fountain was moved to its new spot, it no longer sat against a wall, and suddenly, the perfect spot for Léda was created. 

Much smaller than the Medici fountain, it sits on the back side that was mostly hidden from view until two years ago. Executed by Alphonse de Gisors with the help of sculptor Jean Baptiste Klagmann. The bas relief of Léda is bordered on either side with a triton and dolphins on the left and an oar with dolphins on the right. 

Added at the top is a pediment with a laurel wreath and oak leaves, and two water nymphs by Klagmann looking down onto the sexy scene. 

At the very top, the crown of Marie de Medici is over a plaque marking the two major stages of the fountain in its 1620 creation and 1863 renaissance, and the artists who brought it to life. 

The size of the garden has changed over time since the 17th century. Marie's garden was sliced and died, and changed many times. Under Louis Philippe, the garden grew to what we see today, except for the eastern corner, altered by Haussmann. 

Either way, it's one of the greatest spots in all of Paris to sit, and it's even been voted one of the most beautiful gardens in the world. 

Visit on an early Sunday morning, just after it opens, and walk the beautiful park completely alone. Grab a croissant and a coffee and sit in one of the iconic Luxembourg green chairs under the plane trees of the garden and transport yourself back in time. 

However, keep an eye out for any randy-looking swans. 

Episode 10 - The Crown of Thorns

Each Friday afternoon,  the most important relic in the world makes an appearance for the faithful to see once again at the Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris. After the fire on April 15, 2019, the Crown of Thorns had been safely hidden away at the Louvre and displayed during Lent and Holy Week at the Eglise Saint Germain l’Auxerrois. In January 2025, the famed crown returned once again to Notre Dame. 

But why is it in Paris, you ask? The Crown of Thorns and other instruments of the Passion were purchased in 1238 by King Louis IX, later known as Saint Louis. However, let’s back up a little further. 

The crown, of course, is deeply rooted in Christianity, but it is also an important piece of history. I have had many people scoff, laugh, and ask if it is the “real” crown of thorns, and I always reply, “That is for you to decide, and that is what faith is.”  As a historian, I love sharing the story behind an object, a piece of art, or a historic building, and the people who make each of these subjects so interesting.

After the Romans arrested the man being called the new king, they created a “crown” of woven branches covered in thorns and placed it onto his head with the  large 2 to 3 inch thorns drawing blood as they dug into his skin. A red cloth representing a royal mantle was tossed around his shoulders, and a reed for a scepter was mockingly placed in his bound hands. The crown remained on his head until his mother, Mary, removed it after he was taken down from the cross.  The story is recalled in the New Testament by Mark, Matthew, and John. 

What the crown is made of has always been a matter of debate, with a few possible answers. It is two separate plants: a reed that is braided into a crown, and a thorny branch wrapped around and bent inwards. The thorny branch is thought to be from a Judea buckthorn shrub found in Jerusalem. It could also be Hawthorne, a Mediterranean shrub dotted with thorns. 

The crown was said to have been discovered in the 4th century after Emperor Constantine ordered the search of the Holy Land for the tomb of Christ. His mother, Sainte Hélène, led the expedition, and the legend tells us that she was looking on as the True Cross was uncovered along with the Crown of Thorns and Nails, all part of the Instruments of the Passion.  

The first mention of the Crown being venerated dates to 409 in Jerusalem, when witnessed by bishop Paulinos of Nola in Campania in a letter sent to bishop Macarius. Between 530 and 560, the Crown was safely kept in the basilica of Mount Zion. Visitors and historians report that the vines would turn green and even grow at times. There are also reports of the thorns still held today, which have turned green or even bled. There isn’t any scientific evidence of that. 

Between 614 and 637, when the city of Jerusalem was captured, the relics began their voyage to Constantinople. Dating the exact moment the Crown arrived is a bit harder. Frequent mentions of the thorns themselves date to the 7th century, but many had already been cut off in Jerusalem and obtained by leaders throughout Europe. We can be sure it arrived in the city of Byzantium by the end of the 10th century and was housed in the Palatine Chapel of the Pharos. The Sainte Chapelle, the Holy Chapel built in the palace of the Byzantine Emperors, held many holy relics, including items from the Passion.

For centuries, they remained until the Byzantine city was conquered at the beginning of the 13th century and pawned to the Latin Emperor in hopes that it would protect the now fractured capital. 

Cousin to Saint Louis, Baldwin II, Emperor of Constantinople, came to France in 1236, asking him to help with a massive debt he had incurred by borrowing from the Venetians and giving the crown as collateral. From November 10, 1238, to February 1239, the Crown resided in Venice at Saint Mark’s Cathedral.  Baldwin II, in return for his help, would give Louis and France the Crown of Thorns.  

In December 1238, a letter was sent to Quirino stating that the French were sending a delegation to cover the debt of Constantinople and, in return, would receive the Crown. Brothers Jaques and André de Longjumeau of the Order of the Preachers were sent to Venice on behalf of King Louis IX, with Nicolas de Sorello. André had resided in the Dominican convent of Constantinople and had seen the Crown many years before, a fact that will come in handy later in the authentication of the relic. The man later known as Saint Louis and his devotion to the church played a big part in the agreement to settle the debt. When the option of also obtaining the Crown of Thorns came up, he had to do all he could to protect and care for it.

This wasn’t an easy transaction; the Venetian barons were in desperate need of money they borrowed against the relics and sped up the clock. The French envoy had to race to Venice to retrieve them in time.  The deadline was June 18 and the Feast of Saint Gervais and Protais.  if not purchased by that day, it would forever be the property of Venice. 

Jacques and André arrived a day before on June 17, 1238, and were met with a new challenge and price tag. 

King Louis IX, who was 24 years old at the time, had already paid 21,000 pounds to free the Crown, but as Jacques and André arrived, they were given a new bill for 137,000 pounds! It was half the French monarchy's budget, but Louis would pay and agreed to allow the Venetians to hold onto the Crown for the faithful to see one last time in Saint Mark's. 

Negotiations took six months, and in January 1239, the Crown finally made its way through Italy and Germany to reach France. Due to the relic's fame and fragility, it had to be protected at every step. Before it travled Louis IX sent a letter to Emperor Frederick II of Germany asking for his help in protecting the soldiers, relic, and housing the men along the way. 

The relic first arrived in the medeival city of Troyes, then was taken to the Maulny-le-Repos manor, close to the small town of Villeneuve-l’Archeveque. The manor is no longer there, but a cross and a plaque mark the spot of the historic event. 

Jacques and André de Longjumeau carried the relic and a sealed letter from Baldwin authenticating the crown. On August 10, 1239, Louis IX arrived, and Archbishop Gauthier Cornout placed the Crown of Thorns into his hands. 

The scene is depicted in a painting by Jean André and is housed at the Eglise Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin in Paris. André, also known as Brother André of Saint Dominic at the Jacobin convent on Rue de Bac.  Painted around 1710 for the convent he was a member of. Seized during the Revolution and sold in 1798. In 2010, the friends of St. Thomas ' Church purchased the painting.  

The next day, Saint Louis, his mother, Blanche de Castille, and his brother, Robert d’Artois, walked to the nearby town of Sens. Louis and Robert carried the crown on their shoulders into the abbey of Saint Pierre-le-Vif. The entire town lined the streets and filled the abbey for a glimpse of the relic and the king. 

On August 11, the crown and its guardians traveled by boat on the Yonne and Seine to Paris. Stopping along the way in Melun and Montereau, they finally arrived in Vincennes a week later.  Louis stepped out of the boat with the bishops of France, who waited with the nuns, priests, and clerics for a glimpse of the precious item.

On August 18, Louis, in a simple tunic and barefoot, walked the Crown into Paris. The path was lined with thousands of the faithful holding torches to light the way. Upon arrival, a mass was held at Notre Dame before taking the Crown to the Palais de la Cité and placing it in the Chapel de St Nicolas on August 19 until a suitable reliquary could be created. 

Not just any building would do for one of the most important relics in the world. Two years later, in the autumn of 1241, the construction of the Sainte Chapelle began. The same year, Louis acquired a large piece of the Holy Cross, a vial of the Holy Blood, and the Tombstone. The following year, the Holy Sponge and Spear came into his possession and were all placed in Sainte Chapelle after it was finished and consecrated on April 26, 1248. The cost to build the chapel was a third of what was spent to obtain the crown.

They would remain in the Jewel Box Church until March 1789. In 1791, the Conseil d’État suppressed the church and sequestered the relics; on March 12, they were removed for safekeeping and placed in a cardboard box at the Abbey of Saint-Denis. They were the property of the crown until 1791. 

 In the dark of night between November 11 & 12, 1793, the relics were taken to the mint, melted down, and destroyed. Only the Crown, a piece of the True Cross, and a nail survived. On April 25, 1794, which also happened to be the birthday of Saint Louis, the crown was moved to the Bibliothèque Nationale, or at least one piece was there. During the Revolution, in order to protect the crown, it was cut into three pieces and separated for safekeeping. Thankfully, all three pieces are united today

On December 6, 1804, just four days after his coronation, Napoleon had the relics transferred to Notre Dame, and on August 10, 1806, they would be seen by the public for the first time in more than five hundred years. 

On July 29, 1830. During the Three Glorious Days, Archbishop Hyacinthe Louis de Quélen fled the church with the relics under his arm while an angry mob broke into the Cathedral. The Archbishop fled to Normandy, where the relics were safely hidden in a chateau until 1843. Many of the cathedral's relics were stolen, melted down, or thrown into the Seine.  In 1855, the Crown, nail, and piece of the True Cross were safely back in Notre Dame.

The current reliquary that surrounds the crown was made by goldsmith Maurice Poussielgue-Rusand and placed inside on March 20, 1896, from a design by architect Jules-Godefroy Astruc.  Maurice’s father, Placide, created the former reliquary. The crown is enclosed in a hollow rock crystal tube, encased in a gold garland of flowers, leaves, fruits, and thorns on two of the three sections. They are joined with a gold clasp and topped with enamel plaques. On the front, the seals are of Saint Denis, Sainte Genevieve, and the Virgin Mary. On the back are the crests of Saint Louis, Paris, and an effigy of Christ being crowned in thorns. 

On the night of the fire in April 2019, after we watched the spire and the rooster fall from the sky, the next fear was the relics of the Sacristy and the Crown. The very tight security around the crown made it difficult in that high-pressure moment. Tucked away into the floor of the chapel was a series of combination key locks that required two keys. The keys are normally never together. That night, in a state of panic, the two key holders had to fight through the crowd to reach Notre Dame. The keys were handed to the chaplain of the Pompiers de Paris, Jean-Marc Fournie, who put his life on the line and rushed into the cathedral to save the Crown of Thorns. 

Many of the bishops of Paris have left their mark on Notre Dame, not always for the better, and many want to wipe out Viollet-le-Duc's influence. In 2005, Cardinal Lustiger reached out to architect and artist  Sylvain Dubuisson to create a new reliquary to hold the Crown of Thorns. The Cardinal passed away less than two years later, and the project died with him. In 2023, the current bishop, Ulrich, called Dubuisson out of the blue and asked the artist to pick up where he left off. 

Dubuisson happily accepted this great honor and continued his research into the history of the Crown.  From its origin to its Byzantine journey to the reliquary church of Sainte Chapelle, created for it.

The wall is made of cedar to emulate the True Cross; cut into the wall are three hundred sixty openings, each holding a gilded bronze thorn. The gilded gold is reminiscent of the Byzantine churches where the Crown of Thorns was kept until the 13th century.  

The openings are more significant at the top than at the bottom, allowing natural light to stream in. In the center are  396 glass cabochons, each etched with a cross and backed with 24-karat gold. When on view, they surround the Crown of Thorns, which hangs over the Klein blue center, which frames and glows in the light. 

Standing just over 11 feet tall, the center was placed above eye level for viewing from every angle. The three-ton sculpture sits on a Carrera marble base that holds a safe where the Crown lies when not on display, and it is topped with 100 LED “candles.” 

Dubuisson worked with the Atelier Saint Jacques, Fonderie de Coubertin, Glassmaker Olivier Juteau, Light Sculptor Patrick Rimoux, and the Atelier de Rocou for the gilding. The entire team worked simultaneously, and the project took over 4700 hours to complete. 

Upon the reopening of the Cathedral, the crown was moved to the central chapel of the axial. The Chapel of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem places it in a direct line from the baptistry at the entrance to the altar, the tabernacle of the host on the high altar, the pietà, and then the holy relics. 

I have to admit that in the original renderings, I wasn’t in love with it, but seeing it up close, I changed my tune. It radiates a beautiful golden glow and pulls together centuries of history.  It’s gorgeous even without the most significant relic in the world hanging from it.  

The previous reliquary created by Viollet-le-Duc is a real showstopper. In 1862, Viollet produced with goldsmith Placide Poussielgue-Rosand and sculptor of Notre Dame Adolphe-Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume.

First used on Palm Sunday, March 29, 1863, and used in processions prior to the fire. Surrounding the top are the French Fleur-de-lis and the twelve apostles. Below are the three figures that played a role in the journey of the Crown. Baldwin II,  Saint Hélèna, and Saint Louis is seen holding the crown. You can see the Reliquary in the Treasury of Notre Dame.

Prior to the fire, the Crown came out on the first Friday of each month and each Friday of Lent. The veneration ceremony for the Crown of Thorns was designed by Saint Louis himself, not the Catholic Church. The very specific ceremony and the showing of the relic can only happen during Easter, as established over 785 years ago to celebrate the resurrection. Since its return to Notre Dame, due to the high demand of visitors, the Crown is now brought out every Friday of the year, with the veneration on the first Friday of each month from 3 pm to 5 pm, and displayed each Friday from 3 pm to 6:30 pm

August 11 was chosen by Louis for the annual feast day in celebration of the date the Crown was first placed in his hands. 

Open to the faithful,  historians, and anyone who wants to see the priceless relic. Standing nearby are the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, who guard the crown and honor the wishes first established in the 13th century. 

You can visit Sainte Chapelle today; it is no longer an active church, and none of the relics remain, but it's a must-see for the 1,113 stained glass scenes, including the last set on the south side. The 171 windows of the last section cover the discovery of the relics with Sainte Helene, Saint Louis in adoration of the Crown, at the very top. 

The former reliquaries, including my favorite with figures of Louis, Baldwin, and Hélène, as well as other reliquaries attached to the Crown, thorns, and even a few that once held pieces of the True Cross, can be found in the Treasury of Notre Dame. The Tunic worn by Saint Louis that survived the Revolution and was held in the treasury of Charles VI in 1418. A sleeve and some of the fabric is missing that was cut away, and a parchment note that was attached authenticating the item to have belonged to Saint Louis.  Was this the one worn when he carried the Crown? We don’t know, but he always wore a simple tunic when he prayed before the relic.

The Crown can be spotted throughout Paris, in many churches and, of course, the Musée du Louvre. From the Italian masters in the Grande Gallerie to the French painting floor in the Sully wing. I love finding paintings and sculptures that include the crown.

Inside the Basilica Sainte Clotilde, in the 7th, in the Chapel of the Sacred Heart, the fresco on the right by François-Édouard Picot depicts Helene’s discovery of the True Cross. The next chapel over at Saint Louis tells his story through the crown in the stained-glass window and the fresco.

The small Saint Louis-en-l’Île on Île Saint-Louis, dedicated to the saintly king of France, has many reminders of the Crown, including a wonderful bronze statue as you enter. 

Many of the churches of Paris include a chapel of Saint Louis, such as Saint Sulpice, with a fantastic central stained-glass window of the king holding the crown.

Episode 9 - The Wedding of Napoleon & Josephine

On March 9, 1796, Marie Josèphe Rose de Tascher stood in the drawing room of the second floor of the Hotel de Mondragon and watched a taper candle melt to the end of its wick. 

It was 7 pm, and the civil wedding of Napoleon Bonaparte and Rose, as she was known at the time, was to start, but things didn’t go quite as planned. You might know her more as Josephine, a woman whom Napoleon would love until his last breath. 

The Paris of 1795 was a mix of living under the Revolution's rules, those who survived the Terror, and figuring out how to forge ahead and survive, especially for a woman. 

Marie Josèphe Rose was first married to a real cad of a man, Alexandre de Beauharnais. The arranged marriage was originally intended for her sister Catherine and Beauharnais, but she died in 1777 before she could sail from Martinique to France. Rose and Alexandre were married on December 15, 1779, in Noisy-le-Grand, outside Paris. 

Rose, as she was then known, discovered a taste of the high life. Lavish surroundings, fashion, and parties, but at a price. Alexandre, a Lieutenant General of the Army, was later arrested and tried for treason and killed by the guillotine on July 23. 1794. 

Josephine was also arrested due to her husband's actions, but escaped the terror and was released on August 6, 1794, four months after her arrest and the fall of Robespierre. As a widow with two young children, she didn’t have many avenues to provide for herself and her two children. A small income came from her husband's pension, but her taste for the good life cost a bit more. 

Women didn’t have many options back then; they couldn’t go out and get a job, at least not a respectable one. Josephine had a few men who showered her in gifts and money, including politician Paul Barras. Their relationship was short-lived when he couldn’t afford the lavish spending on Josephine. Active in the Revolution, Barras voted for the death of Louis XVI and served on the Directory while Napoleon rose to power. 

Josephine in 1796 by Andrea Appiani

It’s thought that the first meeting between Napoleon and Josephine could have been in the Salon held at the home of Thérésa Tallen, the belle of the Parisian Salons and often described as the bestie of Josephine. 

Thérésa Tallen came from a wealthy Spanish family and was sent to France at twelve. Ahead of her time, she wove through society, dodging the guillotine during the Terror and creating a Salon that drew the movers and shakers of Paris. From Lafayette to Napoleon, it was one of the most influential gatherings in Paris on what is now the Rue Matignon. 

