Château de Saint-Cloud
Encyclopedia
The Château de Saint-Cloud was a Palace
in France
, built on a magnificent site overlooking the Seine
at Saint-Cloud
in Hauts-de-Seine
, about 10 kilometre
s west of Paris
. Today it is a large park on the outskirts of the capital and is owned by the state, but the area as a whole has had a large part to play in the history of France
. The castle's grounds are part of today's Parc de Saint-Cloud
.
The château was expanded by Phillipe de France, duc d'Orléans
in the 17th century, and finally enlarged by Marie Antoinette
in the 1780s. After occupation by Napoleon I
and Napoleon III
, the château was destroyed in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War
.
bank
ers established at Lyon in the first years of the sixteenth century, who had arrived at the court of France in 1543 in the train of Catherine de' Medici
. During the 1570s, the Queen offered Jérôme de Gondi a dwelling at Saint-Cloud, the Hôtel d'Aulnay, which became the nucleus of the château with a right-angled wing that looked out on a terrace.
The main front faced south, with a wing that terminated in a pavilion
affording a handsome view over the Seine river. Henry III of France
installed himself in this house in order to conduct the siege of Paris during the Wars of Religion
, and here he was assassinated by the monk Jacques Clément
.
After the death of Jérôme de Gondi in 1604, the château was sold in 1618 by his son Jean-Baptiste II de Gondi to Jean de Bueil, comte de Sancerre, who died shortly afterwards. The château was bought back by Jean-François de Gondi
, archbishop of Paris
. His embellishment notably included gardens by Thomas Francine.
After the death of Jean-François de Gondi in 1654, the château was inherited in turn by Philippe-Emmanuel de Gondi and then by his nephew Henri de Gondi, known as the duc de Retz
. The latter sold the property in 1655 to Barthélemy Hervart, a banker of German extraction who was intendant then surintendant des finances. He enlarged the park to twelve hectares and did considerable rebuilding. He built a grande cascade (not the present one) in the park.
Garden details that seem to be of this phase of Saint-Cloud were drawn by Israël Silvestre
. It was built in Italian style, with an invisibly flat roof and frescoed façades. Its gardens descended in a series of terraces to the Seine, provided with fountains at each level.
On 8 October 1658, Hervart organized a sumptuous feast at Saint-Cloud in honour of the young Louis XIV
, his brother, "Monsieur", Philippe, duc d'Orléans
, their mother Anne of Austria
and Cardinal Mazarin. Two weeks later, 25 October, Monsieur bought the château and its grounds, for 240,000 livre
s.
It appears that Mazarin pressed the sale, contributing to a policy of building a network of royal châteaux to the west of Paris, and relieving the excessively-enriched Hervart from the fate of Nicolas Fouquet
, whose fête at Vaux-le-Vicomte
precipitated his fall and imprisonment.
Monsieur was engaged in building operations at Saint-Cloud until his death in 1701. The works were designed and constructed by his architect Antoine Le Pautre, who built the wings in 1677. The château as it was reconstructed for Monsieur took the form of a "U" open to the east, towards the Seine, with the Gondi château, which had faced south, integrated into its left wing. To the rear, a long orangery
formed a wing that prolonged the right wing of the court. The entrance avenue, bordered by dependencies, some of which survive, arrived on an angle from the bridge.
Inside, the apartment of "Madame", Princess Henrietta of England
in the left wing was decorated by Jean Nocret in 1660, and the 45-metre Galerie d'Apollon, which occupied the whole of the right wing, was decorated with myths of Apollo
by Pierre Mignard
(finished in 1680).
The last child of Philippe and Henrietta was born here in 1669 and named Anne Marie d'Orléans; she was the maternal grandmother of Louis XV of France
.
The château was the site of the death of Princess Henrietta in 1670. It was upon this occasion that Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
composed the famous oration for her funeral.
In October 1677, five days of magnificent feasts in honour of Louis XIV, inaugurated the new decorations and demonstrated the splendour of Monsieur's ménage. The Galerie was preceded and followed by a salon at either end, a measure to be taken up at Versailles, where Louis found himself outdone in the matter of magnificent galleries, both by his brother and by his mistress in the Château de Clagny
, and set out in 1678 to build the Galerie at Versailles.
