Château de Compiègne: A French Royal and Imperial Residence
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- France
- Primary era
- Early Modern
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- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
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- French
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- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page20 sections
History
Château de Compiègne is a royal and imperial palace in Compiègne, France, whose present neoclassical complex was built between 1751 and 1788 on the site of earlier royal residences. Its history reaches back to the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled much of the Frankish kingdom from the fifth to the eighth century, and continued through the Carolingian, Capetian, Bourbon, and imperial regimes.
Merovingian and Carolingian residence
Compiègne probably had a royal residence from the reign of Clovis I, although the exact location of this early building is uncertain and it was probably constructed largely of wood. Merovingian rulers issued many official acts there. Clovis died at Compiègne in 561 after returning from a hunt at Saint-Jean-aux-Bois.
The residence remained associated with important royal events. In 604, Clotaire II made peace there with his nephew Theudebert II. Dagobert I held an assembly at Compiègne in 633 that decided on the foundation of the Basilica of Saint-Denis, and his treasure was kept at the palace until it was divided among his successors in 639.
Under the Carolingians, the palace became a regular meeting place for bishops and nobles and an important diplomatic centre. In 757, Pepin the Short received a Byzantine embassy from Emperor Constantine V and the homage of Tassilo III, duke of Bavaria. Louis the Pious held assemblies at Compiègne in 830 and 833, during which he was forced to abdicate.
Charles the Bald gradually made Compiègne the seat of his royal and later imperial authority. He received an embassy from Muhammad I, emir of Córdoba, in 875. In 877 he founded the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Compiègne on the site of the former Merovingian palace and built a new palace beside the Oise. Its chapel served as an imperial chapel.
Louis II the Stammerer was crowned and consecrated at Compiègne in 877 and buried there in 879. Odo, duke of France, was consecrated there before becoming king in 888, while Charles the Simple frequently resided at the palace. Compiègne became the principal residence of the rulers of the tenth century, and Louis V, the last Carolingian king, died there in 987.
Medieval castle and royal rebuilding
The Capetians continued to visit Compiègne, but the palace gradually lost its political role as the town grew. Philip II strengthened the town walls, fortified the old Carolingian palace, and built a keep to control the Oise region. Under Louis IX, only the great hall and tower remained as signs of military and feudal administration. Major assemblies moved to the Abbey of Saint-Corneille, while the king retained a smaller residence at Royallieu near the forest.
Charles V began a new castle around 1374 on land purchased from the religious community of Saint-Corneille. Houses on the site were demolished, but the work remained unfinished when he died in 1380. This medieval castle provided the basis for the present palace, although only a few traces survive within its masonry.
Charles VI held the Estates General at Compiègne in 1382. Royal visits continued except between 1414 and 1429, when the region was controlled by the Burgundians. Charles VII entered Compiègne ceremonially on 18 August 1429 after his coronation at Reims and stayed for twelve days. His visit established a tradition of royal stays at Compiègne after coronations.
When Charles VII returned in 1441, successive sieges had badly damaged the castle. He ordered repairs and enlargement in 1451. Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I visited repeatedly, while Henry II decorated the Porte-Chapelle, which crossed the town wall and provided access to the castle chapel court.
From the Wars of Religion to Louis XIV
Charles IX created a royal garden of about six hectares, marking the beginning of the later park. The Wars of Religion curtailed royal visits, and the Estates General planned for Compiègne in 1576 was transferred to Blois. After Henry III was assassinated in 1589, his body was taken to the Abbey of Saint-Corneille for burial before later transfer to the Basilica of Saint-Denis.
Neglected during the wars, the castle became uninhabitable. Around 1594, Henry IV used it to house a mint workshop while staying in the town, and repairs began in 1598. Louis XIII was attracted by the surroundings and visited four times in 1619. He stayed from April to July 1624, receiving an embassy from James I of England and Scotland and delegates from the Netherlands. In 1635 he ordered the complete refurbishment of the royal and queen’s apartments, work carried out during the regency of Anne of Austria.
Under Louis XIV, the castle was enlarged with the grand and small chancelleries, royal and princely stables, and houses and offices for ministers. Compiègne was one of the three royal residences, alongside Versailles and Fontainebleau, where the king held council. Louis XIV mainly used it as a retreat and hunting residence. He laid out the Grand Octagon, created fifty-four new routes, and built stone bridges over streams.