Described as the beautiful Thérésa, she garnered the gaze of every man from Bordeaux to Paris, including Paul Barras (who really got around), with whom she had one of her many affairs with the French elite. It was at one of her legendary salons that Barras would bring Josephine. Napoleon Bonaparte had his eyes on the lovely hostess Thérésa, but she wasn’t too interested. Did Napoleon meet his Rose that night? We don’t know for sure.

The most likely event also included Barras and Thérésa at a dinner party on October 15, 1794, inside the Palais du Luxembourg, where he was living. Barras, ever the politician, knew how to keep Napoleon near and happy. 

However, the meeting that would make the most impact came a year later. Napoleon was called up by Barras, then commissioner of the French Army, to help quell the Royalist uprising. It would end in the legendary “whiff of grapeshot” episodes when he launched into the crowd and onto the facade of the Eglise Saint Roch on the Rue Saint-Honoré, injuring and killing many but also ending the uprising against the government. Today, you can still see some of those marks on the facade of Saint Roch. The event launched Bonaparte’s career and an office on the Place Vendôme. 

Napoleon 1796 by Andrea Appiani

A week after the uprising, all citizens were to abandon any and all weapons. Every home in Paris was searched, including the small home at 6 rue Chantereine (60 rue de la Victorie) where the widow Beuharnais and her two children lived. Eugène, born in 1781, and Hortense, born in 1783, were left with very little of their father. His property and possessions were seized, with a few items being returned after the end of the Terror. Eugene was thirteen when his father was killed and held tight the sword that once belonged to him and begged the soldier that he be allowed to keep it. The request was denied, but if he wanted, he could plead his case to the Department of War at the Place Vendome. 

The next day, the young Eugène (although not so young, at 13 you could serve as the king and be married back then) visited no. 7 Place Vendôme, now in the shadow of the Vendôme column, topped with Napoleon himself. Eugene entered the office of Napoleon and asked for the return of his father’s sword.  Touched by the request of the young man, Napoleon later wrote, “I granted his request. Eugène burst into tears when he beheld his father’s sword. Touched at his sensibility”.

Josephine was so impressed that she paid General Bonaparte a visit the next day to thank him. 

Napoleon returning the sword to Eugene 1795 Charles de Steuben

Napoleon continues writing, “Everyone knows her extraordinary grace, her irresistibly sweet, attractive manners. The acquaintance soon became intimate and tender”.
The early Napoleon was far from the myth that has been created over time. Standing at 5” 6’, not at all short for that time, quite a normal French height. The longstanding rumor was created by his English enemies and has survived until this day. He was quiet, rather awkward, and shy, and Josephine would serve as his muse, bringing out the inner general and future Emperor. 

The intimate relationship between the two began quickly, as did talk of marriage. Napoleon was about to leave on another campaign, but first, he wanted a wife. Josephine wasn’t sold on the idea, but she did need to be taken care of. Paying another visit to Place de Vendome, this time to her notaire Jean Raguidau. Looking for advice on whether she should get married, he advised her that the young general had little to offer and was against it. She decided not to listen to him and married Napoleon anyway on March 9, 1796, two hundred and thirty years ago today.

The Mairie of the 2nd arrondissement was once located in the Hotel Mondragon, built in 1723. The beautiful building once covered the entire block and was built for Pierre Etienne Bourgeois de Boynes, secretary of the Navy under Louis XV. Sold in 1776 to Louis Duval del l’Epinoy,secretary to Louis XV, and remained in his family after his death until the start of the Revolution. 

One of the hundreds of confiscated properties in Paris it became the Mairie (mayor's office) of the 2nd arrondissement in 1795, as it was on the historic day that aligned Bonaparte with Marie Josèphe Rose de Tascher. 

Hotel Mandragon 3 rue d’Antin

Napoleon preferred to call her Josephine, and how she has been known and remembered through history. 

For three hours, Josephine waited in a long white gown with a blue, white, and red sash and wearing a gold enamelled medallion or ring with “au destin” inscribed. A ring that is attributed to the wedding with NB engraved was later given to Hortense, Josephine’s daughter by Napoleon and passed to her son, Napoleon III. It was buried with him when he was buried on January 10, 1873 in Farnborough Abbey, Kent, England

Josephine recalls watching the single taper candle burn down to nothing as they waited for Napoleon to arrive.  He finally arrived after 10 pm and said, “Marry us quickly”. The official had already given up waiting and left, and his fill-in may not have had the right to perform the service. 

It’s thought and told by some that he was late because he was having two fake birth certificates made. Josephine was thirty-two at the time, born on June 23, 1763, and Napoleon was twenty-six, born on August 15, 1769.  Napoleon’s birthdate was changed to February 5, 1768, which also changed his place of birth was changed from Corsica to the Republic of Genoa. Exactly one year before Napoleon was born on August 15, 1768, Louis XV brought Corsica under the French flag. Josephine’s birthday was changed to August 15, 1769, the date of Napoleon's actual birth. Not exactly the best and the brightest altering official documents. Maybe this is why we have to have our birth certificates translated every other hour here in France today. 

Thérésa Tallen by François Gérard in th Carnavalet

The Bonaparte family was unaware of the nuptials but would never have approved if they had been. Only a few people watched the ceremony, including the former lover of Josephine, Paul Barras, Jean-Lambert Tallien and his wife Thérésa, whom we can give the unofficial title of maid of honor, and Etienne Jacques Jerome Calmet, a family friend of Josephine. 

During the Revolution, religious ceremonies had been outlawed. A civil ceremony made it easier to get a divorce, which Josephine wanted, but would also use this to her advantage eight years later on the eve of the Coronation.

Once married, the couple lived in Josephine’s home at 6 rue Chantereine, now 60 rue de la Victoire. The honeymoon would have to wait as Napoleon was off to Italy to lead the army. 

Fast forward eight years to November 25, 1804, when the Pope arrived at the Chateau de Fontainebleau, as Napoleon didn’t want him to make a grand entrance into Paris. Having the Pope there was nothing more than a staged moment for the new Emperor. Linking his coronation to that of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, named by Pope Leon III on Christmas Day 800. 

As for that whole grabbing-the-crown story, that’s not exactly accurate either and is also tied to Charlemagne and the Pope, but that's for another day. 

While the pope roamed the halls of Fontainebleau, Josephine confided to him that the Imperial couple had never been married in the church. The Pope was not happy. Since the two were not wed in the eyes of the church, he could not attend or perform the coronation. Napoleon was even less thrilled and agreed in the 11th hour on the eve of the coronation. 

Josephine in Coronation dress in tapestry apres François Gérard

On December 1, 1804, the night before the big event, in the chapel of the Palais des Tuileries, Napoleon's uncle, Cardinal Joseph Fesch, performed the quick ceremony to the dismay of the Bonaparts. 

The official love story of Josephine and Napoleon ended with the annulment of their marriage on December 15, 1809, in the throne room of the Tuileries, steps from where the rushed Catholic ceremony had taken place just five years earlier. 

Unable to give Napoleon an heir to the Imperial throne, Josephine was cast out of the palace and his life, but never far from his mind. His final word on his deathbed, Josephine 

Listen to this week’s episode out now

Episode 8 - Berthe Morisot

Berthe Morisot, one of the few women of the Impressionist Movement, with her dark locks and stunning gaze, was the perfect model for Édouard Manet.  However, unlike most female models-turned-artists, she is actually known as one of the first incredible female Impressionists.

Born on January 14, 1841, in Bouges to Mother Marie-Cornélie Thomas Morisot and father Edmé Tiburce Morisot, a prefect and architect.  Berthe is the youngest of three daughters. Older sisters Yves, born in 1838, and Edma, born in 1839. Her brother Tiburce was born in 1845.  Due to her father’s role in the government, the family moved frequently from Bouges to Limoges, Paris, Caen, Rennes, and finally, on July 3, 1852, back to Passy, then a city just outside of Paris. 

In 1857, Marie-Cornélie, often referred to as the great-niece of Rococo master Jean-Honoré Fragonard, enrolled her three young daughters in drawing classes with Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne, who taught many young girls who weren’t allowed in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The two youngest Morisot girls quickly outgrew the drawing lessons of Chocarne and moved on to the atelier of Joseph Guichard. 

Guichard arrived in Paris in 1822 from Lyon at 16 and visited the Salon held in the Salon Carré of the Louvre. At first sight of Delacroix’s Virgil and Dante, he knew that was the direction for him. He first joined the atelier of Ingres, focusing on the academic style, but his heart was drawn to the styles of Delacroix and Rubens, enraging Ingres. 

Guichard was very impressed with the talents of Edma and Berthe and focused more of his time on sharing art and the Italian greats within the Louvre. At the time, many of Paris's artists flocked to the Louvre to recreate the masters' works. Women had few options in those days. Not allowed to attend the Ecole des Beaux Arts, they couldn’t be alone in an atelier with a man or a nude male model and couldn’t even visit the Louvre without a chaperone. 

Since the Louvre opened in 1793, there has always been a large focus on the training of artists. During the opening years under the Revolutionary calendar of ten-day weeks, the Louvre was open three of those days only for the artists. They could freely set up an easel in front of any of the masters in the Grande Galerie and copy each detail.  

Copiest became so popular that, in 1872, for just under two years, the Musée des Copies was opened in the Palais de l’Industrie on the Champs-Élysées. The first exhibit included 130 paintings copied from Italian masters of European museums and the Vatican. The idea came from Charles Blanc and most likely included many of the works of the once-unknown Impressionist artists. 

Today, you can still be a copyist within the Louvre, but you have to jump through many hoops to get the chance. You have to be a talented artist; of course, you can’t copy the size or signature, and they limit what you can copy. No longer will you find an artist in front of a Titian like Berthe and Edma would have; it’s far too crowded in the Salle des Etats due to the lady of the Louvre who resides there. And the waiting list is quite long, at least three years. I do love coming upon them and watching their progression over multiple visits. 

The earliest painting by Berthe that still survives, Ferme en Normandie, was created in 1857 and is in a private collection. The countryside and landscapes drew Berthe & Edma in, and Guichard felt he had taught them all that he could and suggested they study with Jean Baptiste Camille Corot in 1860. 

Long spring and summer days were spent outside in the Ville d’Avray, painting the horizon. A few years later, in 1863, Corot introduced the sisters to his student Achille Oudinot. Oudinot and Morisot girls spent time outside Paris in Auvers-sur-Oise, three decades before Vincent Van Gogh would arrive and spend his final years there. 

Returning often to the Louvre since they had registered as copyists in 1858, Berthe and Edma drifted toward the Venetian artists and Rubens, and the eruption of colors. It was in front of one of Rubens's twenty-four paintings of the life of Marie de Medici in 1868 that Edouard Manet came into their lives.

Manet shared a bond with the artist Henri Fantin-Latour, who had both been rejected from the Salon. Fantin Latour might not be as well-known as Édouard  Manet today, but his paintings of flowers and his group portraits that can be found in the Orsay are some of my favorites. As part of the Batignoles group, you can only imagine the conversation one morning over coffee between Manet and Fantin-Latour at the Café Guerbois on the Avenue de Clichy. Henri had told Manet about the two young artists who had already been displayed in the Salon and proposed that they visit them inside the Louvre. 

There are multiple versions of this story, but I am choosing to stick with the version told by the Morisot family that dates the meeting to August 1868. In a letter dated August 26, 1868, from Manet to Fantin -Latour the artist said, “the young Morisot ladies are charming. It’s a bother they’re not men, but as women, they could still serve the cause of painting by marrying an academian each. Give them my compliments.”

At first, Manet was enamored of Edma, but it was Berthe's haunting, deep, dark gaze that pulled him in. Following a trip to Spain, Manet fell in love with the works of Velázquez and Goya and the dark features on his Spanish subjects. Morisot’s deep-set black eyes and hair reminded him of the exotic Majas on the Balcony by Goya, painted in 1808

Following Manet’s shock at the Parisian Salon of 1865 with Olympia and Déjeuner sur l’herbe, he was looking for a new model, and Berthe would have everything he wanted. In 1868, Manet painted The Balcony which Berthe would pose after much apprehension. Being a model for an artist was not a profession for a woman of society in Paris at the time. After much convincing, Berthe agreed, as she would be just one part of the group portrait. 

The man in the center is the artist and friend Antoine Guillemet. A landscape painter who studied under Corot and Courbet would become one of the leaders in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Unfortunately, Guillemet is remembered more for being in this painting than for his own work. 

The other lovely lady is Fanny Claus, a violinist and close friend of Manet’s wife, Suzanne. Fanny was in the first all-female string quartet, but in the painting, she holds an umbrella. Her husband, Pierre Prins' family, made their fortunes in umbrellas and sculpted the handles for many of the high-end umbrellas. Manet painted her holding a green umbrella, thus adding a touch of his friend Pierre as well. 

In the dark background to the left, you can spot Manet’s wife, Susanne’s son Léon, bringing some drinks to the disconnected trio. Manet even added his beloved dog, Tama, next to the porcelain planter with a blue hydrangea that blends so well with the green shutters and railing. And that is where the art elite drew the line. They couldn’t stand the “acid green” color, and the three main subjects looked more like still life than friends. One critic even reduced Manet to a “house painter”. Appearing in the Salon of 1869, it didn’t attract a single buyer.  Manet would keep it in his studio until his death in 1884. Fellow artist Gustave Caillebotte bought it and kept it until his death, when it was given to the State and found its eventual home in the Musée d’Orsay. 

From this point on, the lives of the Morisot and Manet families would be deeply entwined. Weekly dinners at the Morisot family home saw many of the Parisian artists, including Degas, Zacharie Astruc, and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. 

Berthe lost her closest painting companion, her sister Edma, when she married Adolphe Pontillon, a good friend of Manet’s, on March 8, 1869. The couple moved to Lorient, Brittany, when they started a family. Letters from Edma to her sister ache with her boredom and her wish to return to painting. Berthe visited often and was captured many times, and in one of her most iconic works. In 1872, Berthe painted The Cradle, with Edma looking into the white lace-draped cradle, her daughter, Blanche, beside her.  (in the Orsay today)

In an August 1871 letter to her sister Edma, Berthe said, “Once again, Manet finds me not so ugly and would like to have me back as a model. In the end, out of boredom, I suggested it myself.” From 1868 to 1874, Manet captured Morisot on canvas and in drawings numerous times. Morisot said, “Manet’s charming wit kept me alert through the long hours”.  As they sat, she soaked up all his wisdom and advice for her own artistic adventure. 

The year 1874 was a big one for Berthe. At the start of the year, on January 24, she lost her beloved father. Manet would capture her “Berthe Morisot in mourning” the same year in a somber, quickly dashed painting, which is held today in a private collection. 

There has always been a lot of speculation on the relationship between Berthe and Édouard. Many of the model-to-painter dynamics ended in a physical relationship. However, these two had a deeper and more intimate non-sexual relationship based on respect, love, creativity, and mutual inspiration that would continue until his last breath. 

While Berthe’s two sisters, Yves and Edma, married and started families, including Yves’ daughter, Claudine, named after their great-grandmother. Being a female artist in the 19th century wasn’t easy. It was looked down on, and if they married, they needed to give up their craft and raise a family. Berthe had no desire to settle down and wanted to keep her independence. 

In May 1869, she told her sister Edma that she had a greater desire to have children. An early suitor was Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, whom Manet tried to encourage to no avail. 

Between August and September 1869, the Morisot and Manet families spent time in Fécamp. Edouard Manet missed the trip, but his brother, Eugène, arrived with his own canvases. Berthe and Eugène spent time on the coastline painting the horizon, and In a villa by the Sea with Edma as a model, once again. 

Eugene et Julie Manet

It was far from love at first sight for the two. Edma’s admission of married life being the most boring thing in existence was constantly repeated in Berthe’s head. Although, eventually Eugène or more likely her closeness to Édouard, wore her down. 

On December 22, 1874, Berthe and Eugène were married in Passy. She would forever be attached to the Manet family, but she wouldn’t give up her name. Marrying a man who was an artist as well as the brother of an artist was a wise move, as it brought her an understanding of her world.

Eugène became a model for her paintings in gardens, looking out windows, and eventually as a father. 

Although the biggest event of 1874 was also the first exposition of the Impressionist Painters at 35 Boulevard des Capucines in the former studio of photographer Nadar.  In February 1874, Edgard Degas invited Morisot to join the Société Anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc., a group of artists who were being turned away from the official Salon.

On April 15, 1874, thirty-one artists exhibited, Morisot was the only woman alongside Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, and Monet, but never Manet. The exhibit ran for one month, concluding on May 15, and 3,510 visitors mostly visited to make fun of the event. With ten pieces on display, Berthe would leave a lasting impression on visitors, but the exhibit was a failure; only four paintings were sold, none of which were Morisot’s. 

Self Portrait 1885

The academic Salon opened on May 1st, and Manet’s Railway was included, while he still stayed away from the group that would come to be known as Impressionism, a painting by Monet shown in Nadar’s studio. 

In March 1875, at an auction at the Drouot auction house, twelve of her works were up for sale alongside Monet, Renoir, and Sisley.  It caused a scandal, and one viewer even called her a prostitute. Fellow artist and friend Camille Pissarro took such offense that he punched the man. In the end, her paintings sold better than theirs with some notable buyers, Ernest Hoschedé, Henri Rouart, and her brother-in-law, Gustave Manet.

Four female artists broke into the Impressionist movement: Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Marie Bracquemond, and Berthe. They are still remembered today. As you can imagine, they give their paintings a softer look and give a closer insight into domestic life. Few were better than Morisot,and in 1878, she turned her attention to a new subject, her daughter. 

On November 14, 1878, her first and only child, Julie Manet, was born. Berthe documented her life from the time she was fifteen months old. After the birth, Berthe suffered from various health issues and took a break from painting until April of 1879. Through her canvases, we can see Julie grow into a beautiful young woman. In 2021, the Musée Marmottan Monet held an exhibit dedicated to Julie and her life as a child of Impressionism. It was incredible, and I highly advise also reading her published diary.  (More next week)

Berthe continued to participate in the Impressionist exhibitions, joining all but one of the eight between 1874 and 1886. Motherhood didn’t slow her down; she now produces paintings in her studio with Julie, with domestic life as the main subject. 