Following Le Pautre's death in 1679, the work was continued by his executive assistant Jean Girard
, a master mason rather than a full-fledged architect, and perhaps by Thomas Gobert. Jules Hardouin Mansart
intervened towards the end of the century, designing a grand stair in the left wing in the manner of the Ambassadors' Staircase at Versailles.
The gardens were replanned by André Le Nôtre
, and the park took on the dimensions it retains today. The Grande Cascade, constructed in 1664-1665 by Antoine Le Pautre. has survived. The basin and the lowermost canal were added by Hardouin-Mansart in 1698.
A total of 156,000 livres is estimated to have been spent over the years.
After protracted negotiations, the château de Saint-Cloud was bought in 1785 by Louis XVI
for Marie-Antoinette, who was convinced that the air of Saint-Cloud would be good for her children. The duc d'Orléans, Louis-Philippe
, who had not visited the château since his morganatic marriage with Madame de Montesson
, was induced to part with it for 6,000,000 livres.
After the sale of the palace was officially finished, Marie Antoinette set about transforming her new private home. She set to transforming Saint-Cloud in 1787-1788 by her preferred architect Richard Mique
, who enlarged the corps de logis
and the adjacent half of the right wing; he rebuilt the garden front. Hardouin-Mansart's staircase was demolished in favour of a new stone stairs giving onto the state apartments.
The château was at first refurnished from the Garde Meuble with furnishing collected from other royal residences, but soon furniture was commissioned for Saint-Cloud. Gilded chairs and marquetry commodes with gilt-bronze mounts in the richest Louis XVI taste were being delivered to Saint-Cloud right to the opening days of the French Revolution
. In 1790, Saint-Cloud was the setting for the famous interview between Marie Antoinette and Mirabeau
.
The château was declared a bien national and emptied by the Revolutionary sales.
The Saint-Cloud orangery
was the setting for the coup d'état
of 18 Brumaire
(10 November 1799), in which the Directoire was suppressed and the Consulat declared. Less than five years later, Napoléon Bonaparte
was proclaimed as Emperor of the French on 18 May 1804 at Saint-Cloud. Saint-Cloud was later used by Bonaparte's family and was their main seat along with the Palais des Tuileries
in Paris
.
_-_paris,_1871_-_ruines_du_chteau_of_st_cloud_3.jpg)
Napoleon made Saint-Cloud his preferred residence and transformed the Salon de Vénus to a throne room, which Saint-Cloud had naturally lacked, but neither he nor the occupants to follow did much more to Saint-Cloud than works of interior decoration. When the Prussia
ns captured it in 1814, they supposedly found Altdorfer's The Battle of Alexander at Issus
hanging in the Emperor's bathroom.
It was at Saint-Cloud once again, in Monsieur's Galerie d'Apollon, that Napoléon III invested himself as Emperor of the French on 1 December 1852. During the Second Empire
, Napoléon III and empress Eugénie held court at Saint-Cloud in the spring and the autumn. Napoléon III
had the orangery demolished in 1862, and Eugénie transformed the bedroom of Madame into a salon in Louis XVI style.
At Saint-Cloud, Napoléon III declared war on Prussia
on 28 July 1870. The heights dominating Paris were occupied by the Prussians during the siege of Paris
, who shelled Paris from the grounds of the château. Counter-fire from the French hit the building, and it caught fire and burned out on 13 October 1870. Fortunately, much of its contents had been removed by Empress Eugénie after war was declared.
The standing roofless walls were finally razed in 1891. The pediment of the château
's right wing, one of the preserved parts of the building, was bought by Ferdinand I of Bulgaria
and integrated in his palace Euxinograd
on the Black Sea
coast.
Today, only a few outbuildings and its park of 460 hectare
s remains, constituting the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud. It includes the garden à la française designed by Le Nôtre, Marie-Antoinette's flower garden (where roses for the French state are grown), a garden à l'anglaise from the 1820s (the Trocadéro garden), ten fountains, and a viewpoint of Paris known as "la lanterne", because a lantern was lit there when the Emperor Napoléon I was in residence.
The Pavillon de Breteuil
in the park has been the home of the General Conference on Weights and Measures
since 1875.
The sculpture group France crowning Art and Industry
was installed in the lower part of the park in 1900.
Many thousands of trees in the park were knocked down or badly damaged in a storm on 26 December 1999, but restoration work continues.
festival since 2003.