The first of sixteen large military manoeuvre camps at Compiègne took place in 1666, and the last in 1847. These camps trained troops and commanders, educated princes, and provided entertainment for the court and the town. The most important was held in 1698. Louis XIV did not return after that year, and the palace remained unoccupied for a decade. From 1708 to 1715 it sheltered Maximilian II Emanuel, elector of Bavaria, who was in exile from the emperor and protected by Louis XIV.
Louis XV and the neoclassical palace
Louis XV first came to Compiègne on 4 June 1728, while the Congress of Soissons discussed the end of the Anglo-Spanish War. He became a regular summer visitor because of the forest hunting and considered making Compiègne his permanent residence. Interior improvements began in 1733, followed by extensions directed by Jacques V Gabriel between 1736 and 1740.
Several complete rebuilding schemes were proposed between 1740 and 1751. Ange-Jacques Gabriel’s project of 1751 was approved and put into execution. Louis XV continued to visit during the works and hosted the future Marie Antoinette in the forest on 14 May 1770 before receiving her at Compiègne. From 1776, Louis Le Dreux de La Châtre, Gabriel’s pupil and collaborator, continued the reconstruction according to Gabriel’s plans. The building and its decoration were completed in 1788.
Louis XVI visited only briefly and never saw the finished palace. The Assembly of Notables in 1787 considered the expenditure excessive. During the Revolution, the furniture was sold between May and September 1795 as debate continued over the preservation of former royal property. A military academy installed in 1799 later became part of the École Nationale des Arts et Métiers. It occupied the palace until its transfer to Châlons-sur-Marne in 1806.
Napoleon and the imperial court
Napoleon ordered the palace to be made habitable by a decree of 12 April 1807. Louis-Martin Berthault directed the work, which dried the foundations, reorganised the interiors, redecorated the rooms, created a ballroom from 1809, replanted the garden, and replaced the wall toward the forest with a grille. The palace had become an imperial domain in 1804 and was restored and redecorated between 1808 and 1810, with contributions from Berthault, Charles Percier, Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, Dubois, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Jacob-Desmalter, and Marcion.
Charles IV of Spain, forced to abdicate, stayed at Compiègne from 18 June to September 1808 before being transferred to Marseille. Napoleon received Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria there on 27 March 1810, before their marriage in Paris. She later returned with the imperial court and the king of Rome. In 1813 the palace temporarily housed Jérôme Bonaparte and Catherine, the king and queen of Westphalia.
Major political changes also reached Compiègne. Major Otenin defended the palace on 1 April 1814. Louis XVIII stayed there from 29 April to 2 May while assessing the political situation before entering Paris, and met Tsar Alexander I during the visit. The Bourbon royal family made later short stays. Charles X stayed after his coronation journey in 1824 and 1825, while Louise of Orléans, daughter of Louis-Philippe, married Leopold I of Belgium at Compiègne on 9 August 1832.
Second Empire and twentieth-century history
After the Revolution of 1848, Compiègne became state property. Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte visited in February 1849 for the inauguration of the Compiègne-Noyon railway. As Napoleon III, he stayed from 18 to 28 December 1852 and made the palace an autumn residence from 1856.
The resulting “Compiègne series” generally consisted of four autumn stays, each lasting about a month to six weeks. About one hundred guests could attend, including political, artistic, scientific, and European aristocratic circles. Hunting, walks, games, concerts, and theatre took place with reduced court etiquette.
Prussian forces occupied the palace in 1870 and 1871. Tsar Nicholas II stayed there in 1901, the last foreign sovereign to reside at Compiègne. During the First World War, British forces and then the German general staff occupied the building. It became a hospital in 1915 and housed the Grand Headquarters from March 1917 to April 1918.
After the war, the Service des Régions Libérées caused major damage, including a fire in 1919 that destroyed the ceiling of the Emperor’s Bedroom and damaged the Council Chamber. The furnishings were removed in 1939 because of the Second World War and returned in 1945. The palace later became the setting for three museums: the historic apartments, the Museum of the Second Empire, and the National Car and Tourism Museum. In 2006 it hosted a France-Germany-Russia summit attended by Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Putin, and Angela Merkel.
The château and its small park were classified as French Historic Monuments in 1994. The state owns the property, which is assigned to the Ministry of Culture and administered through the national museums. The park is also included in the preliminary inventory of remarkable gardens.
Remains
Palace plan and principal spaces
The present palace is a large neoclassical complex built between 1751 and 1788 under Ange-Jacques Gabriel and Louis Le Dreux de La Châtre. It replaced and substantially altered the medieval castle begun by Charles V, of which only a few traces remain within the masonry. The irregular site was shaped partly by the former town walls and lies above the street, producing a triangular plan. The shorter side forms the principal façade toward the Place d’Armes and Cour d’Honneur, the longer side faces Rue d’Ulm, and the diagonal side faces the park.