The entire Manet family was dealt a blow on April 30, 1883, when Édouard died.

His last years were filled with suffering from the symptoms of syphilis. His gangrenous left foot was amputated on April 19, 1883, just eleven days before he died. Refusing his last rites, he was surrounded by his wife, Suzanne, and loved ones, including Berthe, Julie, and Eugéne. He died in his home on Rue de Saint-Pétersbourg in the 8th, twenty years to the day Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe was shown at the Salon des Refusés. 

On January 5, 1884, a massive retrospective exhibit of Manet’s work opened at the École des Beaux-Arts, including Déjuner, Olympia, and his last painting, Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère. On February 4 & 5, the remaining contents of his studio were sold at auction at the Hotel Drouot. Morisot and her husband bought 8 pieces, and other members of the Manet family grabbed many of the others. The sale was a disaster, and many went for next to nothing. Oh, to be able to travel back in time to that sale. 

With the loss of her mentor and friend, Berthe spends more time with Renoir, who often paints and sketches Julie. In the Orsay, Renoir’s sweet portrait of Julie holding her cat always makes me smile. 

In Manet’s lifetime, he was never one to shy away from controversy, none more so than in 1863 with the completion of Dejeuner sur l’herbe and Olympia.  After his death and the dismal success of the auction of his work, Susanne Manet had plans to sell Olympia to a wealthy American buyer for 20,000 francs.  Claude Monet led a campaign with the help of Berthe and Eugéne to raise funds to purchase Olympia, and urged the Musée du Luxembourg and the Louvre to step in to save the painting and keep it in France. 

Letters survive today, written by many of the artists, including John Singer Sargent, to Monet, which was recently exhibited at the Sargent exhibit at the Orsay. A handwritten list of artists that donated includes Proust, Pissarro, Sargent, Rouart, Moreau-Nelaton, and Rodin. Raising 19,415 francs and purchased in March 1890 by the Luxembourg and is now in the Musée d’Orsay.

The trio that was Berthe, Eugéne, and Julie often spent time in the countryside, including Giverny, to visit Monet. On November 29, 1891, Berthe and Eugéne purchased the Château du Mesnil Saint Laurent in the town of Juziers, one hour northwest of Paris. Although she wasn’t fond of the drafty 16th-century chateau. 

When Julie was just 5 years old, Eugéne Manet died of syphilis, the same thing that took his brother and father on April 13, 1892.  He was just 59, and Julie would have a wide group of “uncles” who would look after her. Degas, Monet, Renoir, and the poet Stéphane Mallarmé stepped in as her new guardians, along with her mother. 

Julie continued to grow up on the canvases of her mother and Renoir.   In 1894, Renoir painted Mother and Daughter together for the last time. 

In January 1895, Julie became quite ill with the flu. Berthe took care of her but also became ill. Berthe died on March 2, 1895, at 54, at 10 rue Weber, on the edge of Paris. It is normally mentioned that she died of pneumonia; however, it was most likely syphilis that also took the life of her husband three years before.

Three days later, Morisot was buried in the Manet family tomb at the Passy Cemetery in the Trocadero in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. With her husband, Eugène, and brother-in-law, Édouard, the two artists would spend eternity together. 

Julie was 17 years old and, with the help of her “uncles,” would do all she could to keep her mother's legacy alive. In 1896, with the help of Monet, Renoir, and Degas, 390 of the more than 400 paintings and drawings by Berthe Morisot were brought together in the Durand-Ruel Galerie for a retrospective.

Julie became an artist in her own right and, like her mother, worked at the Louvre as a copyist. On one visit in 1897, she met artist Ernest Rouart. The two married on May 29, 1900,
Through Julie and a large family of artists who looked after her, Berthe’s art lived on. Whether she was in front or behind the canvas, she was an amazing woman whom we are lucky to enjoy today. 

You can find many of her pieces in the Musée d’Orsay, Petit Palais, and the Musée Marmottan Monet, where you can also find some of the sketches Manet did of her. 

Manet’s paintings of Morisot 

The Balcony 1868- 1869. Purchased by Gustave Caillebotte and left to the French state and held in the Orsay today. 

Repose 1870, the one painting Manet did of Berthe that she wanted more than any other, but never owned. Now in Rhode Island School of Design. 

My very favorite Berthe Morisot with Violets, painted in 1872, was purchased by Theodore Duret from Manet was purchased by Berthe just before her death and remained in the Morisot-Rouart family until Julie’s son, Clement, sold the painting in 1998. It was purchased with the Meyer Foundation's help and given to the Orsay. She is currently traveling between San Francisco to Clevelend until she returns home in July.

Berthe Morisot with a Muff, 1871-1872, sold at the February 1884 auction and now held in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Berthe Morisot with Half Veil 1871-72, also sold at the February 1884 auction and now in the Petit Palais, Geneva. 

Berthe with Fan 1872 was owned by one of my favorite collectors, Etienne Moreau-Nelaton, and left to the Louvre in 1906, which also altered the perception of Impressionism. In the Orsay today.

Berthe with Pink Slippers, 1872, is now in the Horishima Museum of Art and is currently on exhibit in the US. 

Berthe Morisot Reclining (1873), the only painting that Manet gave to his subject, remained in the family's collection until 1993 and was given to the Marmottan Monet by her grandson, Denis Rouart. 

Berthe in Mourning, 1874, was painted just after the death of her father in January 1874. It was held in the collection of Dr George de Bellio and later his daughter Victorine. It was refused by the state in the donation made in her father’s name to the Musée Marmottan Monet in 1940. Now held in a private collection.

The last painting, Berthe with a Fan, 1874, was likely painted after her engagement with Eugene. It stayed with the Manet-Morisot-Rouart family until 1999, when it was given in lieu of inheritance taxes. Today, it is on display at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Lille. 

If you are near Cleveland visit the Manet & Morisot exhibit that opens March 29 and runs until July 5, then hopefully all my babies return to Paris.

https://www.clevelandart.org/exhibitions/manet-morisot

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Episode 7 - Madame du Barry

Jeanne de Bécu was most likely born on August 19th, 1743, in Vaucouleurs, what iin the Grand Est of France. Much of her beginning is a little up in the air, and depending on what sources you find, many pick and choose which one theyfollow. We do know without a doubt that her mother was Anne Bécou, a cook and seamstress at the Picpus convent. Extremely beautiful, people were drawn to her, including the Franciscan Monk and most likely father, Jean Baptiste Gomard de Vaubernier, “frere ange.”

On July 19, 1749, in the Eglise Saint-Eustache, Anne married Nicolas Rançun, whom she met while working as a cook for Claude Billard-Dumonceau. Jeanne was just four years old when she and her mother moved to Paris, and she would also work for the lady of the house, Madame Billard-Dumonceau. In the fall of 1749, Jeanne was sent to the Convent des Dames Bénédictines du Saint Sacrement near the Val de Grace in the Latin Quarter.  Jeanne remained at school for 9 years until she was 15, and she looked back fondly on her time there, which gave her a love of reading she would carry for the rest of her life. 

After leaving the convent, she got a job as an apprentice for a hairdresser named Lametz, and, depending on the sources that you read, she definitely had an affair with him, or she might have even married him. She remained with him until she spent much of his money, then fled from Paris. 

View from her private apartments at Versailles

Jeanne was strikingly beautiful, with blonde curls and beautiful blue eyes; she made an impression on everyone who passed her. Her next job took her to the chateau of the Farmer General, Monsieur de la Garde, outside Paris. As a housemaid, she spent her days cleaning for the family but catching the attention of Madame Elisabeth de la Garde’s sons. 

The De la Garde men were both married, but that didn’t stop them from falling in love with the beautiful Jeanne. When the lady of the chateau found out, she fired Jeanne and sent her away immediately. 

Upon her return to Paris, she obtained a job at La Toilette, a dress shop owned by Claude-Edme Labille, father of the artist Adelaide Labille-Guiard. Located on the Rue de la Ferronnerie near Les Halles, and the same street where Henri IV was killed. 

Adelaide Labille-Guiard

Daily, Jeanne would see the upper-crust ladies arriving for the newest fashions.  Adelaide would go on to be one of the great female artists of the time and contemporary to Vigee le Brun. 

Jeanne’s stepfather, Nicolas, met Jean-Baptiste du Barry in Corsica, an introduction made by the Billard-Dumonceau family. Jean Baptiste employed Niçolas and, in turne put up Jeanne and her mother Anne in a new apartment off the Place des Victoires. Jean-Baptiste was twenty years older than the beautiful Jeanne and wined and dined her around Paris, taking her to the ballet, opera, and the Paris casino he also owned.

Jean-Baptiste du Barry was known as “La Roué” for his loose morals. He owned the casino, but he also had a brothel and a pimp linking the elite of Paris and the court of Versailles to beautiful women. 

Jeanne now went by the name Jeanne de Vaubanère. Taking the name of her supposed father, the monk, and that's what she decided to call herself. But Du Barry ended up renaming Jeanne, Madame Lange, and she was incredibly famous among men because she was so beautiful.

Chairs by Sulpice Brizard 1770 used at Fontainebleau in the apartment of Empress Josephine

In last week’s episode, we covered the life of Madame de Pompadour, the headmistress of Louis XV from 1745 to 1750. After the physical relationship with the king ended, Pompadour, with the help of Charles Jacques Colin,  set up a private brothel, just for the king, in the nearby Parc-aux-Cerfs.  

When the king needed a new lady, his valet Dominique-Guillaume Le Bel would invite one of the charming ladies from the Parc-aux-Cerfs to the palace for a private dinner in his dining room. Louis XV could watch from a crack in the door as she was interviewed, and if he liked what he saw, they were delivered to the king's room. 

Jeanne had been a frequent visitor to the court of Versailles with Jean-Baptiste de Barry and other influential men who wanted this beauty on their arm. Although there was so much more than just that happening. 

At Versailles, everyone's intention was to get as close to the king as possible. I shared last week the story that the most coveted job men paid for was to sit with the king on his other throne each morning. Once close to the king, many men were bestowed with properties and titles, high-ranking positions in court, and money beyond their wildest dreams. When it came to having Jeanne on their arm, it wasn’t much different. 

The men surrounding Louis XIV might be more well-known, as their names can be found all over Paris. Louis XV, in general, is a bit of the forgotten king between the two more infamous relatives that came before and after him, but like any king, he had those jockeying for power and whispering in the hidden corridors of Versailles. 

Welcome the Duc de Richelieu and the Duc de Choiseul into our story.  The duc de Choiseul served as the Minister of State for Louis XV from 1758 to 1770, and he owed that position to Madame de Pompadour. After her death in 1764, he was constantly in fear of losing his job and his proximity to the king.  The next year, the Dauphin died on December 20, 1765, and tragedy hit again when the queen died on June 24, 1768. 

Madame du Barry en Muse by François-Hubert Drouais

The king had a string of mistresses after Pompidour, but the loss of his son and his wife weighed heavily on him. Choiseul, in fear of his position, wanted to bring his sister, the Duchess de Grammont, into the position of the king's favorite, but the Duc de Richelieu had other ideas. 

Louis François Armand, the Duc de Richelieu, great-nephew of the former cardinal, hated Choiseul. Jean Baptiste du Barry knew Richelieu well, and the two proposed bringing Jeanne to Versailles to meet Louis XV.  In April 1768, the lovely Jeanne entered Versailles and captured the king's heart. 

The women of the king were the worst-kept secret at Versailles. They may be hidden away in private rooms, but the hundreds of courtiers knew everything that went on. To try to evade the whispers, the first encounters with the king, orchestrated by Le Bel, were at his favorite Château de Compiègne. For weeks, the king and Jeanne would escape while the news spread at Versailles. Choiseul was livid and would make it his mission to try to destroy Jeanne and their relationship.  

The king was falling in love, but Jeanne was a commoner and well known as a former prostitute, and there were rules at Versailles that even the king could not override.  Louis XV’s trusted valet, Jean Benjamen de La Borde, had to fix the situation. 

On September 1st, 1768, she married her pimp's brother, Guillaume du Barry, so that's where she became Madame du Barry. The two were married at 5 am at the Eglise Saint Laurent in the 10th by the man who was also her supposed father, Jean Baptiste Gomard de Vaubernier. 

Having a husband wasn’t enough; she also had to prove her lineage to the great families of France. Du Barry did not have that, and so they attached his family to a wealthy house of the Barrimore of Irish nobility. It was enough for the king's genealogist to look the other way.  

Her husband, Guillaume du Barry, is immediately sent away to the south of France and given property and money from the king to exit the scene. 

As early as December 1768, Du Barry moved into the former rooms of the kings Valet Le Bel after his death. Just as with Pompadour, she had to be presented at court, and a sponsor, or “godmother,” was needed. Louis XV again picked someone who was indebted to the crown and couldn’t say no. 

By this time, Jeanne and her past were well known in the gilded rooms of Versailles. The daughters of the king hated her, and of course, Choisuel, but money talks. Angelique Gabrielle de Sufferte Joumard, the Countess of Béarn, took the role of sponsor, a move that would draw every eye in the palace to her. 

The Countess of Béarn agreed, but she was terrified. When the big day came for her to present, Madame du Barry pretended she had a sprained ankle, and she couldn't do it. At the next event she was supposed to attend, she claimed she was too sick, but the king's valet persuaded her otherwise.

On April 22nd, 1769, the day finally arrived. Du Barry was wearing a beautiful white dress that was woven with silver threads and covered in jewels, and she was presented at Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors. As far as the king was concerned, this was over. Jeanne was twenty-six, the king fifty-nine, and infatuated with the beautiful and spirited young lady. The next day, Jeanne was seated beside the king in the chapel of Versailles for Sunday mass, much to the dismay of his daughters.

Salle à manger

Her days at court were lonely; the daughters hated her and turned everyone against her. Following her acceptance at court, her sister-in-law Françoise Claire, “Chon,” and Bischi moved to Versailles to serve as her ladies. 

Madame de Pompadour was very intelligent and cultured, and the court's daughters and ladies hated her. Du Barry was given the same treatment at Versailles. Movies, books, and even tour guides depict Du Barry as devoid of manners or class. Raunchy and even a bit uncooth, but many accounts tell of how polite and refined she was. Between her education at the convent and her time surrounded by high society in her former jobs as a hairdresser and a clothing store owner, she picked up a few things. 

In December 1770, Madame du Barry moved up to the second floor into an eight-room suite just over the private rooms of Louis XV. I recently visited these rooms on a private visit, and my jaw dropped as we entered her bedroom. The rooms overlook the central Cour Royale, behind those beautiful gold-gilded windows. Covered in wainscotting by Honoré Guibert, the king spared no expense to create some of the most lavish rooms of all the private apartments of Versailles. 

Cabinetmakers Louis Delanois, sculptor Claude-Nicolas Guichard, painter and gilder Jean-Baptiste Cagny, and furniture supplier Simon-Philippe Poirer filled each room. 

Three staircases lead to her suite of rooms, including the private one used by the king himself, the Escalier Épernon. I can’t express how delighted I am to have the opportunity to walk in these spaces. I only wish I could channel their spirit of being in these spaces, with better hygiene, of course. 

A beautiful Turkish bed in her chambre that we see actually had the markings of Marie Antoinette and not Du Barry, her spirit would really have a problem with that. 

A few items that once belonged to Jeanne have returned, including a small table by Martin Carin inlaid with multiple colors of marble and shells into a design of birds and flowers. A statuette of a lounging nude woman that upset the guide is quite seductive andwas purchased by Du Barry for her Chateau de Louveciennes. 

The suite continues with a large study, again with gilded wainscotting and maintained yellow Versailles parquet. The rooms underwent a massive restoration during Covid, and the yellow returned to the floors just as it had been when she lived there.  The salle à manger has a touch of green in the wainscotting and ceiling details, and the antechamber next to it has light-pink details. Within the antechamber, behind a locked cabinet, is the treasury of Sèvres porcelain, once owned by Du Barry. 

The largest set of “celestial blue ribbon” in plates of all sizes and serving pieces designed by Nicolas Catrice was purchased by Jean Baptiste Buffault. A few serving pieces in the “to the love” design by Nicolas Dodin are also in the light blue. The darker royal blue found on many Sèvres designs was reserved only for the king or queen. 

One special plate sits on the shelf and was designed for Madame du Barry. The edges of the plate are surrounded by a floral garland and vases, and in the center is the cypher DB for Du Barry.  Commissioned by Madame and delivered August 29, 1771, and painted by Jean Baptiste Tandert. They were used for a very special event at the Chateau de Louvecienne. The Louvre also has a few pieces in the set, but sadly, not on display. 

In July 1769, Louis XV gave Du Barry the small Château de Louveciennes, which sat above the Seine between Malmaison and Marly, and just 7 km from Versailles. The small pavilion, built in 1653 by Robert de Cotte, architect for Louis XIV, was located along the Marly water machine, which drew water from the Marly to Versailles. 

Du Barry loved to spend her days designing the gardens, adding stables with horses, sheep, cows, and swans in her lake. The pavillon was rather small, and the king didn’t like to visit the cramped quarters. 

In January 1771, architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux was asked to design a music pavillon to be built at the lower edge of the garden on the hill overlooking the Seine. It was built quickly, and on September 2, 1771, a lavish inauguration ceremony was held with the king in attendance. Francois Boucher and Fragonard painted the walls and ceiling of the Neo-classical temple.

And that beautiful Sèvres porcelain plate was one of 145 she had made for the celebration. Just imagine who might have held that plate? 

Jeanne du Barry was enjoying the good life, but things would soon change. 

It was May 15th, 1770, and the arrival of the Dauphine of France, Marie Antoinette. The wedding will take place the next day in Versailles, but the night before, the King's and Dauphin's families will gather for dinner at the Château de la Muette. It had just been the day before that she met her husband for the first time. Marie Antoinette was just 14 years old, and while raised in the court of Austria, she was stepping into a new role and country. 