Reports in French newspapers of July 2007 suggested a plan to rebuild the château, but this appears to be the desire of an association rather than a government supported project. The association – "Reconstruisons Saint-Cloud!" or "Let us rebuild Saint-Cloud!" – was created in 2006 and aims to fund the rebuilding itself by imposing a fee on visitors.
Palace
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word itself is derived from the Latin name Palātium, for Palatine Hill, one of the seven hills in Rome. In many parts of Europe, the...
in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, built on a magnificent site overlooking the Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
at Saint-Cloud
Saint-Cloud
Saint-Cloud is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.Like other communes of the Hauts-de-Seine such as Marnes-la-Coquette, Neuilly-sur-Seine or Vaucresson, Saint-Cloud is one of the wealthiest cities in France, ranked 22nd out of the 36500 in...
in Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine is designated number 92 of the 101 départements in France. It is part of the Île-de-France region, and covers the western inner suburbs of Paris...
, about 10 kilometre
Kilometre
The kilometre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousand metres and is therefore exactly equal to the distance travelled by light in free space in of a second...
s west of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Today it is a large park on the outskirts of the capital and is owned by the state, but the area as a whole has had a large part to play in the history of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. The castle's grounds are part of today's Parc de Saint-Cloud
Parc de Saint-Cloud
The Parc de Saint-Cloud, officially the Domaine National de Saint-Cloud, is a domaine national , located mostly within Saint-Cloud, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, near Paris, France....
.
The château was expanded by Phillipe de France, duc d'Orléans
Philippe I, Duke of Orléans
Philippe of France was the youngest son of Louis XIII of France and his queen consort Anne of Austria. His older brother was the famous Louis XIV, le roi soleil. Styled Duke of Anjou from birth, Philippe became Duke of Orléans upon the death of his uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans...
in the 17th century, and finally enlarged by Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
in the 1780s. After occupation by Napoleon I
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
and Napoleon III
Napoleon III of France
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...
, the château was destroyed in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
.
Hôtel d'Aulnay
The Hôtel d'Aulnay on the site was expanded into a château in the 16th century by the Gondi banking family. The Gondi stemmed from a family of FlorentineRepublic of Florence
The Republic of Florence , or the Florentine Republic, was a city-state that was centered on the city of Florence, located in modern Tuscany, Italy. The republic was founded in 1115, when the Florentine people rebelled against the Margraviate of Tuscany upon Margravine Matilda's death. The...
bank
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...
ers established at Lyon in the first years of the sixteenth century, who had arrived at the court of France in 1543 in the train of Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici was an Italian noblewoman who was Queen consort of France from 1547 until 1559, as the wife of King Henry II of France....
. During the 1570s, the Queen offered Jérôme de Gondi a dwelling at Saint-Cloud, the Hôtel d'Aulnay, which became the nucleus of the château with a right-angled wing that looked out on a terrace.
The main front faced south, with a wing that terminated in a pavilion
Pavilion (structure)
In architecture a pavilion has two main meanings.-Free-standing structure:Pavilion may refer to a free-standing structure sited a short distance from a main residence, whose architecture makes it an object of pleasure. Large or small, there is usually a connection with relaxation and pleasure in...
affording a handsome view over the Seine river. Henry III of France
Henry III of France
Henry III was King of France from 1574 to 1589. As Henry of Valois, he was the first elected monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the dual titles of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1573 to 1575.-Childhood:Henry was born at the Royal Château de Fontainebleau,...
installed himself in this house in order to conduct the siege of Paris during the Wars of Religion
French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion is the name given to a period of civil infighting and military operations, primarily fought between French Catholics and Protestants . The conflict involved the factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as the House of Bourbon and House of Guise...
, and here he was assassinated by the monk Jacques Clément
Jacques Clément
Jacques Clément was the assassin of the French king Henry III.He was born at Serbonnes, in today's Yonne département, in Burgundy, and became a Dominican lay brother....
.
17th century
Jean-François de Gondi
Jean-François de Gondi was the first archbishop of Paris, from 1622 to 1654.He was the son of Albert de Gondi and Claude Catherine de Clermont. He was a member of the Gondi family, which had held the bishopric of Paris for nearly a century, and would continue to do so after him. Jean-François...