Gabriel used controlled viewpoints and a connecting architectural hinge to disguise the irregular plan. The park façade has two visible levels, while the other façades have three, consisting of a ground floor, first floor, and attic. The difference results from the higher park and terraces and is largely concealed by the terrace wall. The palace has five levels overall, including two mezzanine levels.
The interiors follow a clear circulation plan. Principal corridors are often duplicated by service passages, and stairs at the junctions of the two wings connect the floors. Le Dreux replaced Gabriel’s projected curved staircase on the right side of the Cour d’Honneur with a straight imperial staircase. The main apartments occupy the level corresponding to the ground floor on the garden façade and the first floor elsewhere. The façades are restrained, relying on precise architectural rhythm rather than extensive ornament.
Gallery of Columns and grand staircase
The Gallery of Columns is an entrance vestibule opening onto the Cour d’Honneur. It measures approximately 53 by 12 metres. Originally left unfurnished to emphasise neoclassical simplicity, it was decorated during the First Empire with reproductions of ancient sculpture. The grand staircase has an eighteenth-century wrought-iron balustrade and leads to the King’s Guard Room. A Gallo-Roman sarcophagus, formerly used as a baptismal font in Saint-Corneille Abbey, stands on the landing.
King’s Guard Room
The King’s Guard Room is a monumental vaulted chamber with military themes in its cornice and vault reliefs. They relate to France’s intervention in the American War of Independence. Under the Second Empire, the room housed the emperor’s collection of weapons and armour. Pierre-Nicolas Beauvallet designed its decoration in 1784, incorporating martial and allegorical references, including Alexander the Great.
Chapel and Antichapel
Gabriel proposed a Greek-cross plan for the chapel, while Le Dreux designed a quatrefoil plan. The chapel ultimately built under the July Monarchy has a rectangular plan, with galleries on three sides communicating directly with the imperial apartments. The Antichapel contains an early series of Gobelins tapestries commissioned under Louis XIV after Raphael’s designs for the Sistine Chapel.
The rectangular chapel was built mainly during the First Empire and later altered under Napoleon III. It hosted the marriage of Louise of Orléans and Leopold I of Belgium in 1832. Its stained glass was based on designs by Marie of Orléans.
Ballroom and Natoire Gallery
The Ballroom was created rapidly in 1810 by demolishing two floors of smaller rooms, including apartments intended for the Count of Artois. Its ceiling paintings glorify Napoleon’s victories, while the end walls contain mythological scenes by Girodet painted during the Restoration. Dubois and Redouté contributed to the wall decoration, and Charles-Auguste Taunay made the door-header reliefs. Under Napoleon III, the gallery was used for banquets and receptions. During the First World War it served as a military hospital.
The Natoire Gallery was built under Napoleon III to connect the palace with the Imperial Theatre across Rue d’Ulm. The theatre remained incomplete. The gallery contains decoration and tapestries based on the story of Don Quixote and served as a concert room or dining room during the Second Empire.
Royal and imperial apartments
The former royal and imperial apartments include the Emperor’s Apartment, Empress’s Apartment, Apartment of the King of Rome, and Double Prince’s Apartment. Their decoration records the palace’s use from the reign of Louis XVI through the First and Second Empires.
Emperor’s Apartment
The Emperor’s Apartment occupies the central part of the park façade and extends from the Emperor’s Dining Room to the library. The former central King’s Bedroom, identified externally by a columned pediment, became the Family Room during the First Empire. Napoleon instead used Louis XV’s former powder room as his bedroom. The apartment combines late-eighteenth-century decoration with Empire furnishings and designs.
The Ushers’ Room was formerly the king and queen’s antechamber. Its exedra conceals the misalignment between the Cour d’Honneur and garden wings. The right-hand doors led to the queen’s rooms and the left-hand doors to the king’s. A portrait of Louis XVI by Antoine Callet was installed above the fireplace in 1967.
The Emperor’s Dining Room began as the room of the public royal meal, or Grand Couvert, a formal meal at which the sovereign ate before the court, and retained that role under Napoleon. Its walls imitate marble and onyx. Grisaille panels by Sauvage use illusionistic painting to imitate antique reliefs, while another painted illusion shows the poet Anacreon with a woman serving wine. Empire mahogany furniture by Jacob-Desmalter includes a sectional table decorated with lyres. Napoleon III installed a temporary theatre there.