Dinner at the Chateau de la Muette was to be a close family affair, but for Louis XV, that included Madame du Barry. Marie Antoinette noticed the beautiful Du Barry and asked who she was. Madame de Noailles didn’t hold back and told the young bride about the scandals of Du Barry's past and how she was hated by everyone. 

From that point forward, Marie Antoinette refused to speak to her or even acknowledge her existence. As the headmistress of the king, she held a seat high above any other woman in the palace, especially since the Queen had passed many years before. However, now that the Dauphine arrived, everything changed. 

For more than two years, Marie Antoinette refused to speak to Du Barry. Meanwhile, the problems within the bedroom of the young royal couple, or lack thereof, we shall say, were a cause of great concern for the Austrians. Their relationship still hadn’t been consummated, and now add her refusal to speak to Du Barry. The entire alliance of Austria and France was at stake. 

Marie Antoinette’s mother, the Empress of Austria, sent her a letter and said, "You need to fix this, or you're gonna ruin everything." So on New Year's Day 1772, Marie Antoinette walked up to Du Barry and said, "There are many people at Versailles today," and those were the only words she would ever say to her. 

Du Barry retreated to her chateau and the Petit Trianon with the king, increasingly to remove herself from Versailles in those final years.  

In April of 1774, the king became very ill, and on April 26, he was diagnosed with smallpox. Jeanne was at his side every moment until May 3, when, close to death, he was visited by Cardinal de La Roche-Aymo,n who took his confession. This was the last moment Jeanne would see the king. Asking for forgiveness, he must cast out his scandalous mistress and send her away. 

On May 10, 1774, at 3:28 pm, Louis XV took his last breath. 

Jeanne was sent away to the Chateau de Val de Ruel, where she remained until the death of the king. Louis XV left orders that she be taken to the Convent of the Pont aux Dames in Couilly. 

As the royal mistress, you have little protection once the king has died. Louis XV had left orders for her to be taken care of and furnished with a pension, but thre wasn’t anybody left to make sure that would happen.  

Exiled from Versailles, she was forbidden to be within 10 km of the palace. If you remember, the Chateau de Louveciennes was just 7 km away. 

In October of 1776, Louis XVI allowed her to return to the place she loved, Louveciennes, and also granted her a higher pension to support it. The beautiful Jeanne was rarely alone, entertaining one gentleman after another.  

In the years that followed, she led a somewhat quiet life, spending much of her attention on the Duc de Brissac. 

As the years of the Revolution approached, she thought she would e untouched by the uprising. She came from modest origins and was no longer a part of the court of Versailles or friendly with the monarchy, but a few missteps would put her in the center of the action. 

When she entered the court of Versailles and was appointed the headmistress in 1769, Louis XV gave her a gift. Presented to her was a 7-year-old black boy named Zamore. Taken by British merchants from Bengal when he was just 4 years old. Du Barry took care of him, teaching him to read and write, but often treats him like a toy for her entertainment. After the death of Louis XV, he was also run out of Versailles and made his way to Louveciennes and later reunited with Du Barry. 

The entire thing is disturbing to say the least. 

As the Revolution began, Zamore turned against her and joined the Jacobins in support of the Revolutionaries. When she learned what he had done, she gave him an ultimatum: quit the Jacobins or leave. He chose to leave. 

Zamore wasn't so happy about that, and he went back to his new friends and told them all about her lavish life and spending and how she still sided with the aristocracy and even helped them flee France. 

Another episode that added to her downfall occurred on the night of January 10 to 11, 1791. Madame du Barry was away, and Zamore was to stay in the chateau in her room to watch her valuables. That night, a gang of five thieves broke in and stole countless necklaces, rings, bracelets filled with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls. 

Incredibly upset, Madame du Barry visits her notary, who advises she make a public plea to recover her jewels and a reward of 2000 Louis for their return. 

Shortly, just three weeks later, she gets word that some of her jewels have been found in London. Jeweller Simon Leon was approached by two men trying to sell the jewels at a very low price, which alerted him. The fliers she created had reached London, and the jeweler put two and two together. 

On February 4, 1791, Madame du Barry left for London on the first of four trips in two years. Each visit, she took people with her, including Zamore and other friends of the aristocracy. 

There are many accounts of the theft of her jewels that point the finger at Du Barry herself. That she concocted a plan to have the jewels stolen so she could avoid taxes. 

Either way, the big mistake was creating the flyers that circulated throughout Paris, to London, and into northern Europe. Now the Committee of Public Safety could see she was still dripping with the riches of the court of Versailles. 

Between the theft and public display of her wealth, her frequent trips to London that raised suspicion, and her appearance with the help of Zamore’s stories to be one of trafficking the aristocracy out of France, it all came to a head. 

While in London on February 27, 1793, just a month after the death of Louis XVI, she was informed that the Committee of Public Safety had taken her chateau and placed a seal on it. She was advised to stay in London, but she wanted to return to her chateau to retrieve her belongings. 

She should have stayed in London.

On September 22, 1793, she was arrested and put on trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal, accused of treason. Now held in the Antechamber of Death, the Conciergeri,e she waited for her fate. 

The trial began on December 6, 1793, six weeks after the death of Marie Antoinette. 

Bird cage with porcelain flowers and the crest of Madame Du Barry, but was never owned by her

Still believing she could fight her way out of this, she offered the guards, in exchange for her freedom, that she would tell them where the many hiding places of her jewels were.  They told her to make a list, and they would see what they could do. 

They had no intention of helping her and were given the list, and she only bought a few extra hours of freedom. 

In the dark of night on December 8, 1793, she was taken through the streets of Paris to the  Place de la Révolution, screaming and crying. They had never seen anything like that. It was a very cold evening, and few were in attendance to see her fate sealed. She was kicking and screaming all the way to the end. 

Her final words were “just one minute Mr Executioner, I loved life too much to have it taken away like this”. Charles-Henri Sanson dropped the blade and ended the life of Madame du Barry. 

Her body was tossed into the mass grave of the Madeleine Cemetery, where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were also left. In the end, they all ended in the same place and with the same fate. Although Du Barry doesn’t have a special altar or statue marking her final resting place. 

She is remembered today in portraits created by Vigee Le Brun; one is in the Philadelphia Museum, the other two in private hands. The Louvre holds a few of her statues that once decorated her chateau gardens and in her music pavillon.
As for the music pavilion, it was recently purchased by Xavier Niel, owner of Free mobile for 38 million euros in November 2025. 
Listen to episode three, Marie Antoinette and the Affair of the Necklace. All about the stunning and lavish necklace Louis XV wanted for Du Barry, but died before it could be completed. 

Little is known about the jewels that once belonged to Du Barry; the thieves destroyed many of them after they were stolen, and little has come to auction that can be attributed to her with certainty.

Martin Carlin commode with Sèvres porcelain plaques.

Used at Versailles and Château de Louvenciennes and now in the Louvre

Check out the Jeanne du Barry movie, released in 2023, starring and directed by Maiwenn as Jeanne du Barry and Johnny Depp as Louis XV.  The movie is visually stunning, with wonderful costumes and settings, but her portrayal of Jeanne has most historians confused. They also added characters or changed their importance to her story at their own whim. 

Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette also portrays Madame du Barry with Asia Argento in the role.  

For a fun version, look for the 1943 film Du Barry Was a Lady starring Lucille Ball, Gene Kelly, and Red Skelton.  

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Episode 6 - Madame de Pompidour

Known as the mistress to the king, the Marquise de Pompadour was much more than that, and we can thank her still today for beautiful buildings, art, porcelain, and even a diamond.

Jeanne- Antoinette Poisson was born on December 29, 1721, in Paris. Her likely father, François Poisson, had worked for the Regent Philippe d’Orléans before serving as a commissioner for food delivery in Paris. In 1725, a famine followed three months of relentless rain that destroyed most of the agriculture, leading to widespread hunger. 

Poisson was apparently running a little business on the side and was convicted of trafficking food and forced to flee France. Settling in Germany, he would never see his daughter again. Jeanne Antoinette and her mother, Louise Madeleine de La Motte, would lose everything. 

Madeleine wasn’t lonely for too long and had a few lovers at her ready, one of which might have been Jeanne’s actual father. Women had few choices then and couldn’t really just go out and get a job, or at least a respectable one. Enter Jean Paris de Montmartel, a wealthy gentleman, the fourth sibling of the Paris Brothers, for whom her first husband worked, and the godfather of Jeanne. 

Bachelor number two, Charles François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem, and number one in the running for Jeanne’s father, became her legal guardian when her father was exiled in 1725. Before his exile, her father set-up that when Jeanne turned six, she would be placed in the Ursuline  Convent in Passy, where her father's two sisters were nuns. Young Jeanne was educated among the elite and members of the king's court. After three years away, missing her father and often sick, she returned to her mother in 1730. 

Upon her return home, her mother took her to a fortune teller, as one does. The woman told her mother that Jeanne “would reign over the heart of the king”. Jeanne noted the event in her own writings, two decades later, noting “six hundred livres a year” to  “this woman for having predicted, when I was nine, that I would be the King’s mistress”. 

From that day forward, Jeanne was known as “Reignette,” the Little Queen, and was groomed for her destiny. Charles-François brought in the best and brightest to teach her everything from singing and acting to painting and engraving. From a young age, she loved to read and spend time in nature, watching for birds and playing in the garden. 

Jeanne hadn’t met the king yet, so on March 9, 1741, at 19 years old, she was married in the Église Saint-Eustache, the same church she was baptised in. Charles Guillaume Le Normant d’Etiolles was the lucky man who was also the nephew of her guardian / maybe father, and sole heir to a vast fortune. Neither was thrilled with the arraignment, but they would fall in love and promised she would never leave him unless the king came calling.

The couple settled into the lovely Chateau in Étiolles, seventeen miles from Paris and more importantly, twenty-five miles from Versailles. Their first child, Charles Guillaume, arrived on  December 26, 1741, but didn’t reach his first birthday. Three years later, a daughter, Alexandrine, was born on  August 10, 1744.  Spending time between their chateau and Paris, the interesting and well read Madmae de l’Etiolles was the belle of the salons. Drawing the attention of the writers, artists, and courtiers, the news of the beautiful and intellectual Jeanne began to spread all the way to Versailles. 

The Chateau de l’Étiolles sat at the edge of the Senart forest, a frequent hunting spot for the king.  As early as 1743, Jeanne “the Reinette” put herself in the path of the king. 

One day, she dressed in a beautiful blue dress, hopped into a pink carriage, and cut into the path of Louis XV.  The striking Jeanne caught his attention but sped away, causing the king to ask everyone who she might be. 

Months later, in the fall, now dressed in a pink dress and riding in a blue carriage, she crosses his path again. This time, the king now knew who the beauty in the pastel dresses was and sent her a special gift, an entire venison that he had killed. Nothing says love like a massive animal. Is there any romance anymore? 

Marie Anne de Mailly by Jean-Marc Nattier

Meanwhile, back at Versailles, it was all anyone could talk about. The current headmistress, the Duchess of Chateauroux, was not too pleased to hear all the attention this new beauty was getting. Marie Anne de Mailly Nesle and her two sisters had all served as mistresses to the king between 1733 and 1744. One after another, they entertained the king's pleasures. I would have loved to be at that family Christmas.  In  August of 1744, Marie Anne, the last of the sisters, was with the king in Metz when he became violently ill. For days, he was bled with leeches and promised that if he survived, he would build a temple to Sainte Genevieve back in Paris, but he also sent his mistress packing and back to Versailles. He survived, and that temple would become the Pantheon in Paris, but it was his grandson, Louis XVI, who brought it to fruition.  Back at Versailles and healthy again, he returned to his nightly visits to the Duchess of Chateauroux. A few months later,  on December 8, 1744, she died of Peritonitis at 27 years old 

The date was February 25, 1745, and the day she had trained for had arrived. The Reinette was going to Versailles. The marriage of Louis de France to the Infanta Marie Theresa of Spain was being celebrated with a masked costume ball in the Galerie des Glaces. In a nod to how they met, Jeanne was dressed as Diane the huntress. Louis XV and his men dressed as topiary yew trees; it had to be a sight to behold. The star-crossed lovers, that would be the tree and the huntress, found each other across the crowded forest, or hall of mirrors. 

Three days later, on February 28, the Dauphin's marriage was celebrated again, this time in Paris at the Hotel de Ville, but it was another relationship that had everyone whispering. Louis XV put all the talk to rest when, against his advisor's judgment, he publicly announced his undying love for Jeanne. 

Back at home, the husband should have known this might happen; after all, it was predestined, and she did tell him she would stay with him unless the king called. The king had a way of dealing with these things. Monsieur de l’Etiolles was given the château de Pompidour and the title of Marquis, both conveniently located in southwestern France. 

The same year, on May 7th, the official separation from her husband was decreed, an act that was very difficult back then, but when the king wants it, anything can happen. The Marquise de Pompidour was now free for the king, but there was still another problem. 

While the king could give away chateaux, titles, and even grand separations, being accepted at court had its own rules. In the summer of 1745, she was a regular visitor to Versailles and would then return to her nearby chateau, yet this wasn’t close enough for Louis XV. 

On September 10, 1745, Louis XV invited the Marquise de Pompidour to move to Versailles. Installed in the former apartment of his last mistress in the attic above his private rooms. 

She still faced the problem of being presented at court, but Louis XV made a shrewd deal with Louise-Elisabeth de Bourbon-Conti, the legitimized granddaughter of Louis XIV. In return for erasing the debts of her husband, she would serve as the godmother of Pompidour and present her to the court, solidifying her place in the chateau on September 15, 1745.

I was lucky enough to see her first private apartment at Versailles last week. Normally closed to the public, they do offer special private visits from time to time, given in French. The rooms are installed over the Mercury, Apollo, and Mars rooms, as well as the private rooms of Louis XV. 

Her suite included four rooms, once accessible only by a “flying chair,” an 18th-century elevator. Sadly, the chair is gone, and little remains of what was in this room when she was alive, but the chateau has procured a few items that belonged to the Marquise and were used in her other homes. As you enter the antichamer you see straight out the window that looks over the forest of Marly and the north parterre of the garden and terrace. 

A beautiful painting of the Marquise by Jean-Marc Nattier is worth the visit alone. Painted in 1746 and commissioned by her godfather, Le Normant de Tournehem, in October 1746. She is perfectly captured by the Rococo master as Diane the Huntress, whom she dressed as for the masked ball. Holding a bow and loosely wrapped with a leopard fur, her rosy cheeks and soft face look right at you. It was her first official portrait after she arrived at court. It was later given to her brother, who kept it until his death in the Chateau de Ménars in the Loire Valley. In 2023, the Friends of Versailles purchased it at a Sotheby’s auction in London for 546,000€  and now keeps it tucked away from the crowds. 

On either side of the doors are two of the important men of her life. On the right, a painting by Louis Tourqué and Charles-François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem, who, thanks to Pompadour's relationship, served as the superintendent of the king's buildings from 1746 to 1751. On the left side, also by Tourqué, Abel Francois Poisson, the Marquis of Marigny, and brother also served as superintendent following the death of Tournehem. 

The attic of Versailles wasn’t a scary, dark place you find at your grandparents' house, but it was a cold one. Without any heat, the rooms were freezing, and after the first winter, the king had the rooms reconfigured. By the start of 1747, the large bedroom had been converted into a smaller sitting room. An alcove was cut into the wall for the bed, the first one in Versailles, which allowed the bed to be covered with a curtain at night and to hold in the heat. 

They say that the king never saw his mistresses in his private bedroom, but he would take the flying chair to the attic to see Pompidour whenever he wished. To the left of the antechamber, the sitting room of the former bedroom is quite large. Today, it is filled with furniture and objects, many of which were once owned by the duke and duchess of Windsor, Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. Once in their home outside of Paris, and purchased at auction all the items that date from the period in which Pompidour had lived here. 

Each room is equipped with a fireplace installed when the rooms were created by Louis XIV, and in beautiful black Campan marble or red Languedoc marble. 

Other paintings include the Love Letter by  Francois Boucher in the large sitting room and Diane et Calisto by Noel Hallé in what was originally her small dining room. A beautiful painting, also by Boucher, of Alexandrine, the Marquise's daughter, painted in 1749.

These rooms will be closed this summer for a few years to work on the chateau's heating system.

As the “favorite” of the king, the headmistress came with many advantages. The term mistress had a very different definition back then than it does today. Royal marriages were arranged for power, money, or land and never for love. Some would find love in the arraignment, but not very often. The queens had to live under constant scrutiny. Never alone and always watched, and anything they did could reflect on the king, many were also known for having a few lovers on the side. 

It had to be a very strange existence, but also the only one they knew. Louis XV was under five years old when Louis XIV died. Given anything and everything that they wanted, surrounded by people whose entire lives were at the whim of the king. The most coveted job at Versailles was the man who sat with the king in the bathroom, a privilege they paid for, which always resulted in gifts of land, palaces, and titles. 

Simply watch shows like Versailles or Sofia Copala’s Marie Antoinette to get an idea of court life. While both took liberties with some of the history, the idea of life at that time can be imagined.  

Most of the Kings had many ladies for their choosing. Often putting them into the roles closest to the queen, so he can keep them within arm's reach. However, there was always one that was at the top of the mistresses' pyramid, la maîtresse en titre. This coveted position sat below the queen and her top lady-in-waiting in the palace hierarchy. A few, over time, used this to their advantage more than others. We will talk about Madame du Barry next week. 

Pompidour was unlike any other mistress. Between her education of all the finer things in life and her many hours spent at the Salons of Paris, she learned the art of conversation. It also helped that she was well-versed in many subjects, including art, literature, and nature. While the king adored her, his daughters and many others did not. 

There was a way things should be done at court. Mistresses should have royal blood, and Pompidour did not. He really shook things up with the next one, but that's a story for next week. 