, archbishop of Paris
Archbishop of Paris
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paris is one of twenty-three archdioceses of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The original diocese is traditionally thought to have been created in the 3rd century by St. Denis and corresponded with the Civitas Parisiorum; it was elevated to an archdiocese on...
. His embellishment notably included gardens by Thomas Francine.
After the death of Jean-François de Gondi in 1654, the château was inherited in turn by Philippe-Emmanuel de Gondi and then by his nephew Henri de Gondi, known as the duc de Retz
Retz
Retz is a town with a population of 4,168 in the district of Hollabrunn in Lower Austria, Austria.- Geography :Retz is located in the north western Weinviertel in Lower Austria. The municipality's area covers 45,01 km². 11.83 percent of this area is forested...
. The latter sold the property in 1655 to Barthélemy Hervart, a banker of German extraction who was intendant then surintendant des finances. He enlarged the park to twelve hectares and did considerable rebuilding. He built a grande cascade (not the present one) in the park.
Garden details that seem to be of this phase of Saint-Cloud were drawn by Israël Silvestre
Israel Silvestre
Israel Silvestre , called the Younger to distinguish him from his father, was a prolific French draftsman, etcher and print dealer who specialized in topographical views and perspectives of famous buildings...
. It was built in Italian style, with an invisibly flat roof and frescoed façades. Its gardens descended in a series of terraces to the Seine, provided with fountains at each level.
On 8 October 1658, Hervart organized a sumptuous feast at Saint-Cloud in honour of the young Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
, his brother, "Monsieur", Philippe, duc d'Orléans
Philippe I, Duke of Orléans
Philippe of France was the youngest son of Louis XIII of France and his queen consort Anne of Austria. His older brother was the famous Louis XIV, le roi soleil. Styled Duke of Anjou from birth, Philippe became Duke of Orléans upon the death of his uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans...
, their mother Anne of Austria
Anne of Austria
Anne of Austria was Queen consort of France and Navarre, regent for her son, Louis XIV of France, and a Spanish Infanta by birth...
and Cardinal Mazarin. Two weeks later, 25 October, Monsieur bought the château and its grounds, for 240,000 livre
Livré
Livré-la-Touche is a commune in the Mayenne department in north-western France. Prior to October 6, 2008, it was known as Livré....
s.
It appears that Mazarin pressed the sale, contributing to a policy of building a network of royal châteaux to the west of Paris, and relieving the excessively-enriched Hervart from the fate of Nicolas Fouquet
Nicolas Fouquet
Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV...
, whose fête at Vaux-le-Vicomte
Vaux-le-Vicomte
The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun, 55 km southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne département of France...
precipitated his fall and imprisonment.
Monsieur was engaged in building operations at Saint-Cloud until his death in 1701. The works were designed and constructed by his architect Antoine Le Pautre, who built the wings in 1677. The château as it was reconstructed for Monsieur took the form of a "U" open to the east, towards the Seine, with the Gondi château, which had faced south, integrated into its left wing. To the rear, a long orangery
Orangery
An orangery was a building in the grounds of fashionable residences from the 17th to the 19th centuries and given a classicising architectural form. The orangery was similar to a greenhouse or conservatory...
formed a wing that prolonged the right wing of the court. The entrance avenue, bordered by dependencies, some of which survive, arrived on an angle from the bridge.
Inside, the apartment of "Madame", Princess Henrietta of England
Princess Henrietta of England
Henrietta Anne of England & Scots was born a Princess of England and Scotland as the youngest daughter of King Charles I of England and his consort Henrietta Maria of France. Fleeing England with her governess at the age of three, she moved to the court of her first cousin Louis XIV of France,...
in the left wing was decorated by Jean Nocret in 1660, and the 45-metre Galerie d'Apollon, which occupied the whole of the right wing, was decorated with myths of Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
by Pierre Mignard
Pierre Mignard
Pierre Mignard , called "Le Romain" to distinguish him from his brother Nicolas Mignard, was a French painter...
(finished in 1680).
The last child of Philippe and Henrietta was born here in 1669 and named Anne Marie d'Orléans; she was the maternal grandmother of Louis XV of France
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
.
The château was the site of the death of Princess Henrietta in 1670. It was upon this occasion that Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet was a French bishop and theologian, renowned for his sermons and other addresses. He has been considered by many to be one of the most brilliant orators of all time and a masterly French stylist....
composed the famous oration for her funeral.
