Service Door

From my retro style photo album. Servants posing in front of the service entrance of the Porte de Paris’s living quarters.

Porte De Paris In Villepreux

From the time of Louis XIV until the French Revolution, the Palace of Versailles, its Gardens and its Small Park were surounded by a much bigger park or Hunting Grounds. This enormous game reserve, which contained many villages, was surounded by a 40 kilometre wall and was gained access to by 24 doors. 1

Several of these doors were built on the exact same design by the king’s architect Jules Hardouin Mansart. Later in the 18 th century, almost all these doors received additional constructions, in the form of more confortable rooms and even farm buildings, as the guards were no longer satisfied with the cramped single room in which their fathers and their families had lived in.

We started a couple of years ago on the restauration and reconstruction of one of these doors, the Paris Door in Villepreux. 2 The door stands at some 8 kilometres west of the Palace.

This is the door at night as seen from the east, when standing inside the hunting grounds.

As you can see, still more work is needed on one of the farm buildings on the right. On the left stands the new accomodations built for the guard in the 18th century.

Here is the door from outside the Great Park, as you would see it if you were coming from the west and about to enter (or not!) the grounds of the Palace of Versailles.

Mind you if you were on foot, still 8 kilometres to go before reaching the Palace itself!

Well, this was more of a teaser than an extensive visit of the buildings, I hope I will be able to show you more soon!

1. See the article : Pour les plaisirs du roi : les métamorphoses de la porte de Trappes (in French) by Laurent Condamy and Julien Lacaze in Versalia, Revue de la Société des Amis de Versailles n°15, 2012.

2. We had the idea of rebuilding the Villepreux door after having read the article mentioned above, which tells the story of another door of the Great Park.

More Stairs

The stairs in my home at the entrance of the Petite Venise, near the head of the Grand Canal in Versailles. I am now renovating the house.

Cupboard Love

A lot of ancient conveniences of daily life — such as cupboards — have all but disappeared from the rooms of the palace of Versailles where courtiers had them made to order, removed or refitted almost on a daily basis during the Ancien Régime. Today, I am eager to equip those rooms and appartments with those much needed cupboards and have them rebuilt where the ancient plans show they once stood.

Today’s cupboard will be fitted not far from the stairs shown in yesterday's post, in a very small new project that is going on right now.

More coming soon, hopefully!

A big thank you to J. C. de Frontenac who helped me with installing the new cupboard!

Staircase Spirit

These unostentatious stairs have been made today and delivered for a new small projet on the grounds of the domain. More coming soon?

Armourer's Bedroom

The Armourer's Bedroom is a tiny windowless room inside the Duchess's apartments where her personal armourer may rest or spend the night. The tiny proportions of this room make it even impossible for you to stand, unless you are quite small. But you're in a bedroom to lie and rest anyway, aren't you? You'll notice the simple hexagonal terracotta tile floor, characteristic of the service areas of the palace.

The fireplace seems to be original, probably made for the room in the beginning of the 18th century.

Servant's Quarters

What a stark contrast between the decor of this room and the one of the salon I showed you again in the last article! If the salon does not present an example of the richest decors you can find anywhere in the palace (those can be found in the king's apartments of course, or in the Great Gallery), still you can start to develop an idea of the hierarchy that exists in the decoration of the different rooms of Versailles. The present room, judging by its characteristically simple stone mantelpiece (above which you wouldn't usually find such a large mirror, but this little room hasn't got any window, and the mirror is not new), its plain white walls and its floor made of the hexagonal terracotta tiles so widespread in Versailles, is clearly secondary and used by servants. (And still, a nice room for servants! There's worst! Believe me folks!)

A simple stone mantelpiece and terracotta floor in the South Wing's King's Pavilion.