Her increasing sway she had over the king didn’t help either. Multiple miscarriages took their toll on her health, and five years after entering as the headmistress, she was gradually moved aside into what would be an even more important role. Louis XV confided in and talked to her about everything. Those closest to him in his government were increasingly worried. 

In 1750, she was moved from her attic rooms to the ground floor of the original building. The apartments are usually reserved for the king's family. The large rooms had nine windows overlooking the northern terrace and gardens, and two floors below her old apartment. Here she would invite dignitaries and ministers of the king, who learned that the fastest way to the king and to get what they wanted was through her door. 

After her sexual life with the king ended, she had to figure out a way to remain close and not be shoved out by the next headmistress. To keep the king satisfied, she, with the help of Charles Jacque Colin, set up a private brothel, just for the king, in the nearby Parc-aux-Cerfs. Ladies were chosen for the king and changed out every few weeks to keep his interest. Once they were sent away, they were given vast sums of money and sometimes even small properties. 

On October 12th, 1752, she was given the title of Duchess, and on February 7, 1756, she was appointed lady of the Queen’s palace, the highest honor after the queen. 

Jeanne’s daughter died on June 24, 1754, at just 9 years old. She had been raised at Versailles among other royal children and was set to marry the son of Michel Ferdinand d'Albert d'Ailly I E  when she turned 13. A loss she never really recovered from. 

Her final years at court were spent surrounded by her books and art, but she kept herself very busy, thanks to Jacques Guay, the official engraver to the king. Guay had spent many years in the atelier of Francois Boucher as a lithographic engraver. One day, he met Joseph-Antoine Crozat and saw his massive collection of engraved stones, and fell in love. Taking on the role of the engraver to King Louis XV, who asked him to create a collection of stones engraved with major moments of his reign.  While spending time at court, he met Pompidour and took her on as a student. An entire engraving press was moved into her apartment, and every tool imaginable was used to etch her own stones. Five of these remain, and I saw two of them in 2023 at a special exhibit at Versailles dedicated to Louis XV. Needless to say, I almost died. 

Along with stones, she also engraved and printed entire books. She worked with Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert to print the first edition of the Encyclopedia, which also outraged the government and led to a halt in production after the first two volumes.  

The Louvre holds many of her lithographs based on Boucher and Guay's drawings of Pompadour, which were also used to etch stones. They aren’t on display to the public, but can be seen in the Louvre database here 

Pompadour also took great interest in the porcelain factory at the Château de Vincennes. Bringing many pieces to Versailles and drawing the attention of the king, who in 1753 purchased large sets for his many palaces. In 1756, Pompidour had them move to Sèvres, where the factory and its workers had more space and would become one of the world's greatest porcelain companies. 

She also liked to put on her own plays to entertain the king and court. In the play Pomone and Vertumne, based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Pomone was a beautiful garden nymph who wanted to spend all her time with her flowers. Vertumne, the god of the garden, fell in love with her, but she refused him over and over. Vertumne takes on many disguises and is still refused until one day he dresses as an old woman and reveals himself to her, finally winning her over. Maybe he should have just dressed as a tree.  The Louvre holds a stunning sculpture in the Cour Puget by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, created in 1760. It was never part of the King's or Pompidou's collection, but it is strategically located within the Louvre. 

On the right is a statue of Louis XV as Jupiter by Nicolas Coustou, and on his left, the Queen Marie as Juno by Guillaume Coustou. Just in front of Pomone and Vertumne is a statue of Amite, Friendship by Jean Baptiste Pigalle. Created in 1750 and commissioned by the Marquise de Pompidour herself for the Château de Bellvue. What is remarkable about this one is that it is Pompidour herself's face. She leans forward with one hand towards her chest, and once stood next to a statue of Louis XV. 

Pigalle created a second group of Love Embracing Friendship in 1758. Also commissioned by the marquise for the park of Bellvue, a small terracotta version can also be found in the antechamber of her first apartment. 

In the nineteen years of the relationship between Louis XV and Pompadour, he bestowed many palaces and chateaux on her. The Chateau de Crecy near Dreux in 1746, followed by the Chateau de la Celle - Saint Cloud and Château de Bellevue in 1748. After the intimate relationship ended, he purchased the Hotel de Réservoirs, steps away from the chateau in Versailles, complete with an underground tunnel leading to the palace. However, the most important might have been the Hotel d’Evreux, you know it as the Elysees Palace and home to the President of France. 

The Petit Trianon at the lower edge of the property, and often associated with Marie Antoinette, was in fact built for the Marquise. Sadly, she never saw it completed. 

She also owned a small hermitage within the Châteaux of Fontainebleau, Compiegne, and Choisy, and her last purchase was the Château de Ménars in the Loire Valley.

In 1763, her health began to fail. The cold and drafty rooms of Versailles took their toll. Throughout the winter and spring of 1764, the king moved her doctor, François Quesnay, to Versailles and next to her room. 

On the morning of April 15, 1764, Palm Sunday, Louis XV visited his great love one last time and bestowed one of the greatest honors on her. Letting her take her last breath there at Versailles, an honor normally reserved for the king alone. She died that morning of pulmonary congestion at just 42 years old while the king held her hand. 

Just after her death, she was taken to her nearby Hotel de Résevoirs, where she was displayed for two days before her funeral at the Eglise Notre Dame de Versailles on April 17.  The king was visibly distraught and inconsolable with the loss of his great love and friend. Following the funeral mass, he traveled to Paris with her one last time. 

She was buried next to her mom and her daughter at the Capucine Convent.  Today, the convent is gone, but it’s believed that she is still buried in the same spot. Although that spot is now 3 rue de la Paix and the IWC Schaffhausen watch store. Rather fitting to be that close to Place Vendome and the great jewelry houses of Paris. 

At 3 Rue de la Paix

When it comes to diamonds and jewelery there are two that can be applied to the beautiful Pompadour. The Marquise diamond shape was created for Louis XV, who wished for a diamond in the shape of her lips. The elongated oval cut has come and gone in and out of favor over the years, but given its history, it should be renewed immediately. 

Less well known by name, the Pompadour ring, sometimes called a daisy, features a central colored stone surrounded by smaller diamonds. The sapphire and diamond engagement ring worn by Princess Diana, then the current Princess of Wales, is a perfect example of the Pompadour ring. The first was created for the Marquise de Pompadour by Louis XV. Since she wasn’t an official member of the Crown, we don’t know much about these jewels even to this day.

She should be remembered as a huge promoter of the arts in all forms. Welcoming many of the great Rococo artists of her time to Versailles and to the attention of the king. You can still find many of the paintings of Boucher in the bedroom of Queen Marie Antoinette and in the Salle Pompadour at Elysees palace. 

The creation of the Place Louis XV, which became the Place de la Revolution, which turned into Place de la Concorde, was all the urging of his great love. 

Whenever she posed for a painting, she asked that many of the things she loved surround her. The best example is the pastel by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, created in 1748. Owned by the Louvre but rarely displayed due to its fragility, the Marquis sits in her chair in a beautiful silver-gray dress. On the desk where she rests her arm are books she printed, including the Encyclopedia and even a drawing of her working on a lithograph plate.

Today, her name is remembered alongside Marie Antoinette as one of the two most famous women in the history of the French monarchy.  And both have even been wrongly attached to the old champagne coupe story, due to the shape of their breasts. 

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Episode 5 -The Fire of the Petite Galerie and the Birth of the Galerie d'Apollon

In the early morning of February 6, 1661, a fire raged through what was described as “the most beautiful gallery in the world.”  350 years ago, a Sunday morning marked a turning point in the history of the Louvre in the same space that made news four months ago.

The year 1661 was pivotal in the life of Louis XIV; after the death of his closest advisor and godfather, Cardinal Mazarin, he would seize control of the government, and the grand story of the Sun King began. He was just 22 years old.

Before his death, Cardinal Mazarin influenced everything from the people who had access to the king to the design of royal buildings and the amassing of the royal collection. In the 1650s, with the architect Louis Le Vau, Mazarin sought to expand the Palais du Louvre to include a theater, library, and galleries for the king's paintings, sculptures, and other objects. 

It is hard to imagine the Louvre of the 16th and 17th centuries when you look at the massive structure that spreads over the center of Paris today. Originally a medieval fortress built at the end of the 12th century by Philippe Auguste into the wall that surrounded the city. In 1367, Charles V transformed it from a fortress to a palace, adding large rooms, a library, gardens, and even windows. 

We can thank François I for the creation of the Louvre we know today. Upon his arrival in Paris in 1515, he made the palace his official residence, but it hadn’t weathered the years well and was in need of a massive restoration. François tasked architect Pierre Lescot with creating a palace that would reflect France's glory. François had the former palace destroyed, and the new one was built in its place, using many of the same stones.  

François’s son, Henri II, would take on the role of builder after his death, extending his father's vision and completing the central crossing of the Sully wing, the Pavillon d’horloge, and the King’s Pavillion overlooking the Seine. Henri II’s death in 1559 led his wife, Catherine de Medici, to build her own palace in the countryside outside of Paris, the Palais des Tuileries. 

As we discussed last week, it was her son-in-law, Henri IV, who then built the long bord de l’eau, extending from the Palais du Louvre to the Tuileries, an idea she had wanted to pursue before her death. However, Henri IV first had to expand the small palace into a structure to be attached to the long gallery. 

Historians are unsure of the year the Petite Galerie was built, but it could date back as early as 1566 under Catherine de Medici. Although it hadn’t reached much farther than a portion of the ground-level room. Over the next forty years, her three sons held the throne and did more harm than good on the palace. It would be one of my favorite Henri IVs that would take on the role of the greatest creator of the Louvre at the end of the 16th century. 

The Petite Gallery was built steps away from the King's pavilion, which housed his chambers and his closest advisors. Under Charles IX and Henri III, the building was only one level, and the upper level was nothing more than a terrace that the king could use to take in the view over the Seine and the Ile de la Cité. 

The marriage of Henri IV to his second wife, Marie de Medici, in the fall of 1600, was the push they needed to upgrade the palace. The Medici family was used to luxury, and the Louvre was far from it. After their first meeting in Lyon in November 1600, they eventually arrived in Paris in February 1601. Her first view of the Palais du Louvre was in the dark of night on February 15, with nothing more than a few candles lit. It might have been a strategic move on the part of the King, but one he would have to deal with when the sun came up.

The Petite Gallery was a freestanding structure with windows on each side and a small passage over the moat leading to the king's pavilion. The first version of the Petite Gallerie was not much more than a small passageway used solely by the king and his family to reach the Grande Galerie. 

Work on the first floor was undertaken between 1601 and 1607. The exterior was decorated with reliefs dedicated to the king's glory, depicting geniuses and Victories, as well as allegories of the arts and sciences. On the western exterior, the relief of Henri IV with Peace and Abundance at his side. 

The interior of the Petite Gallery is somewhat unknown in terms of exact details, but we do have a few accounts from visitors who described it as “the most beautiful in the world”.  

Henri IV chose his geographer, Antoine de Laval, to lead the design of the Petite Gallerie that would later be known as the Gallery of Kings. De Laval’s plan would center on mythological and allegorical figures that signify the king's strength and virtues.  Artist Toussaint Dubreuil was already well versed in what Henri IV wanted. He had already worked on the Château de Fontainebleau and the Château Neuf de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he was given carte blanche on anything he wanted to create. De Laval was a bit worried about this and wanted to rein in Dubreuil and control the design of the ceiling. In the end, the favor went to Dubreuil, who also worked with the idea Antoine de Laval laid out. 

Ovid’s Metamorphoses was the main theme, focusing on the figures of Perseus and Andromeda, Pan and Syrinx, and Jupiter and Danae. Many of which were painted with the face of Henri IV. Sculptor Barthelemy Trembly was also Toussaint’s brother-in-law and created large figures for the vaults, including Victories holding the coat of arms of France and Navarre, each standing over eight feet tall. 

The walls were decorated with twenty-eight paintings of the kings and queens of France. Beginning with Saint Louis and Marguerite de Provence and ending with Henri IV and Marie de Medici. The complete list is unknown, and six would be missing in chronological order. We do know that the kings filled the western wall between the twelve piers and windows on each side, and the corresponding queens on the eastern wall.  Henri IV and his bride were the first to greet you as you entered from the Salle Ovale, today's Rotunde. 

Surrounding each of the royal figures were as many as twelve to sixteen smaller paintings of key figures of their reign.

Toussaint Debrueil died on November 2, 1602, and the work continued with Jacob Bunel. Dubrueil left behind sketches and cartoons for his atelier and Bunel to carry out, including the idea behind the large portraits. Sadly, very few survive to this day. 

Commissioned on May 22, 1607, Bunel and his wife, Marguerite Bahuche, traveled around France, visiting chateaux and churches to find images of former rulers and their courts to use as the basis for painting the figures' likenesses. A sketch attributed to Bunel can be found in the Louvre archives, depicting Henri IV standing full-length in the center beneath an arch. On either side of the king are oval portraits: the dauphin Louis XIII on his right and his daughter Elisabeth on his left. 

Other sketches by Debruil that survived include one of the central figure, which could be Henri IV under a trumeau and mantle, surrounded by four smaller portraits, and his royal cypher of the letter H, topped with the Bourbon crown. While other accounts mention the paintings around could also have been landscapes and chateaux of the sovereign's reign, as well as verses, inscriptions that hung from the ceiling. It all sounds a bit chaotic and a massive undertaking. 

The paintings of the sovereigns were based on Toussaint's initial vision and executed by Jacob Bunel. Historians believe that his wife, Marguerite Bahuche, also painted the life-size depictions of the queens of France that once hung on the walls opposite each king. Marguerite was born around 1570 and was raised surrounded by her father's art. She married Jacob in 1595 and moved to Paris in 1599. His father had been a painter for Henri IV, and after his death, Henri asked him to come to Paris to work for him. Installed on the ground floor below the Grande Galerie, the couple worked closely with the king, bringing his vision to life. Jacob died in 1614, and Marie de Medicis, now regent, kept Marguerite on and even bestowed the same title, “painter of the king,” on her, allowing her to stay in the Louvre. Marguerite was far ahead of her time, and given opportunities that women were never afforded at that time or even two hundred years later. 

Little remains today of how the Petite Galerie was originally decorated, but the account of the English traveler Thomas Coryate may be the best and most beautifully written. Visiting in June 1608, which would have been close to the completion of the ceiling and walls, he writes in his published journal. “I then entered a room which, in my opinion, is not only the most beautiful thing in the world today, but also the most magnificent thing that has ever been seen since the earth was created”. He continues on, “the description of which would require a large volume in itself. It is divided into three parts, two end sections and between them a very long and very spacious promenade.”

“The vault, of admirable beauty and brilliance, is carved with paintings in the antique style, Gods & angels, the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets, and the signs of the zodiac.”  “So beautiful one can not imagine unless one has seen it with one's own eyes.” This description sounds more like what the ceiling would look like after the fire. 

A different account comes from the memoir by Louis Henri de Loménie the Comte de Brienne wrote when he saw the room shortly before the fire that the ceiling represented "the defeat of the Titans by Jupiter, a large and beautiful piece of allegorical painting in which Henry IV appeared under the figure of Jupiter and the League struck under that of the giants reduced to powder”

On October 22, 1660, Carlo Viagarni, the intendant to the king's pleasures and an Italian scenic designer, sent a letter to Girolamo Graziani and Italian poet, on behalf of the king to design a series of “entertainment for the court during the rainy season.” As well as creating a new stage and theater within the Gallery of Kings. A structure that would be covered in tapestries was completed a month later. In January 1661, the first performance of Ecole Amante by Francesco Buti, a play based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was tied to the ceiling above. 

Performing to great reviews, the next production was planned for a month later. At the end of January, it was announced that Marie Therese was pregnant with what they hoped to be an heir to the throne, and a celebration was planned, including a performance and a ballet in which the king himself would dance and play the lead role. 

L’Impatience, composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully and on a libretto of Isaac de Bensérade and Francesco Buti, was to debut on February 11th in the Gallery of the Kings. Working around the clock to complete the scenery and stage, a single worker had remained on the night of February 5, 1661. Torches lit the space during the long, dark nights of February, when the single worker hurried to finish the stage. Falling asleep early the next morning, a torch, near a pile of wood, caught fire, and the flames quickly climbed the wall and spread through the attic. In the nearby King's Pavilion, Cardinal Mazarin was awakened by his guards as his chamber filled with smoke. The Cardinal had become very weak and sick over the past months and was carried down the steps of the Escalier Henri II in a chair by his guards.  Quickly taken to his palace a few blocks away, the Palais Mazarin, now Bibliothèque Nationale. He was deeply shaken by the fire and would die a month later on March 9, 1661. 

By 9 am on February 6, the flames ravaged the entire Galerie des Rois, destroying everything in its path. The Grande Galerie, which began just outside the door of the Galerie des Rois, was damaged before the flames were brought under control. 

We can all recall watching the valiant firefighters who worked to control the fire that struck Notre Dame on April 15, 2019, but in 1661, they weren’t as lucky as we are to have the equipment we do. Without hoses or water pumps, they had to rely on buckets of water passed from one person to another, from the Seine to the top of the Escalier Henri II, and maybe a little divine intervention. 

First on the scene that early Sunday morning were the monks lodged across the river in the Couvent des Grands Augustins. Accounts depict many of the monks jumping into the fire and pulling the burning beams out to slow the spread. The Swiss guards and courtiers joined the monks, passing buckets of water to extinguish the fire. 

The king and queen ran to the Eglise Saint Germain l’Auxerrois and asked the priest to bring the Holy Sacrament to the scene. Within minutes of his arrival, the winds changed away from the burning structure, and the guards were able to control it before it spread any further. 

What was left behind was a hollowed-out room with only the stone walls remaining. The attic, ceiling, and vaults, walls, and all the art were destroyed. Below in the summer apartments of Anne of Austria, the gorgeous gilded and painted ceiling had been spared from damage, and the King's Pavilion and Cardinal Mazarin’s room escaped the fire but were consumed by the smoke. 

The show went on weeks later when the performance of the Ballet of Impatience was performed in the Grande Gallery on February 22 with Louis XIV in the role of Jupiter. 

The start of the Grande Galerie was also severely damaged, and the entire pavilion was rebuilt and became the Salon Carré in the years that followed. 

For many years, a large painting of Marie de Medici by Frans II Pourbus that hangs in the Louvre was believed to be the one that once graced the east wall as you entered the Gallerie des Rois. 

Painted around 1610 by the Flemish artist Pourbus, who had also painted the king and queen before. The queen, in her coronation robe and crown, fits the description of how queens were depicted in the Galerie des Rois.  The painting's width is what casts doubt, as it is too large to fit between the room's pillars, but we may never know. You can see the painting in room 803 of the Richelieu wing, around the corner from the amazing Medici Cycle by Rubens.  In the same room, a small version of a portrait of Henri IV is also on view, which isn’t associated with the Galerie des Rois, but he is adorable. 

Immediately after the fire, the king ordered the room rebuilt, much to the delight of Louis Le Vau. His earlier design, which he had been developing, was given the green light and was full steam ahead. Maybe too quickly. Le Vau’s vision cut a few corners along the way when it came to the structure of the roof that would have to be fixed many years later, but it’s really the interior of this room that shone. 

The entire upper floor had to be rebuilt and designed to blend in with the building below, with a few changes, and even to return some of the original design motifs. The entire exterior of the Louvre is a giant puzzle dating to the kings and emperors, with one surprising thread running through it all: continuity. While each ruler wants to leave their mark, they have all kept Henri IV's grand design in mind in the overall theme. On closer inspection, you can see the initials of the many kings, especially the H of Henri IV and the N of Napoleon III. 

The construction of the Petite Gallery was finished in two years, and as early as May 1663, the sculptors of the many stucco elements of the ceiling were brought in to bring the ceiling to life, all from the vision of painter Charles Le Brun. Three years later, the sculpture work was complete, and Le Brun began painting, but it would all come to a screeching halt in 1671 when Louis XIV left Paris and the Palais du Louvre behind for Versailles. 

We know this space today as the Gallerie d’Apollon, which was struck by tragedy again on October 19, 2025, also a Sunday morning. As the thieves escaped the balcony created in 1663 by Louis le Vau, they attempted to set the vehicle on fire, destroying evidence. Thankfully, security was gaining ground, and they dropped a torch before it could be lit. I hate to think what might have happened if they had been successful. 

Last week, when the monumental carpets created for the Grande Galerie were on display in the Grande Palais, one of the Apollo carpets recently restored was also presented. 

Ordered by Jean Baptiste Colbert in 1626, the thirteen carpets would reflect the ceiling's design and the Apollo theme. In the center of each carpet was either a lyre, bow, arrows, or torches, surrounded by laurel wreaths. Each is a symbol of the sun god, Apollo. Woven by Simon Lourdet, the official carpet maker of the king, and set up a large atelier for him in the former soap factory along the Seine, a short walk from the Louvre, the same year. 

Unlike the Grande Galerie carpets, the Apollo gallery carpets were laid out in the space for a single occasion. In 166,6 just after their completion, they were presented to the king as he walked through, checking on the progress of the gilded glory of a room. 

The Louvre still holds one in its collection and on display in salle 604 on the 1st floor of the Sully wing. 

Apollo was born from the ashes.  If it weren’t for the fire, the Petite Gallerie may never have become the beautiful Apollo.

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Episode 4 - The Carpets of Louis XIV - A Once in a Lifetime Opportunity

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For just seven days, under the beautiful glass-and-iron roof of the Grand Palais, there is a sight that hasn’t ever been seen since they were created in the 17th century. Stretched out across the over 650-foot-long nave, thirty-one of the 93 carpets intended for the Palais du Louvre and created by Charles le Brun under Louis XIV are a sight to behold. 

Louis XII died on May 14, 1643, the same date as his father, Henri IV, in 1610. Louis XIV was just four years old and unable to rule until he turned 13. In 1661, his coronation was held in Reims, a sight we will also see depicted in another special collection today.  Raised with a taste of the good life, Louis wanted to be surrounded by beauty everywhere he went. 

After his father's death, he grew up in the Palais Cardinal, today’s Palais Royal, which was far more contemporary than the dilapidated Louvre. After the Fronde and escape from Paris, he returned to restore the Louvre to the palace it deserved to be. 

The Louvre in the 17th century was much smaller than it is today. The Middle Ages' fortress and palace were demolished by Francois I, and the current Louvre began to take shape under his son, Henri II, in the 16th century. Since then, each king or emperor added a bit here and there. Louis XIV was no different and added the rest of the Salon Carrée wing and Colonnade, although he fled Paris without putting a roof on it, but that’s a story for another day. 

Inside, he had the lavish summer apartments created for his mother, Anne of Austria, and the Apollo gallery above it. The Adjoining Palais des Tuileries was also largely enhanced by Louis XIV, and the route to it from the Louvre needed its own little glow-up. 

The Galerie du Bord de l’Eau, as it was originally known, was added by Henri IV to link the two palaces so the royal family and court could avoid the weather as they walked between them. It stretches above the Seine, covering 457 meters (1,500 feet) and is over a quarter of a mile long. 

Henri IV began building it in 1595 and finally completed it in 1610, just before his death.  Henri wanted the walls covered with landscape paintings of the French countryside by Jacques Fouquieres, but that would never come to fruition. 

As a child, Henri’s son, Louis XIII, learned to hunt in the long gallery where they brought in a horse, dogs, and foxes, and at one point, a camel was found galloping through the never-ending corridor. On rainy days, he tied a small carriage to his dogs that raced him to the Tuileries.

In 1641, the corridor ceiling was to be embellished by French artist Nicolas Poussin and architect Jacques Lemercier with scenes from the life of Hercules, a figure who plays an important role in the history of the Bourbon kings. Poussin ran into one hurdle after another, many self-inflicted, and returned to Rome, and the project was abandoned. 

Twenty-one years later, in 1662 Jean- Baptiste Colbert sent a sealed and private request to the Ministry of the Marine asking for a very large carpet. Specifically, a Turkish-style, hand-knotted carpet. The Turkish rugs were more durable and made with wool and linen, and a bit more plush than the Persian style. Colbert never received his carpet, so he had to create his own. An initial order placed in August 1662 for thirteen carpets to fill the floor of the Petite Galerie was just the beginning. 

The following year, in 1663, Louis XIV established the Garde Meuble and appointed Gedéon Barbier du Metz as its guardian. This action, in turn, put a greater importance on all the treasures of the crown. The furnishing of the many chateaux and palaces, furniture, tapestries, and even the crown jewels all fell into this important category.  It was then that the Palais du Louvre moved to the top of the list and needed revitalization. 

In 1668, Louis XIV resumed the project his father had abandoned to recreate and restore sections damaged during the Fronde and the 1661 fire. Architect Louis Le Vau used Poussin's designs, added his own touches, and handed over the work to a team of sculptors and artists to embellish the ceilings and walls of the Bord de l’Eau. 

In 1668, the most ambitious project was intended to cover the entire length with carpets. Jean Baptiste Colbert orchestrated the king's project and offered his own vision, and commissioned the largest single carpet project in Europe.  Colbert dictated the size of the carpets but left the rest to painter and decorator Charles Le Brun. Le Brun conceived the concept and instructed multiple artists to design each of the over 80 carpets; a few were duplicated. 

Baudrin Yvart and Francois Francart developed the overall designs and theme under Le Brun's instruction. Other artists, including Nicasius Bernaerts, Jean Lemoyne, aka Le Lorrain, Jean Baptiste Monnoyer, and Pieter Boe,l worked on the animals, fruit, and flowers. Abraham Genoels painted each landscape. 

Each carpet features a large central compartment with an architectural border and, on either end, a cartouche depicting either a landscape scene or a bas-relief cameo of an allegory in light pink, ochre, or pale blue. 

Virtues of the king, including authority, tolerance, fortune, vigilance, and peace, are all depicted by allegories. Religious virtues as well as love, hope, and generosity. The four elements are air, wind, earth, and fire. 

Carpet number 46, Earth is my favorite with the four corners of the world. In the center, a globe is surrounded by animals that represent the four parts of the world.  A horse for Europe, a camel for Asia, a crocodile for the Americas, and an elephant for Africa. On either end, Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, on one side, and Bacchus, the god of wine, on the other.  However, this one holds a hidden treasure that none of the others do. 

In each corner, the artist added a snake that is winding its way around the acanthus leaves, ready to attack the sweet little squirrel. 

Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances, was the richest man in France; he even had more money than the king. He married well twice and amassed vast fortunes, as well as his own family's money. On August 17, 1661, Fouquet threw a little soiree at his newly built chateau Vaux le Vicomte and invited the boss, Louis XIV, to attend. Louis arrived with more than six hundred people as well as Jean Baptiste Colbert.  

Fouquet wanted to impress the king and pulled out all the stops, including fireworks, fountains, and the finest cuisine of the day by François Vatel. Moliere presented his play Les Fâcheux for the first time ,and Jean de la Fontaine read his many fables. 

The beautiful chateau was designed by architect Louis Le Vau, painted by Charles Le Brun, and the gardens by Andre Le Nôtre.  Colbert was so distraught that he started to lay the suspicion on the king that the only way he could afford this had to have been from stealing from the royal coffers. 

On September 5, 1661, the king's birthday, Colbert had Fouquet arrested and all his property seized. He even took his artists who designed his home. It’s no small coincidence that the plans for the Chateau de Versailles exploded at this point and became far more elaborate. 

The coat of arms of the Fouquet family is of a single squirrel, Fouquet meaning squirrel in old French. And you guessed it, the coat of arms of Jean-Baptiste Colbert was that of a snake. Colbert had that added into the carpet that sat in the very center of the Grande Galerie. 

For the landscapes, no details on exactly what each one represents were also brought in. At the time, the Grand Galerie stood on its own and stretched above the Seine with windows lining the entire corridor. Under Napoleon III, sections were added, including the one where the Mona Lisa is now. In the 17th century, the only source of light was from the windows on either side. The windows above us today were not added until the 19th century. 

The intention was that the royal court could stroll down the galerie, taking in the sights along the way. The Seine below, and what was actually many homes on the courtyard side. However, if Henri IV had his wish, the walls would have been covered in the landscapes of France. 

Once the designs were complete, it was time to begin construction of this monumental project. 

The process is inspired by the Turkish and eastern weaving techniques. On a vertical upright loom, two massive fir trees held the yarn for two layers of wool warp threads that went top to bottom. Each row of knots is secured wth the colored weft linen thread that goes horizontally. They are then compacted together to create a tight, secure design and cut with angled scissors to form the dense pile. 

It was under Hot Legs Henri, as I affectionately call him, that the art of weaving tapestries and carpets arrived in Paris. Seeing the success in Italy and in Lyon, he wished to establish the art of silks, furniture making, and tapestries in Paris. First, he designated the eastern part of the Marais for factory construction, but few factories were built. Next, he set out to find artisans he could bring in to build the craft at his feet. 

In 1608, Pierre Dupont, who claimed he was trained in the art of making Turkish and Levantine style of rugs, was named “carpet maker to the king”. His atelier was established on the ground floor of the Louvre, just below the Grande Galerie itself. Henri loved his designs so much that he kept them all for himself and requested more than Pierre could keep up with. 

Teaching his craft to students, an exceptionally adaptable young man, Simon Lourdet showed a talent for weaving. Members of the court would visit their atelier and marvel at the designs, thinking they were looking at a painting. 

Dupont and Lourdet continued working in the atelier after the king's death. Marie de Medicis, now regent for her young son Louis XIII, wanted to establish and grow the industry. In 162,6 Marie named Simon Lourdet as her official carpet maker and set up a large atelier for him in the former soap factory along the Seine, a short walk from the Louvre. 

Dupont was enraged and took it as a betrayal. Fights, public disputes, and lawsuits continued until the two died, and then the battles continued through their sons, who took over each atelier. 

The Manufacture Savonniere, established in 1628, moved into the former soap factory on the hill of Chaillot, where the Palais du Tokyo and the Modern Art museum are today. Under Marie de Medici, it had been turned into an orphanage after the soap factory, and when a larger space was needed for the Lourdet atelier, it was a perfect location, with a built in work force. 

There are a few times when I'm doing research and getting very deep into it that I find things I wish I hadn’t known. The real and unvarnished lives of Chanel, Gertrude Stein, and Simon de Beauvoir, to name a few, and my dislike for them runs deep. And now we can add this little gem of a fact about Marie de Medicis. I covered her in the old podcast many years ago and will update her story again soon, but let’s just say she wasn’t known for being a wonderful woman or loving mother, and now we can add another layer. 

To bring these massive tapestries to life, many hands were needed. Shall we say little hands? Supplied by the Hopital Général, orphans aged 9 to 13 worked and trained as apprentices in exchange for housing, food, and clothing. Marie thought it was a good way to keep the orphaned children from entering a life of begging or crime. 

At any point over the twenty years it took to fulfill the order of the 93 carpets of the Grande Galerie, as well as the 13 for the Galerie d’Apollon, more than fifty weavers worked at one time. A later report established in 1713 looked at the same period of 1664-1673, which covered part of the creation of the carpets; 283 children escaped or died.  

In 1671, with both the Dupont and Lourdet descendants now in charge of each of the ateliers and the family war over, the two joined together in the Savonniere to continue work on the grande galerie carpets. 

After the death of Simon Laurdet, his son Philippe had taken the helm, and after his death in 1719, his wife Jeanne Haffrey Laurdet led the way, and under her leadership, 65 of the 93 carpets were created, and a majority of what you see in this very special exhibit. 

It took over twenty years to finish this monumental task in1689. Louis XIV left Paris in 1682, moving his entire court to Versailles. The carpets were all but forgotten and no longer needed. They never arrived at the Louvre or rolled out into the Grande Galerie. Louis XIV and, later, his grandson, Louis XV, used them as diplomatic gifts, distributing them across Europe and Asia. 

In 1789, during the Revolution, many were sold, given away, cut up or just forgotten and lost.

Napoleon revitalised the Gobelins and sought to restore French grandeur. While few could afford to have large tapestries and carpets made, the Emperor kept the looms moving with new orders and restoration of the many carpets of the Sun King he found and purchased, where they could return home, at least to France if not the Grande Galerie. 

Over time, they have been used in the Elysees Palace in the private and public spaces, multiple French embassies around Europe, and other government offices. 

Today, the Manufacturers National has 41 in its collection, including eight fragments. Carpets that big need a very large space to spread out, and when they were gifted or sold, many were sadly cut to fit smaller rooms. 

Carpets today are scattered around the world in museums and private collections. The Musée Camondo has #50, representing Air, one of the four elements. The center includes four winds blowing trumpets, and on either end are the bas-reliefs of Juno and Aeolus, god of the wind. 

Since 2023, the tapestries have undergone an intense study to look at their iconography, provenance, and current state for restoration. `

If you miss this once-in-a-lifetime exhibit this week ,you can see two within the Louvre. Both should return to display after the exhibit. You can find them in salle 602 and 603 on the first floor of the Sully wing. 

Also on display were 14 tapestries of the life of the sun king, created, and one of the carpets of the Apollo gallery. More next week 

The exhibit runs until February 8th and is free, but a ticket is required. Open every day from 10 am to 7:30 pm on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and until Midnight on Friday, the 6th, and until 4 pm on Sunday, the 8th. 

Grand Palais website

Episode 3 - The Affair of the Necklace and the Jewels of Marie Antoinette

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In 1772, King Louis XV commissioned Boehmer & Bassange, the crown jewelers, to design a special one-of-a-kind necklace to "surpass all others” for his mistress, Madame du Barry.

Charles Auguste Boehmer and Paul Bassenge, known as the Bohemians, had an atelier in the Place Louis le Grand, today's Place Vendôme. The two became the jeweler to the king after Thierre de Ville d’Avry, the minister of the king’s household, believed that he should have the full authority over the appraisal of any jewels created or used from the Crown stones. Jeweler Aubert decided he wasn’t going to work under these conditions under Louis XVI and gave up his royal marker, allowing the “Bohemians” to step right in. 

 It took six years to gather the 647  diamonds weighing 2,840 carats; Louis XV would die, and du Barry would be banished before it was finished in 1778.

Described as a row of 17 diamonds, each of 5 to 11 carats, that ties on the neck with a black silk ribbon. Three garlands hang down with two large pear-shaped diamonds, a cluster of 3 diamonds and large pear drop, and a larger pear diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds that it also hangs from. 

What really makes this necklace stand out are the wide “ribbons” and tassels made of more than 600 diamonds. The tassels later inspired Empress Eugenie and the bow brooch stolen from the Louvre. 

Left with a very expensive necklace on their hands without being paid, they reached out to Louis XVI, thinking he would want to buy it for his queen. With a very high price tag, the queen refused, telling her husband, “We have more need of 24 ships”. However, it was also her strong dislike of du Barry, and she didn’t want anything intended for her.  The jewelers were distraught, would be bankrupt if they couldn’t sell the necklace, and were easy prey for a crafty criminal.

Jeanne de Valois Saint Rémy, Comtesse de la Motte, began her life believing she was descended from royalty. Her father, Jacques de Valois, was the illegitimate grandson of King Henri II and his mistress Nicole de Savigny. Never recognized, they constantly lived far beneath where they believed they should be, and by the time Jeanne grew up, she wanted to do something about it. 

At 24, Jeanne married Nicolas de la Motte and both had a lofty goal of how their life should be. Nicolas obtained a job as a bodyguard to the Comte d’Artois, brother of Louis XVI and future king Charles X. Allowing Jeanne entry to Versailles amongst the court, she planned to get close enough to Marie Antoinette, who she believed would take pity on her circumstances as a woman and bestow her with her regal heritage. This, of course, did not happen. 