Château de Clagny
The Château de Clagny was a French country house that stood northeast of the Château de Versailles; it was designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart for Madame de Montespan between 1674 and 1680...
, and set out in 1678 to build the Galerie at Versailles.
Following Le Pautre's death in 1679, the work was continued by his executive assistant Jean Girard
Jean Girard
Jean Girard was a French organist, serpent player, and schoolmaster who was primarily active in Canada. He was one of the first professional musicians living and working in the city of Montreal....
, a master mason rather than a full-fledged architect, and perhaps by Thomas Gobert. Jules Hardouin Mansart
Jules Hardouin Mansart
Jules Hardouin-Mansart was a French architect whose work is generally considered to be the apex of French Baroque architecture, representing the power and grandeur of Louis XIV...
intervened towards the end of the century, designing a grand stair in the left wing in the manner of the Ambassadors' Staircase at Versailles.
The gardens were replanned by André Le Nôtre
André Le Nôtre
André Le Nôtre was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France...
, and the park took on the dimensions it retains today. The Grande Cascade, constructed in 1664-1665 by Antoine Le Pautre. has survived. The basin and the lowermost canal were added by Hardouin-Mansart in 1698.
A total of 156,000 livres is estimated to have been spent over the years.
18th century
Saint Cloud descended in the family of Monsieur's heirs, the ducs d'Orléans, and remained in their hands for most of the 18th century.After protracted negotiations, the château de Saint-Cloud was bought in 1785 by Louis XVI
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
for Marie-Antoinette, who was convinced that the air of Saint-Cloud would be good for her children. The duc d'Orléans, Louis-Philippe
Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans
Louis Philippe d'Orléans known as le Gros , was a French nobleman, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon, the dynasty then ruling France. The First Prince of the Blood after 1752, he was the most senior male at the French court after the immediate royal family. He was the father of...
, who had not visited the château since his morganatic marriage with Madame de Montesson
Charlotte-Jeanne Béraud de la Haye de Riou, marquise de Montesson
Charlotte-Jeanne Béraud de La Haye de Riou was a mistress to Louis Philippe d'Orléans, duc d'Orléans, and ultimately, his wife; however, Louis XV would not allow her to become the duchesse. She wrote and acted in several plays...
, was induced to part with it for 6,000,000 livres.
After the sale of the palace was officially finished, Marie Antoinette set about transforming her new private home. She set to transforming Saint-Cloud in 1787-1788 by her preferred architect Richard Mique
Richard Mique
Richard Mique was a neoclassical French architect born in Lorraine. He is most remembered for his picturesque hamlet, the Hameau de la reine — not particularly characteristic of his working style — for Marie Antoinette in the Petit Trianon gardens within the estate of Palace of...
, who enlarged the corps de logis
Corps de logis
Corps de logis is the architectural term which refers to the principal block of a large, usually classical, mansion or palace. It contains the principal rooms, state apartments and an entry. The grandest and finest rooms are often on the first floor above the ground level: this floor is the...
and the adjacent half of the right wing; he rebuilt the garden front. Hardouin-Mansart's staircase was demolished in favour of a new stone stairs giving onto the state apartments.
The château was at first refurnished from the Garde Meuble with furnishing collected from other royal residences, but soon furniture was commissioned for Saint-Cloud. Gilded chairs and marquetry commodes with gilt-bronze mounts in the richest Louis XVI taste were being delivered to Saint-Cloud right to the opening days of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. In 1790, Saint-Cloud was the setting for the famous interview between Marie Antoinette and Mirabeau
Mirabeau
Mirabeau can refer to:People* Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau, a French physiocrat and economist.* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, renowned orator, a figure in the French Revolution and son of Victor....
.
The château was declared a bien national and emptied by the Revolutionary sales.
The Saint-Cloud orangery
Orangery
An orangery was a building in the grounds of fashionable residences from the 17th to the 19th centuries and given a classicising architectural form. The orangery was similar to a greenhouse or conservatory...
was the setting for the coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
of 18 Brumaire
18 Brumaire
The coup of 18 Brumaire was the coup d'état by which General Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the French Directory, replacing it with the French Consulate...
(10 November 1799), in which the Directoire was suppressed and the Consulat declared. Less than five years later, Napoléon Bonaparte
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
was proclaimed as Emperor of the French on 18 May 1804 at Saint-Cloud. Saint-Cloud was later used by Bonaparte's family and was their main seat along with the Palais des Tuileries
Tuileries Palace
The Tuileries Palace was a royal palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine until 1871, when it was destroyed in the upheaval during the suppression of the Paris Commune...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
19th century
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
ns captured it in 1814, they supposedly found Altdorfer's The Battle of Alexander at Issus
The Battle of Alexander at Issus
The Battle of Alexander at Issus is a 1529 oil painting by the German artist Albrecht Altdorfer , a pioneer of landscape art and a founding member of the Danube school...
hanging in the Emperor's bathroom.
It was at Saint-Cloud once again, in Monsieur's Galerie d'Apollon, that Napoléon III invested himself as Emperor of the French on 1 December 1852. During the Second Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
, Napoléon III and empress Eugénie held court at Saint-Cloud in the spring and the autumn. Napoléon III
Napoleon III of France
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...
had the orangery demolished in 1862, and Eugénie transformed the bedroom of Madame into a salon in Louis XVI style.
At Saint-Cloud, Napoléon III declared war on Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
on 28 July 1870. The heights dominating Paris were occupied by the Prussians during the siege of Paris
Siege of Paris
The Siege of Paris, lasting from September 19, 1870 – January 28, 1871, and the consequent capture of the city by Prussian forces led to French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the establishment of the German Empire as well as the Paris Commune....
, who shelled Paris from the grounds of the château. Counter-fire from the French hit the building, and it caught fire and burned out on 13 October 1870. Fortunately, much of its contents had been removed by Empress Eugénie after war was declared.
Château
A château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally—and still most frequently—in French-speaking regions...
's right wing, one of the preserved parts of the building, was bought by Ferdinand I of Bulgaria
Ferdinand I of Bulgaria
Ferdinand , born Ferdinand Maximilian Karl Leopold Maria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry, was the ruler of Bulgaria from 1887 to 1918, first as knyaz and later as tsar...
and integrated in his palace Euxinograd
Euxinograd
Euxinograd is a former late 19th-century Bulgarian royal summer palace and park on the Black Sea coast, north of downtown Varna. It is currently a governmental and presidential retreat hosting cabinet meetings in the summer and offering access for tourists to several villas and hotels...
on the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
coast.
Today, only a few outbuildings and its park of 460 hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
s remains, constituting the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud. It includes the garden à la française designed by Le Nôtre, Marie-Antoinette's flower garden (where roses for the French state are grown), a garden à l'anglaise from the 1820s (the Trocadéro garden), ten fountains, and a viewpoint of Paris known as "la lanterne", because a lantern was lit there when the Emperor Napoléon I was in residence.
The Pavillon de Breteuil
Pavillon de Breteuil
Pavillon de Breteuil is a building located in Sèvres, France near Paris. It was inaugurated by Louis XIV in 1672. It is in the park of the former royal Château de Saint-Cloud, which was destroyed in 1870....
in the park has been the home of the General Conference on Weights and Measures
General Conference on Weights and Measures
The General Conference on Weights and Measures is the English name of the Conférence générale des poids et mesures . It is one of the three organizations established to maintain the International System of Units under the terms of the Convention du Mètre of 1875...
since 1875.
20th century
France crowning Art and Industry
France crowning Art and Industry is a 6.50 m tall limestone sculpture group which decorated the top of the entrance of Palais de l'Industrie, the main building of the 1855 international exhibition in Paris. It was moved to the park of Saint-Cloud in 1900 when the palais de l'Industrie was...
was installed in the lower part of the park in 1900.
Many thousands of trees in the park were knocked down or badly damaged in a storm on 26 December 1999, but restoration work continues.
21st century
The park has been the venue for the Rock en SeineRock en Seine
The Rock en Seine festival is a two or three-day Rock 'n roll festival, held at Domaine National de Saint-Cloud, Château de Saint-Cloud's park West of Paris, inside the garden designed by Le Nôtre...
festival since 2003.
Reports in French newspapers of July 2007 suggested a plan to rebuild the château, but this appears to be the desire of an association rather than a government supported project. The association – "Reconstruisons Saint-Cloud!" or "Let us rebuild Saint-Cloud!" – was created in 2006 and aims to fund the rebuilding itself by imposing a fee on visitors.