The Cards Room developed from the antechamber of the king’s nobles into the room of grand officers under Napoleon I and the room of aides-de-camp and cards under Napoleon III. During the Compiègne series it hosted official presentations, conversation, cards, billiards, charades, and other entertainments. Maps of the Compiègne hunting grounds have been displayed there since the First Empire.
The Family Room was formerly Louis XVI’s parade bedroom and was later intended as a throne room. It became a reception room during the First Empire. As the central room of the monarch’s apartment, it has the palace’s highest ceiling, monumental Corinthian pilasters, and eighteenth-century decoration by Sauvage. Its central window aligns with the four-kilometre Avenue of the Beaux-Monts. Second Empire furnishings include movable seating, conversational two-person seats, and other historicist forms designed for informal comfort.
The Council Chamber is the only room whose function remained unchanged through successive regimes. Under the monarchy it hosted royal council meetings, the council being the monarch’s principal advisory and decision-making body. The room contains a tapestry of Louis XIV crossing the Rhine, portraits of Bourbon kings above the doors, and tapestries of French victories in the American War of Independence. The fire of 1919 destroyed part of the decoration, and restoration returned the room to an eighteenth-century appearance.
The Emperor’s Bedroom was formerly Louis XVI’s private cabinet and became a bedroom for Napoleon I and Napoleon III. It was restored to its First Empire appearance, with crimson decoration, an Empire bateau bed, an imperial eagle, bees, stars, and oak and olive motifs. Girodet’s ceiling painting of 1822 was destroyed in the 1919 fire and was not recreated.
The Emperor’s Library was formerly the king’s private cabinet. It contains a mechanical desk with a secret sliding compartment for unfolded plans and letters, as well as a ceiling painting by Girodet showing Minerva between Apollo and Mercury. Its present books came from the Bibliothèque Nationale after Nicholas II’s visit. Napoleon III’s original library had been dispersed in 1889. A concealed door disguised as books leads toward the Empress’s Apartment and a private stair.
Empress’s Apartment
The Empress’s Apartment occupies the northern wing on the terrace and was arranged by Berthault from 1809. It contains an antechamber, picture gallery, dining room, three salons, bedroom, boudoir, tea room, and breakfast room. Most rooms retain First Empire decoration, while the Tea Room has been restored to its Second Empire appearance.
The Empress’s Tea Room was formerly Louis XVI’s private dining room and became the Empress’s music room during the First Empire before being transformed under Napoleon III. Its Second Empire decoration combines gilded Louis XVI furniture, Chinese lacquered cabinets, Beauvais and Gobelins tapestries, upholstered furniture, and chairs by Chiavari. It was restored between 2008 and 2012 to its appearance around 1869.
The Empress’s Bedroom was redecorated from 1809. It contains a domed canopy bed with white silk and gold-embroidered muslin, gilded angels, paintings of the Four Seasons, and ceiling paintings by Girodet showing Aurora driving away Night. The adjoining circular boudoir-bathroom, a private dressing and sitting room combined with a bathroom, is lit by a skylight. The room was damaged during the Prussian attacks of 1814, and replacement paintings by Girodet include Aurora, Apollo, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.
The circular boudoir-bathroom lies behind the bedroom and served as both dressing room and bathroom. Its cream-coloured Empire furniture and walls receive light from above. The adjoining Breakfast Room opens onto the Cour de la Chapelle and was used privately by the imperial couple. Eugénie later used it as a study.
The Third Salon, or Ladies-in-Waiting Room, was an audience room under the First Empire. Its seating expressed court hierarchy: the imperial couple used the sofa, relatives the armchairs, and lower-ranking guests progressively less prominent seats or stood. The fabrics bear cornucopias forming the initial “J” of Joséphine, while the door headers depict Greco-Roman goddesses.
The Second Salon, or Flower Room, takes its name from flower panels based on studies by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. It was a court games room during the First Empire and later became the bedroom of the imperial prince. The Blue Salon was intended for the king of Rome, later served as a reception room for Marie Louise and a study for the imperial prince, and has ceiling paintings representing warrior virtues. The First Salon, or Empress’s Dining Room, was completed during the First Empire and hosted the first private dinner of Napoleon and Marie Louise in 1810. Its features include stucco walls, a reconstruction of an animal-skin carpet inspired by the Egyptian campaign, and a carved coffered ceiling devoted to dining and music.