Jeanne met Marc Antoine Rétaux de Villette, a jack of all trades, including forgery, prostitution, and fraud.  A friend of her husband's, the two began a hot, steamy relationship and hatched a plan to get what she believed she rightfully deserved.

Jeanne de la Motte Valois Saint Remy by Vigee le Brun

Our other major player in this story was Cardinal Louis-René de Rohan. Descending from the wealthy Rohan family, he served as an ambassador to Vienna in 1771. Empress and mother to Marie Antoinette, Marie Therese wasn’t a fan of Rohan. Rohan loved his life of luxury and being surrounded by lovely ladies and had little interest in much else.  Rohan uncovered a plot by the Empress to overthrow Poland and wrote a letter exposing her. The letter made its way to Versailles and into the hands of Madame du Barry, who read it aloud at a dinner with Marie Antoinette looking on. She would never forgive Rohan for what he said, and another strike against du Barry. 

Rétaux de Villette had learned of Rohan’s desire to return to the good graces of the young queen through a few of his ladies he employed to service the Cardinal. With his talent for forgery, access to the palace, and a knack for pulling off a sting, a plan was hatched, and the Cardinal was the perfect tool.

Jeanne placed herself in the path of Rohan a few times until he noticed her, and the two became lovers. Confessing his distress over his lack of a relationship with the queen to Jeanne. At the perfect moment, she told him she was friends with the Queen and that if he wrote her a letter, she would get it to her. Jeanne had another agenda. Villette answered the letters himself, posing as the Queen, who then passed the letter to the Cardinal by Jeanne.

Cardinal Rohan

Growing increasingly skeptical after numerous letters, Rohan begged for a private meeting with the Queen. Jeanne hired Nicole Le Gray d’Oliva, a prostitute from the Palais Royal, to impersonate the Queen.  On August 11, 1784, at 11 pm,  in the Grove of Venus at Versailles. The “queen” emerged and handed Rohan a red rose. For the next few months, the letters from the “queen” to Rohan continued. 

On December 28, 1784, Jeanne visited Boehmer & Bassange. Her reputation as a close confidant of Marie Antoinette had spread through Paris, and the jewellers were hoping she could help them. 

On January 21, 1785, Jeanne told Rohan that the Queen wanted the necklace but needed someone to get it for her. Jeanne forged a letter and a purchase order for the necklace, and he took it to Boehmer & Bassange on February 1, 1785. Handing over the necklace to Rohan, he then took it to meet Jeanne and what he thought was one of the Queen’s valets. It was Rétaux de Villette who promptly took the necklace and removed all the diamonds. The jewels were separated between de Villette and her husband, de la Motte, and instructed not to sell too many at once. 

Nicolas de la Motte fled to England with the largest of the diamonds. Dressed as an aristocratic gentleman, he claimed the diamonds were from belt buckles and family heirlooms.  In need of a quick sale, de la Motte offered the stunning diamonds at a very low price that would raise suspicion among jewelers. Numerous jewellers called the French embassy, but there hadn’t been any reports of high-quality gems missing. De la Motte realised he might have better luck trading them instead of selling.  Furniture, crystal chandeliers, bronze and marble statues, and art, he loaded up and returned to France. 

For almost eight months, the trio lived a life of luxury. Jeanne’s husband returned to England, and Jeanne and Villette lived in a large house in Bar-sur-Aube, which they had acquired through the sale of the jewels. 

The first payment to Boehmer & Bassange was due on August 1, and as the days passed, they grew more wary that they wouldn’t see the money.  Meanwhile, Rohan still wasn’t being invited back into the fold, and the confidence of the queen. The jewelers contacted Rohan, who was unaware they hadn’t been paid. After days of trying to reach Jeanne, she told him the queen needed money and that he could help her find wealthy friends who would make the first payment. 

This was when her grand scheme began to unravel. As jewelers to the crown, they knew many people in the court of Versailles. They had been told to keep the entire episode a secret as Marie Antoinette didn’t want anyone to know. 

Boehmer sent a letter to a chambermaid of the queen, revealing his situation. The letter was then passed to Madame Campan, who told the Queen, and then to the Baron de Breteuil, minister of the King's household, who had a strong dislike for the Cardinal. 

On August 15, 1785, on the Feast of the Assumption, the Cardinal was walking through the Hall of Mirrors when he was arrested and taken to the King. Marie Antoinette and jeweler Boehmer were waiting with the order signed by the Queen. She had never seen it before. Rohan was taken to the Bastille and divulged all he knew about the necklace theft.

Jeanne and Villette continued to sell the jewels one by one. 

Villette approached a jeweler in Montmartre, offering a few of the large, brilliant-cut stones at very low prices, which struck the jeweler as odd. The police were alerted and paid a visit to Villette's apartment on the Île Saint-Louis. The jewels were gone, but he was arrested, confessed, and also admitted the involvement of the de la Motte couple.

Jeanne de la Motte was arrested and sent to the Bastille. 

Nicole Le Gray d’Oliva, the prostitute that impersinated the queen waq arrested in Brussels on October 16, 1785. 

L’Affair de Collier de la Riene 1946

On May 22, 1786, they all stood trial together at the Parliament of Paris on the Ile de la Cité. Eight days later, on May 30, the verdict was in. Cardinal Rohan and Nicole Le Gray d’Oliva were acquitted of all charges. 

Nicolas de la Motte, who never appeared at court, was sentenced to life in prison in absentia. After the Revolution, he returned to France and supported himself by extorting the Rohan family into not publishing his memoirs. 

Rétaux de la Villette was found guilty and banished from France. He made his way to Venice to write his memoir and the story of the Affair of the Necklace. He wasn’t the only one. 

Jeanne de la Motte was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison at the Salpêtrière for the rest of her life. She was whipped and branded with the letter V for Volueuse, Theft. Two years later, she escaped from prison dressed as a boy and fled to London, where she would write her version of the story. 

On August 23, 1791, in an attempt to evade creditors, she fell out of a window and died. The report stated that she was “terribly mangled, her left eye cut out, and her arm and both legs were broken. 

For the Queen, who was innocent in the plot, it was too late. It only fed into the rumors of her excess. People even thought she orchestrated the entire thing to get back at Rohan. The Affair of the Diamond Necklace led to her final fall that was to come in just a few years. 

As for the diamonds, they all disappeared.  The jewelers went bankrupt due to the immense loss and embarrassment the theft caused them. To this day, we don’t officially know where any of them went. The thieves never gave up any information on who they sold the jewels to, leaving it a question that also brings a bit of deception.

A few of the detailed engraving by Boehmer & Bassange remain and have been used to recreate the necklace in faux stones. A replica made by jeweler Albert Guerrin for the Maison Burma in Paris in 1960, and donated to the Château de Versailles in 1963, is on display in the Queen's apartments, closed to the public except for special tours. I am going this week and will share everything I see. 

The oldest replica was created by Lucien Baszanger in the early 20th century and was recently sold at auction in Paris. Made of silver, metal alloy, and imitation diamonds was faithfully created from the original etching. Later copies added 49 pearls to the piece. At the auction, the replica sold for over 35 thousand euros. 

Today, that real necklace would be worth over $17 million dollars. 

Marie Antoinette has been accused of many things since the 18th century. Known for her lavish lifestyle and spending, in reality, the brother of Louis XIV, Philippe d’Orléans, spent more on shoes, clothes, and jewels than Marie Antoinette ever did. 

Paintings of Marie Antoinette rarely depict her wearing necklaces. She was more fond of bracelets and earrings, and at large events would wear a few of the large Crown diamonds in her hair or hat, including the Sancy kept in the Louvre. 

With each new king, the Crown Jewels would be inventoried. Many would sell them off, dismantle pieces, and recreate them in their own taste. Large gems were even recarved, making it even harder to track the provenance of many of them. 

When Marie Antoinette arrived at the Court de Versailles, one of the only things she was allowed to bring with her were her jewels. Pieces given to her by her mother, Empress Marie Therese, and her grandfather-in-law, Louis XV, all became her personal collection, not of the Crown. 

On May 5, 1789, was the last opportunity that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette would wear their jewels. At a banquet of the opening of the Estates General at Versailles, the couple was decked out in silver and gold cloth, much like their wedding, and dripping in jewels. Sewn into her dress, on her hat, in his button holes, on the buckles of their shoes, and even the Regent diamond made an appearance on the king's hat. 

Exactly five months later, on October 5, they would leave Versailles behind and be taken to Paris, and the march to their final moments that would end each of their lives in 1793. 

At first, they lived a life of luxury in the Palais des Tuileries with all the comforts of royal life, including their jewels. Fearing the worst, Marie Antoinette began packing her belongings and giving them to trusted friends who would send them far from Paris. 

Madame Campan writes in her memoir of an afternoon in the palace when she helped the queen load a diamond bracelet, rubies, and pearls into a small crate. The following day, they were taken by her hairdresser, Léonard, who personally delivered them to Belgium. 

Belgium was under Austrian control at the time, and it was a safe place to ride out the Terror. The queen instructed Léonard to sell some of them as she and Louis XVI would need money. This was prior to the attempted escape in 1791. What remained of the jewels eventually reached the couple's only surviving child, Marie-Therese. 

Upon Léonard’s return to Paris, he was given another box of jewels, which he hid away in his apartment and eventually took to London to sell on December 27, 1791. 

Frequently, a piece of jewelry appears at an auction claiming to be created from the “Queen’s Necklace”. It always causes a buzz and is picked up by every news source and jewelry influencer. Sadly, none of them can be traced back to the actual necklace or the diamonds used to create it. 

This goes for just about any piece that actually belonged to the queen. 

One necklace attributed to Marie Antoinette was a stunning piece featuring 30 brilliant-cut diamonds and 13 pear-shaped diamonds in various sizes. It came up for auction at Christie’s in London in June 1971. It included four documents with detailed information on the provenance and former owners. 

Belonging first to Marie Antoinette, it was given to her daughter and most likely in the box Léonard had taken to Belgium. Upon her death, it was left to her husband's niece, Marie Therese of Austria-Este. She later passed it to her niece, Marguerite, duchess of Madrid, who left it to Don Jaime de Bourbon after her death in 1893. It was then sold to the Archduchess Leopold Salvator, who passed it to Princess Massimo.  The Princess then sold it in 1937 to an unknown buyer of a “princly family”. At some point, it was sold to an Indian merchant, who brought it to auction in 1971. 

It did not meet the minimum bid, so the unknown owner kept it and dismantled it at that point. 

The necklace is stunning, but the setting is in the style of Marie Antoinette and was most likely redesigned under Marie Therese of Austria-Este. 

Another necklace that gains a lot of attention is called the Sutherland Diamond Riviere. Designed with 22 large diamonds. There are two versions of the history that can be linked to the Sutherlands and their descendants. George Leveson-Gower duke of Sutherland, served as the ambassador of France during the Revolution. At the time, the royal family was held in the Tuileries. Elisabeth, the Countess of Sutherland, claims to have grown close to Marie Antoinette and was given some of her jewels as they fled France and returned to England. 

Another story was that the duke's father, Granville Leveson-Gower, the first Duke of Sutherland, purchased the diamonds from Nicolas de la Motte and claimed they were part of the famed necklace.

Worn by generations of Sutherland women, it came up for auction in 2019 but was removed and given to the British government in lieu of estate taxes, and is now held at the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

In the Smithsonian in DC, a set of large pear-shaped drop earrings is also tied to her, although there isn’t any evidence to back that up. In fact, a letter written in 1928 by Prince Youssoupoff dates the jewels to his great-grandfather, who had purchased them on 1803 and was not affiliated at all with Marie Antoinette. Eventually, purchased by Marjory Meriwether Post through Harry Winston and later donated by her daughter to the Smithsonian. 

With such an uncertainty of whatever happened to the Queen’s necklace or its diamonds or any of her other jewels, but we haven’t seen the last of the auction items or stories of jewels that “may have been” a part of the Queen's collection or the famous necklace. 

The Affair of the Necklace  2001 Hillary Swank and Simon Baker 

Lupin season one on Netflix

Episode 2 - The Fall and End of Louis XVI

233 years ago, on January 21, 1793, at 10:15 am, Louis XVI, the fallen king of France, walked up the wooden steps in the middle of the Place de la République, and with the quick release of the blade, he was dead. 

Born at the Chateau de Versailles on August 23, 1754, Louis-Auguste became the Dauphin of France when his father died in 1765, and became the heir to his grandfather Louis XV’s throne at the age of 11. 

A young boy who preferred books, keys, and maps found himself getting married at 15.

In the very early morning of May 16, 1770, Marie Antoinette headed to Versailles. Arriving at 10 am, she entered the golden gates and was taken to the queen’s apartment to get ready. A beautiful dress, two sizes too small, of silver fabric, which was the customary color for the Dauphine to be married in, was waiting for her.

Louis XV and his grandson Louis-Auguste waited in the king’s apartment. Dressed in gold and wearing a diamond-covered habit of the Order of the Holy Spirit. Just before noon, he met his bride and took her hand. The two walked through the Hall of Mirrors on their way to the Royal Chapel, built in 1699 by Louis XIV. Her gown and all its jewels shone brighter than the mirrors themselves. 

In the Royal Chapel, they kneeled before the Archbishop of Reims, Monseigneur de la Roche-Aymon, blessed the rings and 13 gold coins before Louis placed the ring on her tiny finger. The wedding was followed by a lavish feast in the Royal Opera attended by the entire court. 

A firework display was to follow, but was canceled due to a storm and rescheduled to May 30 at the Place Louis XV in Paris. The celebration of the marriage and the fireworks took place before thousands of onlookers. A fire broke out on the scaffolding, sending fireworks flying and people running in panic. 132 people died, and many more were hurt, a bad omen for the start of their lives.  Place Louis XV was renamed Place de la Revolution and in 1793, the couple would meet their final fate under the guillotine’s blade. 

It would take 8 years for the marriage to be consummated, and 11 years for the all-important heir to the throne, bringing in much speculation and pressure from both sides of the family. 

Upon the death of Louis XV on May 10, 1774, the young couple was crowned king and queen of France. Inheriting the crown also meant taking on the country's swiftly mounting debt and the resentment of the monarchy. 

The quiet Louis XVI was more focused on religious freedom and foreign policy than the plight of the citizens, and wanted to be admired and loved by the people. 

On October 1 and 3, 1789, King Louis XVI threw a large dinner party for the king's guards and the Flanders Regiments. While the people of Paris were starving and unable to get bread, a lavish dinner at Versailles was the final straw. 

Before dawn on October 5, a large group, mostly composed of women, met in front of the Hotel de Ville. Breaking in and stealing more than 600 weapons, the group marched from Paris.

In the pouring rain for over 5 hours, they walked in the mud, arriving at Versailles. Demanding to be let into the National Assembly, their spokesperson, Stanislas Maillard, read their demands for wheat, flour, and an end to the blockade of the route into Paris. With all in agreement, the order was taken to the king to sign and enact, but it was too late. We could be done with this story, but we know it ends differently. 

Overnight, the crowd gathering outside grew restless after endless hours without any news, prompting the guards to push back. The angry mob rushed the palace, killing the queen’s guards and calling out her name through the gilded halls of the palace. The royal family finally agreed to go with the crowd back to Paris, leaving Versailles on October 6 and the life they knew behind.

Their prison was the Palais des Tuileries, where they could be watched closely, but still lived a life of comfort for over two years.

On June 21, 1791, the king and queen of France attempted a last-ditch effort to escape from the watchful eyes of the Tuileries. The king had been cooking up the idea for over a year and discovered that the French town of Montmédy, near the edge of Luxembourg, was an area that still supported the idea of the monarchy. 

Axel Von Fersen, Marie Antoinette’s close friend and lover, worked on the route, plans, passports, and the family's carriage. Axel first met Marie Antoinette in Paris on January 30, 1774, at a masked ball.  Behind the mask, he had no idea he was talking to the future queen of France. The two would meet again after his return from America, and they remained very close until the end. Historians have often wondered if it was more than that, but recent deciphering of their private letters gave more evidence to the fact that the two were also lovers.

Fersen borrowed 300,000 pieces of gold from a wealthy woman to help fund the family's evacuation and had a lavish carriage made for the royal couple, complete with a toilet. 

Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, their two children, and  Madame Elisabeth, the sister of the king. Armed with fake papers, they were now the staff of the Baroness de Korff, a Russian widow on their way to Frankfurt. On the night of the escape, the family left behind their formal attire and dressed as servants. 

At 10:50 pm on June 21, 1791, Fersen took the royal children out of the Tuileries and safely tucked them into the awaiting coach. At 11:30 p.m., Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette said their goodnights and went to bed. Louis had spent most of the day hidden away writing a 16-page “political will,” a declaration that would later seal his fate. 

At 12:10 am on June 22, Louis and Marie left the Tuileries through separate doors, alone. Louis found his way to the nearby Rue de l’Échelle, where his children, Fersen and the governess, were waiting. They all found the coach quickly, but Marie Antoinette got lost on the way and arrived 90 minutes late. The distance from the Tuileries today to where the coach was is less than 7 minutes.  When the family was finally together, they headed to the Quai du Louvre, where the carriage was to meet them along with a team of loyal soldiers. Although they were already close to two hours late, they had to wait for another hour for the carriage to arrive. This delay would also cost them immensely. 

The governess was not in the original plans, but refused to leave the children. Her job was to care for the royal children until her death, and she was not backing down. She took the place of one of the only tactions in the group that knew the roads of France. The men chosen for the voyage were each selected for their loyalty to the family, not necessarily for their abilities. Another foolish mistake. 

Fersen stayed with them until Bondy, where he was replaced by a new driver, to avoid adding too much suspicion back at the palace. Along the route, royalist supporters were strategically placed to change out the horses and protect them, but with no way to reach them and close to three hours behind, many left fearing the worst. 

Once on the road, now 3 hours late, they arrived at Pont-de-Somme-Vesle SE of Reims.

At the next town, Montmirail, at 11 am, the king was recognized.  Meanwhile, back in Paris, at 7 am, it was discovered that the family was gone, leaving only the king's “political will,” which enraged Lafayette, who was supposed to watch over them. He immediately let it be known they were gone and issued an arrest warrant. 

Just before 8 pm in Sainte-Menehould,  Jean-Baptiste Drouet thought the peasant woman looked a lot like Marie Antoinette. When he saw the king's profile in the window of the carriage, he knew it was Louis XVI. It matched the 50 note coin in his pocket. As they arrived at Varennes at 10:50 pm, the riders were not there to meet them. 20 minutes later, in front of the Eglise Saint-Gengoult, the citizens demanded that they exit the carriage. At 11:10 pm, just 24 hours after their escape, they were arrested. 

On the morning of June 22, the National Guard was on its way back to Paris. The route would take four days; they drew it out so people could see it and be taken back to Paris. From Chalons-en-Champagne on the 22nd, Epernay on the 23rd, and to Meux for the night of the 24th. I doubt they were able to enjoy the Champagne and Brie de Meux on the way.  

On June 25 at 7 am, they left Meux for their last trip to Paris. Hundreds lined the streets of Paris to welcome them home. They were told that if they cheered for the king, they would be beaten, and if they yelled insults, they would be hanged. People behaved until they saw the Queen, who was always the brunt of their anger. Yelling and chasing their carriage down the Champs Élysées until they entered the Tuileries. 

Now more closely watched and their movements limited to their bedrooms and dining room, while the people outside the palace became angrier and angrier. Had they not escaped, the family would have spent the rest of their life in prison.

At 5 am on August 10, 1792, it came to a boil. The Tuileries were stormed, the Swiss guards were killed, and the royal family ran for their lives through the garden. More than 1000 people were killed on this day, the palace was looted, and the interior was destroyed.

Arriving at the Assembly on the edge of the garden, in the former stables used for Louis XV, where the king would be tried in a few short months. The king was given wine and treated like a king. Marie and her children were put into a small, locked room. That night as they ran, the monarchy slipped through their fingers. 

On August 13,  they were sent to the Temple prison in a cold, dark tower. The king and his valet Jean-Baptiste Cléry were separated from his wife, children, and sister, but still able to visit each other. 

A month later, on September 21, the monarchy was abolished. 

On October 1, just three years after the lavish party thrown for his guards, it was decided to establish a commission to bring the king to trial and answer for his crimes. The verdict was written before the trial ever began.

Louis XVI, now known as Louis Capet or Citizen Capet, faced the wrath and agenda of Robespierre and his Terror friends. Not much evidence was found to be used against the king, which, of course, didn’t matter. In the third week of the investigation, an iron-lined cabinet was discovered hidden in a wall of the Palais des Tuileries. His opponents divulged papers showing that the king was conspiring with foreign powers and a testament to his guilt. To date, no evidence of this has been discovered. 

At the start of December, the calls for his death began, led by Robespierre. “He must die so his homeland can live.”

The trial started on December 11, 1792, at 11 am in the Salle du Manège, where he and his family sought refuge just four months before.

Standing before the sham court and accused of the massacre of the Tuileries. Betraying his oath to the French people, supporting priests, and colluding with foreign powers. Always claiming his innocence, but still treated with more respect than they will give his wife ten months later. 

For a month, they heard from witnesses and lawyers who stacked the deck against the king. On January 16, 1793, the first votes were counted. For his immediate death, 366 people, including Jacques-Louis David, Robespierre, Marat, Camille Desmoulins, and Philippe Égalité, cousin to the king. The vote was cast three times, with the final determination made on January 20, 1793, with 380 voting for his immediate death. 

Each day of the trial, he returned to the Temple prison and kept away from his family. On the evening of January 20, he held his children one last time and said goodbye to his wife and sister, who collapsed in despair. 

At 9 am on Monday, January 21, 1793, Louis Capet left the Temple prison and his family behind. The slow drive through the city, held inside a verte wagon carriage, took over an hour. The people lined the route, yelling and proclaiming victory for the Revolutionists. 

Baron de Betz, a loyal supporter, plotted a last-ditch escape plan. Grabbing the king along the route and hid him in a house before they could get him out of the city. Unfortunately, his co-inspirers didn’t show up and alter history.

In the northwest corner of the Place de la Révolution at 10:15 am, the fallen king walked up the scaffold to the screams of the thousands waiting to bear witness to the death of the king and all he stood for. 

Louis Capet stood before his executioner, Charles Henri Sanson, while they cut his hair, tied his hands, and removed his cravat. The last words the king would say were to profess his innocence. At 10:22 am, the blade fell, marking the end of Louis XVI. 

In the moments after his death, his head was hoisted up so the crowd of thousands of people in the Place de la Révolution could see that the blood of the king had been spilled. Quickly after, executioner Sanson placed his body into a cart that was taken to the nearby Madeleine church and cemetery. 

Back at the Temple prison, Marie Antoinette, her sister-in-law Elisabeth, and her two children heard the sounds of cannons and people rejoicing in the distance. At that moment, they knew Louis XVI was dead. 

A brief ceremony of the church vicars was held, and his body was placed into a deep grave, his head placed between his feet and covered with lime. The Cimetière Madeleine was a short walk from the church, and Pierre-Louis Descloseaux overlooked the plot from a nearby building. Pierre kept an eye on the spot where the king was laid to rest, and in ten months, where Marie Antoinette would also join him. 

When Louis XVIII, brother of the slain king, came to power in 1814, Descloseaux contacted him and told him where, in the now-defunct cemetery, he could find his family. Their only surviving child, Marie-Thérèse, Duchesse d’Angouleme, returned to Paris and the final resting place of her parents. 

Every day she returned, sitting for hours. Louis XVIII announced that a chapel would be built in their memory, and Marie helped pay for the construction and the two statues of her parents in the upper chapel.  

Just opposite the statue of  Marie Antoinette in the Greek cross chapel is the statue by Francois-Joseph Bosio, Apotheosis of Louis XVI. Louis is dressed in his coronation robe with fleur de lys, as the angel points his way to heaven, and his last will and testament is engraved on the marble pedestal. 

The most poignant part of the monument is in the crypt below. In a small chapel, a black and white marble altar that marks the exact spot where they had spent 22 years in an unmarked grave.  A beautiful stained glass window lets in the softest light as you quietly take in the moment. Imagine Marie-Thérèse visiting this same spot every day with her parents, whom she lost too soon.   

On January 18 & 19, 1815, Madame Elisabeth watched as the bodies of her parents were recovered from deep in the earth.  On January 21, the 22nd anniversary of the death of Louis XVI, the couple was taken on their final route to the Basilique Saint Denis. 

The procession of 3,000 people, made up of military, ministers, and distant family, traveled north past the edges of Paris. The boxes containing the bones of the king and queen were placed on a large carriage inside a grand sarcophagus. What a difference 22 years make, as now the people stood along the route for even a glimpse. 

Upon arrival at the basilica, a large mass was held in front of the family and dignitaries before their bones were interred in the crypt below, alongside what is left of the past rulers that were recovered after the Revolution

On April 24, the king ordered the construction of a new chapel for the basilica, dedicated to the couple. Edme Gaulle was commissioned to sculpt the statue of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Pierre Petitot. The chapel as imagined never came to be, but the statues can be seen today, and I will never forget the first time I saw them.

On that date in 1815, Louis XVIII ordered that each year they hold a special mass on the Sunday closest to the death of Louis at Saint Denis. In 202,0 I was lucky enough to attend a mass on a very chilly morning outside the Chapel Experatoir. In attendance was Louis XX, the man who would be king if France still had a monarchy. Each year, a mass is also held at Eglise Saint Germain l’Auxerrois,s where the other pretender to the throne and descendant of Philippe Égalité, Jean d’Orléans, le comte de Paris, is in attendance. Since his forefather voted for the death of Louis XVI, should he really be there? 

Do you know that every single day you are in Paris, and just around every corner is a small reminder of that fateful day, January 21, 1793? 

Did you notice how I gave you the color of Louis’ carriage to his death?  All over Paris, from the benches in the parks to the lampposts to the bouquinistes and more, everything is painted a very specific color: vert wagon. The same color as the last transport of Louis XVI. A little odd of a reminder, but the color also blends into the park's trees and bushes. 

And now you know. 

Visit many of these spots on your own when in Paris, or contact me to take you on a private customized walk through the streets of Paris, pointing out the many locations tied to his historic period.

Episode 1 - The Imperial Crowns of the Second Empire

The first episode is all about the Imperial crowns of the Second Empire. This, of course, made a lot of news three months ago when the brazen heist of the Louvre took place, and the Imperial crown of Empress Eugenie was stolen and then dropped. But first, we will go back to 1853.

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was elected the first President of France in 1848, serving until the coup d’État on December 2, 1852, which declared him Emperor and marked the start of the Second Empire. The same date as his uncle/grandfather Napoleon Bonaparte’s coronation in Notre Dame in 1804. 

Louis-Napoleon now became Napoleon III, and next on the list was to find a wife. In 1849, he met the beautiful and young Eugénie de Montijo, who played the long game and adapted the French girl game of hard to get for over three years. She finally gave in, and on January 30, 1853, the two were married at Notre Dame de Paris. 

Now that he had his Empress, Napoleon III wanted a historic coronation, reminiscent of his uncle's, but it would never come to light. However, that didn’t stop him from having a new crown created for the would be occasion. 

The 1851 Universal Exhibition in London was the first time jewels were featured, and Napoleon III wanted to be sure to show them up when it was his turn in 1855.  Commissioning jeweler Alexandre Gabriel Lemonnier, jeweler to the Emperor, to create a handful of pieces representing France, including the two Imperial crowns. 

The crown of Napoleon Bonaparte, which can still be seen in the Louvre today, was called the Crown of Charlemagne. Like many of the kings of France before him, who linked their monarchy to the first Holy Roman Emperor. Napoleon III was going to be different, even from his uncle. 

In 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte had an updated coat of arms created, topped with a crown featuring eagles and palmettes, and it can be seen on a coin found in the Monnaie museum. This was the inspiration Napoleon III needed, and he asked Lemonnier to bring it to life. 

Lemonnier collaborated with sculptors Auguste and Joseph Fannière, who created the eight eagles of the Imperial coat of arms. Jeweler Pierre Joseph Emmanuel Maher built the structure, and Lemonnier adorned it with precious stones. 

To legitimize his reign, Napoleon III used a handful of Crown jewels associated with the crown of Charles X. The crown featured fleur-de-lis, an emblem the empires rejected, and was set with diamonds, including many of the important diamonds of the actual Crown Jewels of France.

Imperial Crown over the western entrance to Palais Garnier

The band of Napoleon III had a double row of diamonds and in the center 8 large diamonds, including the 29.2 c De Guise, 22.86 trapexodial diamond of Louis XVIII, 25.53 Fleur-de-Pêche, 25.82 Bapst diamond belonging to Napoleon I, 19.07 Grand Mazarin, 26.3 Marguerite cushion rectangular diamond, 17 carat oblong diamond and 18.56 oval diamond from a necklace of Marie Louise, 2nd wife of Napoleon I.  Each diamond was separated by a large emerald, the personal property of the Emperor. 

Above the band forming the cage are 8 large eagles with their wings extended, interspersed with 8 palmettes covered in diamonds. Separated with 16 round and oval emeralds at the base, with 8 large diamonds in the center.  

The most historic of all crown jewels and one we thankfully still have, the 141 carat Regent diamond sits at the peak of the crown. A globe with a band of 34 emeralds, covered in diamonds, and topped with a cross gives the Bonaparte legacy legitimacy and the appearance of divine right to lead. 

The Emperor's crown was finished on February 13, 1855, and work began on a smaller version for Empress Eugenie.  

Crown of Empress Eugenie prior to the theft on October 19; 2025

The same design, except for the Regent diamond, was created by the same team of craftsmen and delivered in time for the exhibition's opening on May 15, 1855. The Empress’s crown shimmered with 1,354 diamonds, 1,136 rose-cut diamonds, and 56 emeralds, every detail a triumph of artistry. While the Emperor’s crown included 102 of the official crown jewels, Eugenie’s were all purchased by the Emperor himself through Lemonnier. 

Within days of the closing of the exhibition, the large diamonds in the band and the Regent of the Emperor’s crown were removed and replaced with glass copies. While Eugenie’s was remained in one piece until October 19, 2025.

September 4, 1870, the fall of the Empire and the end of Dynastic rule in France, once and for all. The Imperial family fled to England, and what remained of the jewels was sent to an armory in Brest along with a handful of the most important paintings from the Louvre, including the Mona Lisa. 

Imperial Crown at Notre Dame. Two crowns can be found over the gate of the choir.

Created under Viollet le Duc.

In 1871, the Republic began to talk about what to do with the remains of the Crown Jewels. More than just beautiful shiny gems, they were the symbol of the monarchy, and the Republic was quick to want to forever turn the page and move forward. 

Some jewels needed to be returned to descendants of the Crown or compensated for them. Very few of the Second Empire's pieces could be considered Crown Jewels, as they had never been part of the Treasury and were personally purchased by Napoleon III and his family. 

An 1875 inventory found that over 79,000 francs needed to be paid to the Imperial family, meaning Eugenie, as Napoleon III had died on January 9, 1873.  8 large emeralds from his crown, as well as her entire Imperial crown, were also returned. 

After the death of Empress Eugenie on July 11, 1920, she left the crown to her god-daughter, Princess Marie-Clotilde Napoléon. Put up for auction in 1988, the crown was offered by benefactors, Mr and Mrs Roberto Polo, to the Musée du Louvre the same year. 

Entrance to Pavillion d’horloge on Cour Napoleon side

In 1882, another inspection of the jewels resulted in a plan on what, if any, jewels would be kept and where. The rest would be sold or melted down to avoid becoming a focal point for those wanting the monarchy to return.  In 1886, after fifteen years of back-and-forth in the government, the decision was made, and the final fate was clear. 

Group A items to be kept and displayed in the Louvre

Group B Items transferred to the Museum and School of Mines

Group C items intended for casting

On January 11, 1887, the law was passed to dispose of the crown jewels. The rest would be sold in May 1887 within the Louvre. More on this in a future episode.

Of the Emperor’s crown, the cross from the top, and the remaining diamonds were sold in 1887. The frame was broken, then sent to the Monnaie to be melted down and was used for the 20 franc coin of the Republic. 

The 8 large emeralds (from around the band) were returned to Empress Eugenie after the fall of the Emperor. The 8 large diamonds and small diamonds were sold in 1887. 

50 of the small emeralds were saved and given to the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris.  They have 45 now.  (34 circled the orb) The 1995 inventory showed 46 stones left. disappearing sometime between 1887 and 1921. A 1921 doc mentions 15 of the larger) 

Emeralds of Napoleon III normally found at the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris

The square cut emerald varies in size of .18 to .41 carats

And 8, round/oval cut from .854 to 1.339 carats 

41 of the 45 are natural emeralds from Colombia, and 4 of them are just glass 

What was given to the Ecole des Mines reduces the jewels to a “collection of samples” and not relics of the crown. In 2016, they were finally labeled as having been owned by the Second Empire and can be seen by the public in the very quiet museum near the Jardin du Luxembourg. 

Sadly, after the theft, they have been removed for safekeeping, but do visit this museum, it’s amazing! 

Grand Salon of the Appartements Napoleon III above fireplace

As news of the robbery at the Louvre the morning of October 19, 2025, spread, my first thought was the Imperial crown. The crown of Empress Eugénie is not just a precious treasure of a forgotten time. It is the only surviving representation of the Imperial crown, which, if you know where to look, is all over the Louvre, even in Notre-Dame and the Palais Garnier, and on many of Paris's streets.

Napoleon III might not be remembered for his actions as the first president or last emperor of France, but the Siege of Prussia leaves a lasting sting on his memory. However, the way Paris looks today can be largely attributed to the man himself, and he left us reminders in as many places as he could. 

Napoleon III wanted to create a Paris of grand boulevards topped with beautiful buildings. Partially born from his attempted assassination and the wider streets would make it harder for gangs of people to overtake his carriage.  One just has to look at the Rue Soufflot and the Pantheon or the Avenue de l’Opéra and the gorgeous Palais Garnier to see that vision come to life. 

There is one place in Paris that felt the full force of Napoleon III's modernization: the Palais du Louvre. Adding an entire wing, doubling the building's footprint, expanding the museum, and decorating the endless ceilings I love so much. 

Passage Rohan, rare LN for Louis Napoleon created before he became emperor

While his crown is gone, he did leave its image on the Louvre on the facade more than 200 times. Stand inside the Cour Napoleon near the pyramid, over every column, topped with one of the 86 great men of France. A band running across the entire facade holds stone versions of the Imperial crown. Also found in the bands of the Denon wing on the south side, a large version as you cross through the Pavillion d’horloge, above the initial of the Emperor, and at the top of each pavilion, large led covered versions guard over the museum. Each of the lampposts of the courtyard and high above the passage to the quai are gilded versions of the backwards N’s, which are still a great mystery to us today.

Inside the Louvre, golden versions are found in the Appartements Napoleon III alongside the regalia above the mirror of the grand salon, and in the corners and tops of the columns. In the next room, two paintings copied from the Franz Winterhalter originals that once hung in the Palais des Tuileries give us the best depiction of the Emperor’s crown. Sitting on a pillow, the crown, including the Regent diamond, was within Napoleon III's arm's reach. On the opposit wall, Empress Eugenie has her crown as well and is wearing a diamond and pearl tiara that was stolen on October 19. 

A visit to the Palais Garnier will yield more crowns above the private entrance for the Emperor, who never lived long enough to use them. And in the Musée Carnavalet, the crib for the Imperial son by Victor Baltard features a stunning allegory of Paris holding the crown.

Crib by Victor Baltard