Château de Compiègne is a french royal palace c. 75 km north of Paris, in the département of Oise. Compiègne has been a royal residence since the 7th century when it was used by Merovingian kings.
Château de Compiègne Architecture
The present building was begun in 1751 for Louis XV, King of France, by Anges-Jacques Gabriel. It was finished in 1786 for Louis XVI by Le Dreux de la Châtre.
The plan is trapezoidal, with the garden front placed at an oblique angle to the cour d’honneur, a complexity necessitated by the awkwardness of the site.
The cour d’honneur is in Gabriel’s plain style, the emphasis being on continuous horizontals with few curved elements. The elevation comprises two high stories of equal height beneath an attic.
A classical tetrastyle pavilion front with a pediment rises in the center; a flattened version of this motif, using pilasters, is used on the upper part of the end pavilions of the side wings of the cour d’honneur, which enclose a double-colonnaded entrance screen.
The interior decoration, which survives in the Salon des Jeux of the former queen’s apartments, was executed between 1782 and 1786.
There was no damage to the building during the French Revolution although the contents were sold in 1795, and after a period as a military academy, the château de Compiegne was restored in 1807 for Emperor Napoleon I by Louis-Martin Berthault.
Now restored to their state in 1811, the interiors represent a complete ensemble of the Empire style at its best. Under the Bourbon kings, the décor was slightly modified, with royal emblems replacing imperial ones. During the Second Empire, the court often stayed at Compiègne during the autumn.
The furnishings, now rather unfashionable, were for the most part changed, and a new gallery was built that would have connected the château and the new theatre, but the theatre was never completed. It was decorated with cartoons by Charles-Joseph Natoire for the Beauvais tapestries depicting the story of Don Quixote.
After 1870 the château was gradually emptied of its contents until it was restored in the 1950s. A museum devoted to the Second Empire was created in 1953 in the marshal’s wing, and another, to the history of road transport, was set up in the kitchen wing.
Château de Compiègne Gardens
The gardens of Chateau de Compiegne were begun in 1755 to designs by Gabriel but were still incomplete in 1789. He suggested a series of five levels.
The top terrace, being the rampart on which the garden front of the château stands, was connected by steps and balustrades with the second level, which contained two parterres de broderie flanked to the north and south by symmetrically planted clumps of trees.
The third terrace, narrower in the middle, stretched out to each side with quincunxes of lime trees forming chambres de verdure, while the fourth, the plan of which was modified in 1756, contained two long parterres de broderie, between which an allée led to the fifth level, where a lake framed by broderies was to have been sited.
Beyond the ha-ha, an esplanade bordered by trees extended the garden towards the Forêt de Compiègne.
The overall plan was thus established, although the parterres on the fourth level and the lake were not executed.
Plowed up after 1789, the gardens were restored for Napoleon by Berthault. Although the basic layout was retained, including the clumps of trees and quincunxes of the lateral sections, a notable change was the substitution of a long carriage ramp for Gabriel’s flights of stairs from the château to the lower level.
In later modifications, two pavilions were constructed at the end of the quincunxes, which were simplified, and a long arbor, called ‘le berceau de l’impératrice’ and comprising trees trained over iron trellises, was planted over the length of the north path to the forest.
Several radiating allées were laid out, the central one, about 5 km long, called the Allée des Beaux-Monts, being the most important feature of the park today.
A further alteration in 1811 was the transformation of the central section of the garden into a huge lawn bordered by clumps of varied and exotic trees so that the garden now represents a combination of the informal jardin anglais and formal jardin français styles.
Visit Château de Compiègne & Museum
Opening Times
The castle and the museum are open for visits every day (except on Tuesdays) from 10,00 to 18,00 (last admission 17,15)
Between 12,30 and 13:30, the apartments of the Emperor and Empress are only accessible by guided tour
The castle is closed on the 1st of January, 1st of May, and 25th of December.
Ticket Information
Full price: € 8.50
Reduced price: € 6.50
group rate: € 7.50 per person (10 persons)
Contact details:
Official website:http://www.musee-chateau-compiegne.fr/
Tel.: 03.44.38.47.02
Fax: 03.44.38.47.01
Email: service-publics.compiegne@culture.gouv.fr
Château de Compiègne Location
Château de Compiègne Address: 3 Impasse Laly, 60200 Compiègne, France. Use this map to get directions: