while on a crusade in constantinople, louis ix purchased what relic to display at sainte-chapelle?

Château de Vincennes

The Château de Vincennes (French pronunciation: ​ [ʃɑto d(ə) vɛ̃sɛn]) is a onetime fortress and royal residence next to the town of Vincennes, on the eastern edge of Paris, aslope the Bois de Vincennes. Information technology was largely built between 1361 and 1369, and was a preferred residence, afterwards the Palais de la Cité, of French Kings in the 14th to 16th century. It is especially known for its "donjon" or keep, a fortified fundamental tower, the tallest in Europe, built in the 14th century, and for the chapel, Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes, begun in 1379 but non completed until 1552, which is an exceptional case of Flamboyant Gothic architecture. Because of its fortifications, the château was oft used as a royal sanctuary in times of trouble, and later equally a prison and military headquarters. The chapel was listed as an historic monument in 1853, and the keep was listed in 1913. Most of the building is now open to the public.^[2]

History

twelfth–14th century – Louis Vii to Saint Louis

The beginning royal residence was created by an act of Louis VII in 1178. The site had the advantages of good hunting in the surrounding wood, proximity to 2 sometime Roman roads to Sens and to Lagny, as well as access by water on the Marne and Seine rivers. It was used only occasionally by Louis Seven and his successors, but Louis Nine, or Saint Louis (1226–1270), used it much more often, 2nd only to his fourth dimension at the Palais de la Cité in Paris. He held meetings of the royal council in that location, and the Queen and his children often resided at that place when he was absent from Paris.^[3] When Louis Ix purchased the reputed Crown of Thorns from the Emperor at Constantinople, Louis received the celebrated relic at Sens Cathedral, escorted it to Vincennes, so accompanied it to its eventual abode in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. A few thorns from the crown of thorns and a small fragment of the reputed Truthful Cantankerous were deposited at Vincennes for placement in a futurity chapel. Louis IX said farewell to his family unit at Vincennes before his departure to the Crusades, from which he did non render.^[3]

The Chateau was frequented past the Kings and their families. Philippe 3 (in 1274) and Philippe IV (in 1284) were each married there and 3 14th-century kings died at Vincennes: Louis 10 (1316), Philippe Five (1322) and Charles IV (1328). The residence at the fourth dimension was a sprawling manor with four wings located in the northeast corner of the present chateau walls, begun in the late 13th century. Information technology was transferred to the clergy of the Saint-Chapelle later on the Keep was completed; vestiges were found during excavations in 1992–1996.^[four]

14th century – Fortress of Jean II and Charles V

The defeats of the French and the capture of the King by the English in the Hundred Years State of war, every bit well every bit uprisings of the Parisian merchants under Etienne Marcel (1357–58) and a rural upraising against the crown, the Jacquerie (1360), persuaded the new French King, Jean 2 of France and his son, the future Charles 5, that they needed a more than secure residence close to, but not in the center of Paris. The Rex ordered the construction of a fortress at Vincennes with loftier walls and towers surrounding a massive keep or cardinal tower, 52 meters (172 feet) high. The work was started in about 1337, and by 1364 the iii lower levels of the keep were finished. Charles Five moved into the keep in 1367 or 1368, while construction was still underway. When it was completed in 1369–lxx, it was the tallest fortified structure in Europe. The digging of the deep moat came next (1367), and then the fortified gateway (1369). The walls and towers surrounding the keep were finished in 1371–72.^[4]

Late 14th – Late 15th century – Wars of Religion – Royal fortress and refuge – La Sainte Chapelle

In the turbulent 15th century, the Chateau became a refuge for the kings of French republic. It was the regular residence of Charles VI of France up until his madness, so was disputed past the 2 rivals of his succession, Philip the Adept of Burgundy and Louis I, Duke of Orléans. In 1415 the knights of Henry V of England defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt. The Treaty of Troyes in 1420 granted the Chateau and the Ile-de-France to the English language. Henry V of England installed his troops there, repaired the Chateau, and lived there until his death in 1422.^[4]

An alliance betwixt the Burgundians with Charles 7 of France finally allowed the King to force the English language out of the Ile-de-France and to reoccupy the Chateau. He and his successors rarely lived at that place, preferring the Loire Valley. His successor, Louis Xi, also spent near of his time in the Loire Valley, but he made 1 major modification to Vincennes: He constructed a new royal residence inside the walls, the offset outside of the keep. Information technology extended the entire length of the southeast wall. ^[5]

Charles V had even greater ambitions for the Chateau. At the end of 1372, he began construction of another wall, a large square more than a kilometre (0.6 mi) in length, with towers, to contain the additional buildings he intended to build. This was synthetic between 1372 and 1385. The outer wall was given further reinforcement with the construction of a deep moat. The last project begun by Charles the V was laying the foundations of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes to hold a set of sacred relics obtained by Louis IX, but he died in 1380 in the Manoir de Beauté, a separate residence he had constructed in 1376–1377 southeast of Vincennes, when the work on the new Sainte-Chapelle had just begun. ^[4]

The Sainte-Chapelle of Vincennes, begun in 1379, was yet unfinished in the 16th century. In 1520 King Francois I, a frequent resident, resolved to complete information technology to celebrate the nativity of his son and heir. Subsequently his death in 1547, Henry II of France took upwards the work, finishing the vaults, and adding the woodwork and especially the stained glass. It was completed in 1552.^[vi]

17th and early 18th century – new royal residences

In the early 17th century, Marie De' Medici, the widow of the assassinated Henry IV of French republic, began a major project to replace the old pavilion of Louis XI and Francois I. Her son Louis XIII, then historic period x, laid the first stone of the new residence in 1610. Louis XIV continued the program on an even larger scale; planned by the royal builder Louis Le Vau. his new residence in the French classical style, at present the Batiment du Roi, was finished in 1658, and was twice the size of the Louis Xiii residence. In 1688, piece of work began on a new pavilion of the Queen, on the north side of the enclosure. A new formal garden with an orangerie, was built on the w side. A large group of painters and sculptors was assembled to decorate the new buildings. The ensemble was completed with a triumphal arch at the entrance, and was defended in August 1660, in time for the return of the King and his new bride to Paris. But the age of imperial glory at Vincennes was cursory; in 1682 Louis Fourteen moved the royal court to his residence at Versailles, and in 1715 Louis Fifteen began his reign in Versailles. While the King occasionally went hunting at Vincennes, the Courtroom did not return.^[7]

18th – early 19th century – Mill, prison house, fortress

Following the majestic difference in the early 18th century, an effort was made to plow the Chateau into a sort of pre-industrial park; the royal porcelain factory was opened in the Devil's Tower in 1740, but moved to a larger space in Sèvres in 1756. It was home for a time of an armaments manufacturing plant and a porcelain mill, and so an industrial bakery. Information technology was used occasionally for equus caballus races from 1777 until 1784. In 1787 the Male monarch put well-nigh of the buildings up for sale, but the sale was interrupted by the French Revolution. The Chateau took on a new role equally a military base and prison. ^[7]

Long earlier the French Revolution, notable prisoners had been held at the Chateau. Early on prisoners included the futurity King Henry IV in 1574, Henri II de Condé (1652–1664); Nicolas Fouquet, the royal government minister of finance of Louis Xiv (September 1661); and the author Denis Diderot. The Marquis de Sade was held at that place from 1777 to 1784, the author Honoré Mirabeau from 1777 to 1784, and the famous swindler Jean Henri Latude, who escaped twice from the Vincennes and once from the Bastille. In 1784, later on Mirabeau wrote a series of manufactures which exposed the abuses of the royal judicial system and the practice of keeping prisoners without trial, the use of the keep as prison was discontinued. ^[8]

At the end of February 1791, a mob of more than a g workers from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, encouraged by members of the Cordeliers Club and led by Antoine Joseph Santerre, marched out to the château, which, rumour had information technology, was being readied on the part of the Crown for political prisoners, and with crowbars and pickaxes set nigh demolishing it, as the Bastille had recently been demolished. The work was interrupted by the Marquis de Lafayette who took several ringleaders prisoners, to the jeers of the Parisian workers.^[nine]

Following the French Revolution, the chateau was denounced equally a symbol of oppression, but then was used over again by Napoleon I to hold prisoners transferred from the Temple Prison house in Paris, Napoleon demolished the Temple prison house to prevent information technology from becoming a royalist shrine to Marie Antoinette, who had been held there. Two historical items from the Temple Prison are displayed at Vincennes; an armoured prison house cell door, and a stove of ceramic tiles which had originally been in the jail cell of Marie Antoinette.^[8]

During the reign of Napoleon, the chateau and its buildings underwent considerable reconstruction to serve equally a military arsenal. A new wooden floor divided the Sainte-Chapelle into upper and lower levels, and it was turned into a storehouse for munitions. The Pavilion of the King and the Pavilion of the Queen became barracks for the garrison. Most of the towers of the surrounding wall, which were in a poor state of repair, were demolished, with the exception of the Belfry of the Village, which still has its original height, and the Tower of the Woods, which had collapsed earlier.^[8] The moat of the chateau was also the site of a famous execution, that of Duc d'Enghien, which took place on 21 March 1804. He was defendant of trying the reinstate the royal authorities. A willow tree in the moat was planted to mark the place he was executed, and is still there today.^[seven]

In 1814, after Napoleon's defeat in Russian federation, as the allied armies of the Sixth Coalition approached Paris, the chateau was allowable by General Pierre Yrieix Daumesnil. Daumesnil had a wooden leg, replacing a limb he lost at the Battle of Wagram (five–half dozen July 1809). When the allies demanded his give up, Daumenil responded, "I shall surrender Vincennes when I get my leg dorsum". He finally agreed to give up the fortress only when ordered to do by the newly restored Male monarch, Louis XVIII.

Belatedly 19th – military machine base and public park

During the Restoration and the July Monarchy, in the offset half of the 19th century, the chateau and park were used by war machine, particularly the artillery; an artillery schoolhouse was opened there in 1826. The surrounding park was used for military exercises and every bit a firing range. In the first part of the 19th century 3 separate forts were constructed within the park to serve equally part of the defences of the urban center. In the mid-century, the carve up forts were connected together into i very large military circuitous. The buildings of the chateau itself and its surroundings were the park as part of the ne fortifications of the city. Some parts of the medieval complexes were modified to fit into the new defensive programme.^[ten]

Nether Napoleon 3, the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes was declared an historical landmark, and in 1854 restoration of the chapel was begun by Eugene Viollet-le-Duc.The keep of the chateau was given landmark status in 1913, though restoration did not brainstorm until after the First World State of war. ^[ten]

Beginning just earlier 1860, the Emperor Louis Napoleon too began to develop an extensive new public park to the southeast of Paris, the Bois de Vincennes, modelled after the Bois de Boulogne he had begun on the other side of the metropolis. The territory of the Bois de Vincennes, with the exception of the military machine bases, was ceded to the Urban center of Paris on 24 July 1860, and became role of the XII arrondissement of Paris.^[11]

On March 20, 1871, ii days afterward the Paris Commune seized power in the metropolis, Commune soldiers came to the Chateau and fraternised with the regular army soldiers. The Chateau surrendered to the Commune without a fight. A few weeks afterwards, on 27 May, afterwards the regular French army had recaptured Paris from the Commune, the Chateau was the last holdout where the red flag nevertheless flew. . A colonel of the ground forces arrived and negotiated the surrender of the remaining Communards. The soldiers left peacefully, while some of the officers who had joined the Commune were arrested, tried and shot in the moat of the chateau. A plaque on the wall of the moat marks the place. ^[11]

20th century – Command post

During the Outset World War, the German spy Mata Hari was executed by a firing team on October xv, 1917, in the moat of the Chateau.^[12]

The restoration of the chateau was halted in 1936 by concerns near the rising threat from Nazi Germany. Commencement in that yr, a large underground bunker was dug below the Pavilion of the Queen in the southeast corner, to serve equally the headquarters of the chief of staff. The generals Maurice Gamelin and then Maxime Weygand directed the defense of France from at that place, until they were overwhelmed past the German Blitzkrieg. France surrendered on June 14, 1940. The Germans and then used it every bit a base of operations for their ain soldiers, as well as a prison where French Resistance members were held. One of the showtime members of the French Resistance, Jacques Bonsergent, was tried and executed in that location on Nov ten, 1940.^[13] On 20 August 1944, during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, 26 policemen and members of the Resistance arrested by soldiers of the Waffen-SS were executed in the eastern moat of the fortress, and their bodies thrown in a common grave.^[14]

On the evening of Baronial 24, 1944, the same 24-hour interval that the armoured division of Full general Leclerc reached the heart of Paris, the German forces occupying the Château set off explosives in the three storage areas of munitions, badly damaging the Pavilions of the King and Queen and opening a gap in the wall between the entry pavilion and belfry of Paris, earlier they withdrew. The next day the 4th U.S. infantry division reached the Château and the eastern neighbourhoods of Paris.^[15]

In 1948 the Chateau became the headquarters of France's Defence Historical Service, which maintains a museum in the proceed. A major entrada began in 1986 to preserve and restore the architectural heritage of the Château.^[xvi]

Plan and Description

Just traces remain of the before castle and the substantial remains date from the 14th century. The castle forms a rectangle whose perimeter is more than than a kilometer in length (330 m × 175 grand, 1,085 ft × 575 ft). Information technology has half-dozen towers and iii gates, each originally 42 metres (138 ft) high, and is surrounded past a deep stone lined moat. The towers of the grande enceinte at present stand only to the height of the walls, having been demolished in the 1800s, save the Tour du Hamlet on the north side of the enclosure. The south end consists of two wings facing each other, the Pavillon du Roi and the Pavillon de la Reine, built by Louis Le Vau.

The Keep

The Donjon or Go on of Versailles was finished in 1369–70. It is l metres (160 ft) loftier, the highest of its kind in Europe. Its walls are 16.v metres (54 ft) wide on each side, and at each corner is tower 6.6 metres (22 ft) in diameter, the aforementioned height as the building. An additional belfry, the elevation of the residuum, is attached to the n of the northwest tower, providing back up the whole structure and also containing latrines for all five levels of the keep. The wall at the base of the keep are three.26 meters, or ten feet, thick. It served as both a royal residence and a very visible symbol of royal power.^[17]

The keep is one of the first known examples of rebar usage.^[18] Each of the 8 floors has a fundamental room about ten meters on each side. with a peak varying from seven to eight metres (23 to 26 ft). Each of the lower four floors have s key cavalcade which reinforces the vaulted ceiling. The columns were decorated with sculpture and painted in bright colors.^[17]

One striking feature of the construction was the utilise of iron bars to strengthen the structure. More than two and half kilometres (one.6 mi) of iron bars, in various shapes, were built into the structure.Fe bars reinforced the doorways, windows and the ceilings of the corridors, and, unusually, belts of iron bars surrounded the entire tower at the ground level, fifth level and sixth level.^[xv]

In the Middle Ages the only access to the Keep was on the first floor, past a span from the terrace of the chatelet, where the King'south offices were located. A narrow stairway, inside the s wall. The two entrances on the basis flooring were not added until the 18th century. When the keep was given an additional floor, and grand stairway was built connecting the two noble floors, the get-go and second.^[15]

Keep interior

• The ground floor of the Proceed has wells and the remains of a large fireplace. It was probably originally used by purple servants. It was largely rebuilt when the building was used as a prison.
• The first flooring contained the coming together hall of the Council of the Male monarch, and was also used when needed for bedchambers of the Queen and others close to the Male monarch. The walls were originally covered with oak panels, some of which are nonetheless in identify. Studies of the wood indicate that information technology was cut between 1367 and 1371 in the Baltic region or present-solar day Poland.^[xix]
• The second floor was occupied by the sleeping accommodation of the King, and has vestiges of the decoration added by Charles V of France when he rebuilt information technology 1367–38. The walls were originally covered with oak panels, and the vaulted ceiling was decorated with sculpted keystones and consoles and painted fleurs-de-lys and the glaze-of-arms of the Rex, against a bluish background, nonetheless visible. A small-scale oratory is set up into the due north wall, though its wood panelling has disappeared.^[19]
• The third floor has the same plan as the second, but lacks the ornate ornamentation of the royal floor. It was probably used past important guests of the King.
• The fourth, 5th and sixth floors, which lack decoration, were probably used by domestic servants or soldiers. They were also used to store munitions for the weapons placed at the windows of the fourth floor and on the terraces of tower of latrines and the main body of the keep. The sixth floor has no windows and a ceiling but two meters high, and a unmarried archway. Beginning in 1752, the upper floors were used primarily as prison cells. The bars in the windows and doors date from that period. The all-encompassing and elaborate graffiti nevertheless found on the walls on the upper floors too dates from the 17th and 18th century.^[xx]

Wall of the Proceed and Entry Pavilion

The Keep is surrounded by a rectangular stone wall, or "enceinte" about 50 metres (160 ft) long one each side, 11.five metres (38 ft) loftier, and one.1 metres (3 ft vii in) thick. It is crenelated at the top level with a walkway that was originally open up but was given a tile roof in the 15th century and then the present slate roof. At each of the 4 corners is an Echauguette, a modest watch belfry that protrudes outward, to requite amend oversight of the walls. In the northeast corner of the walkway, next to the chatelet, is a group of rooms which originally were part of the working part of the King, on the second floor of the chatelet. They include a small chapel, a hall, and a chamber.^[21]

The Sainte-Chapelle

The Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes, the royal chapel of the residence, was congenital on the model of the Sainte Chapelle of the Palais de la Cité in Paris, though the plan was modified to have a single level, rather than two. Work began under Charles V of French republic in 1379, at the cease of his reign. The exterior and interior sculpture was largely finished betwixt 1390 and 1410. The west front end was finished last; work was resumed in 1520, and it was inaugurated by Henry II of French republic in 1552. The due west front is a good case of the belatedly Gothic Flamboyant style, with three gabled arches one atop the other, framing and echoing the elaborate crimper designs of the roe window. The stained glass windows of the interior reflected the irresolute style; the windows of the choir were Rayonnant Gothic, while those of the nave were Flamboyant.^[22]

The Chapel suffered especially from the vandalism of the French Revolution. Most all of the stained glass and the sculpture on tympanum and portals was smashed, but a few notable examples of 15th century sculpture survived, notably a sculpture of the Holy Trinity in the upper arches over the west portal.^[22] The outside walls are supported past enormous buttresses between the windows, each crowned by an ornate spire, giving them additional weight.^[23]

The nave and choir of the interior form a single vessel with five traverses. The oratories of the Rex and Queen are placed only before the choir. The summit of the vaults, where the ribs meet, are decorated with ornamental keystones, some with the coats-of-arms of Isabeau of Bavaria and Charles 5 of French republic. The painted decoration on some of the afterwards vaults displays the H of Henry Ii of France and a K for Catherine de Medici.^[23]

The stained glass windows of the nave were installed between 1556 and 1559. Those in the nave were almost entirely destroyed in the French Revolution; simply drawings remain.Some of the windows of the apse did survive. They illustrate the Apocalypse as recounted in the Gospel of Saint John. They were substantially restored in the 19th century under Louis Napoleon and again the 20th century.^[24]

The Pavilions of the Rex and Queen

Louis XIII built the King'south pavilion between in the southwest corner between 1610 and 1617 most the beginning of his reign. Only the w facade of this building is withal visible. In 1654–58, the regal architect Louis Le Vau enlarged the building surrounding the old structure with a new structure, in the French classical mode. The new building has the same length as the old pavilion, but is twice every bit wide. The Pavilion of the Queen was built between 1658 and 1660, post-obit the same basic pattern.

The Pavilion of the King, 3 stories loftier, was built at the edge of a garden. The apartment of the King had five rooms, located on the start flooring, looking westward over the garden. The Queen's apartment in her pavilion followed the same plan, overlooking the courtyard. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the interiors barbarous into disrepair, then were almost totally destroyed, with the exception of some portions of the painted ceilings; the Germans had stored explosives in the two pavilions, and these exploded in fires set by the departing occupiers in August 1944.^[23]

Fortunately, some portions of the painted and sculpted ceilings of the regal pavilions were saved in the 19th century; King Louis Philippe had a ceiling dismantled and transported from Vincennes to the Louvre Museum, where it was installed in room 639, a display of Egyptian Antiquities, where it can be seen today.^[25]

Run across also

• Fort Neuf de Vincennes, built to the east of the fortress beginning in 1840 to provide an up-to-date arms platform as function of the Thiers Wall defenses of Paris, now a war machine headquarters.

Sources

1. ^ It was used as the CnC Gamelin's HQ
2. ^ Chapelot 2003, p. 1,65–66.
3. ^ ^{a b} Chapelot 2003, p. 4–5.
4. ^ ^{a b c d} Chapelot 2003, p. 8.
5. ^ Chapelot, p. fourteen-14. sfn fault: no target: CITEREFChapelot (aid)
6. ^ Chapelot 2003, p. 23.
7. ^ ^{a b c} Chapelot 2003, p. 24–27.
8. ^ ^{a b c} Chapelot 2003, p. 29.
9. ^ Christopher Hibbert, The Days of the French Revolution 1980:133f.
10. ^ ^{a b} Chapelot 2003, p. 31–33.
11. ^ ^{a b} Chapelot 2003, p. 33.
12. ^ "15 octobre 1917. Le jour où Mata Hari est fusillée au château de Vincennes." "Le Betoken", August 30, 2018
13. ^ Chapelot 2003, p. 35.
14. ^ "La vocation militaire du Château". Ville de Vincennes. Archived from the original on 2015-09-01. Retrieved 2015-07-06 .
15. ^ ^{a b c} Chapelot 2003, p. 36-37.
16. ^ Chapelot 2003, p. 37.
17. ^ ^{a b} Chapelot 2003, p. 42-43.
18. ^ "Le donjon de Vincennes livre son histoire".
19. ^ ^{a b} Chapelot 2003, p. 44.
20. ^ Chapelot 2003, p. 48.
21. ^ Chapelot 2003, p. 43.
22. ^ ^{a b} Chapelot 2013, p. 52. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChapelot2013 (help)
23. ^ ^{a b c} Chapelot 2013, p. 56-57. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChapelot2013 (help)
24. ^ Chapelot 2013, p. 58. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChapelot2013 (help)
25. ^ Chapelot 2013, p. threescore-61. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChapelot2013 (assist)

Bibliography

• Chapelot, Jean (2003). Le château de Vincennes (in French). Paris: Editions du Patrimoine- Middle des monuments nationaux. ISBN978-2-85822-676-4.
• Frank McCormick, "John Vanbrugh'due south Compages: Some Sources of His Style" The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 46.2 (June 1987) pp. 135–144.
• Jean Mesqui, Châteaux forts et fortifications en France (Paris: Flammarion, 1997)

Gallery

External links

• Website of the Château
• Château de Vincennes – The official website of France (in English)
• Information on structurae.de
• French web site most history of Castle of Vincennes, with many illustrations.
• Base Mérimée: Château de Vincennes et ses abords, Ministère français de la Civilization. (in French)
• Base of operations Mérimée: Château fort, Ministère français de la Culture. (in French)

Coordinates: 48°l′34″N 2°26′09″Eastward  /  48.84278°N 2.43583°E  / 48.84278; 2.43583

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