Apartment of the King of Rome
Napoleon created the Apartment of the King of Rome in the former apartment planned for Marie Antoinette. It was used by Charles IV of Spain, Louis of Holland and Queen Hortense, the king of Rome in 1811, Louis XVIII in 1814, the Duke and Duchess of Angoulême, and Princess Mathilde. Its rooms include the Apollo Staircase, former Queen’s Guard Room, Wedding Salon, Queen’s Games Salon, bedroom, bathroom cabinet, bathroom chamber, and Cabinet.
Le Dreux built the Apollo Staircase as the Queen’s Staircase, and it received a copy of the Apollo Belvedere during the First Empire. The Wedding Salon retains eighteenth-century panelling, Sauvage grisaille door headers, and a Gobelins tapestry showing the wedding of Angelica. The Queen’s Games Salon is the only room restored to a Marie Antoinette appearance and retains eighteenth-century panelling, door headers, furniture, and textiles.
The former bedroom of Marie Antoinette retains sculpted eighteenth-century decoration, floral and vegetal motifs, and representations of the Four Seasons. Later Empire alterations added Napoleonic monograms and Pompeian arabesques. The bathroom suite includes a bathing room and a post-bath resting room around the small Cour des Bains. It was restored to its First Empire state, with Corinthian columns, a green-bronze enamelled iron bath, swan-neck taps, and casts of the Venus de’ Medici and Apollo.
The King of Rome’s Boudoir retains furniture installed for Charles IV of Spain in 1808. Its Cabinet, the final room of the apartment, has an entresol, a low intermediate floor inserted between principal storeys. It hosted the meeting of Alexander I and Louis XVIII on 1 May 1814. Louis XVIII chose this apartment rather than the Emperor’s rooms because the latter contained imperial emblems.
Double Prince’s Apartment
The Double Prince’s Apartment was created in 1807 for a royal couple and originally consisted of two bedrooms. It was less richly furnished than the royal apartments, with painted rather than gilded furniture, simpler textiles, and wallpaper in some rooms. During the Second Empire it was divided into three independent apartments for distinguished guests and senior members of the court.
The apartment includes an antechamber formerly used as the Dauphin’s Guard Room, a dining room that retained its function but traditionally had no permanent table, a First Salon formerly used by the Dauphin’s nobles, and a Second Salon that began as the Dauphin’s bedroom and later became a games room. The Circular Salon has an exedra masking the irregular plan. A bedroom formerly intended for Madame Royale and a side salon formerly used as her study complete the principal group.
The Circular Salon has eighteenth-century panelling, Sauvage grisaille scenes inspired by the reliefs of Herculaneum, a Languedoc marble fireplace, and Empire mahogany furniture. Its semicircular end was Le Dreux’s architectural response to the palace’s complex geometry. A small adjoining bedroom, formerly the Dauphin’s tutor’s room, is not open to the public.
The room intended for Madame Royale retains white full-height panelling, a carved cornice, and Sauvage’s Children’s Games panels. Its alcove could be separated by curtains, and dark violet and ochre textiles contrast with the brighter window hangings. The associated salon contains three Gobelins tapestries from the series Subjects of Fable, made between 1733 and 1741, and an 1803 Erard piano.
Gardens and park
The gardens include a terrace, regular and irregular avenues, a covered avenue, flower gardens, a kiosk, folly, rustic house, orangery, greenhouse, and ice house. Gabriel’s projected French formal garden was never completed. From 1811, Berthault replanted the central area as a predominantly wooded English landscape garden.
The Empress’s Covered Walk is a 1,200-metre pergola of climbing plants linking the palace with the forest. It was designed to allow Marie Louise and later Eugénie to reach the forest while protected from the sun. The Avenue of the Beaux-Monts is approximately four kilometres long and sixty metres wide. Napoleon I opened it in 1810 to extend the park’s perspective and evoke the view toward Schönbrunn for Marie Louise. It was completed in 1823, while a larger park of approximately 700 hectares was created between the garden and forest.
The small park’s sculptural decoration was completed under the Second Empire in 1859. Damage during the Franco-Prussian War led to the removal of about ten statues to the Louvre, and some were replaced. Berthault created the Rose Garden in 1820 on the site of the King’s Grove, near the temperate greenhouse built that year on the Porte-Chapelle terrace. It was later restored using 1821 documentation and historical research.
Museums and transport collection
The National Car and Tourism Museum preserves approximately one hundred horse-drawn vehicles dating from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century and around thirty early motor vehicles. Its material also concerns bicycles, rail transport, human-powered transport, and portage. The electric car La Jamais Contente, the first automobile to exceed 100 kilometres per hour, is displayed there.
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