Video: Château d'Écouen and the Musée national de la Renaissance

The Musée national de la Renaissance, located in the beautiful château d'Écouen north of Paris, is a must-see destination for anyone interested in sixteenth-century French history and culture. The Musée recently released an introductory video that provides tantalizing glimpses of the site and the treasures it houses:

Film de présentation du musée national

Here is my translation of the film's French text:

"Home to lords and kings, one of the most beautiful jewels of Renaissance architecture, built by Anne de Montmorency, minister to François I and Henri II, the château houses, in its original décor, the National Museum of the Renaissance. Within the château's rich interiors, the Museum displays one of the most prestigious collections of the decorative arts of the period, including the tapestry of David and Bathsheba, a masterpiece of the sixteenth century. A fascinating place of art and history, right on the outskirts of Paris."

I visited years ago, and would love to go again--especially since the château was built by one of the main characters of my novel. Items on display include everything from majolica platters to jewelry to silver cups to tapestries to armor and weapons. The château and museum are open every day but Tuesday and easily accessible by suburban train from Paris.

Sixteenth Century Quote of the Week

"From the Cunstable as yet for my repair to the Court I have hard nothing, who dothe promise many things, and soon forget them. Such ys the nature of all Frenche men universally."

John Wallop (c. 1490-1551), English diplomat assigned to France

Letter to King Henry VIII, 27 October 1540

Sixteenth Century Quote of the Week

photo credit

Never was there a greater need to aid poets than now.

Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549)

Queen, religious reformer, writer

Letter to Anne de Montmorency, 1536

Sixteenth Century Quote of the Week

"I have shown your letter to the Demoiselle Marguerite de Lorraine, who, despite her grey habit, has a very vivid remembrance of bygone days. I assure you she acquits herself so well in praying for your prosperity, that if all the other ladies, whose favour you have possessed, did as much, you ought not to regret the past; for their prayers would speedily transport you to Heaven, where, after a long and happy life, she desires to see you."

Marguerite, duchess of Alençon (later Queen of Navarre) to

Baron Anne de Montmorency

Letter, 1523

The Queen of the Bean

The Feast of the Epiphany occasioned much merriment--and expense--at the French court during the Renaissance. The tradition of sharing a galette des rois--a cake containing a concealed bean--traces back to early sixteenth century celebrations of Twelfth Night. The person who found the bean in his or her piece of cake became the de facto ruler for the duration of the festivities. Whereas in England the choice of a "king," or Lord of Misrule, predominated, across the channel it was the election of the "Queen of the Bean" that evolved into an elaborate ritual.

According to Robert Knecht in his book The French Renaissance Court (p. 75-76), it was custom at the court of François I to chose not only a Queen of the Bean, but a bevy of eighteen ladies to attend her. The women wore beautiful new clothes, which the King provided: undergarments of crimson velvet with slashed sleeves held together by gold clasps and outer garments of grey satin fringed with velvet and lined with mink. Matching belts, necklaces and bracelets complemented the attire; the Queen wore a plumed bonnet atop a long golden or silver snood adorned with precious stones. When it was time for supper, the Queen of the Bean rose from her seat next to the true queen, Eléanore, and took the King's hand. The monarch led her and her ladies into the hall where two tables had been set. The Queen of the Bean sat above Queen Eléanore, the dauphin's wife Catherine de' Medici, and the King's sister Marguerite de Navarre at the shorter table; the King joined the eighteen attendants at the second table. During the meal, the Bean Queen was served with the ceremony normally reserved for the real queen, who surrendered any precedence during the twenty-four hours of her rival's reign.

One wonders just how random the choice of the Queen of the Bean was, especially since at the court of François's son, Henri, the king himself chose her name. In 1550, the Venetian ambassador describes how Henri II came into the queen's chamber to pick a name out of a hat. However, Henri discarded several names before announcing that of a "young, really beautiful and most charming" lady who belonged to the circle of his sister Marguerite. The young lady touched his hand and retired to dress "honorably." At dinner, Henri sat in the middle of the shorter table, flanked on his right by the Queen of the Bean and on his left by his mistress Diane de Poitiers. The real queen, Catherine de' Medici, sat next to the Queen of the Bean, along with the king's sister; the cardinal of Lorraine, the duchesse de Guise, and the Constable of Montmorency sat beside Diane. A ball followed the banquet. The next day, the King escorted the Queen of the Bean into Mass before the real queen; after Mass, everyone dined in the same order as on the previous evening, then watched a joust in the palace courtyard. The feast concluded with another banquet and a final ball, which brought the Queen of the Bean's short reign to a memorable end.

[Photograph courtesy of Gorrk, Wikimedia Commons.]

A Mother's Anguish

The grand connétable Anne de Montmorency commissioned this Pietà from Rosso Fiorentino for the chapel at the château d'Ecouen. Painted sometime in 1538 or 1539, the Pietà is the only surviving example of an easel painting that can be dated with certainty to Rosso's stay in France. The artist acknowledged de Montmorency's patronage by decorating the orange cushion beneath Jesus's body with the connétable's coat of arms. Originally, the Pietà adorned the chapel altar, though it was later moved to hang above the door. During the Revolution, the painting was confiscated from Ecouen and transported to the Louvre, where it can be viewed today. The intense personal anguish exhibited by Mary, whose outstretched arms recall her son's posture on the Cross, may provide a glimpse into artist's troubled emotional state; Rosso died by his own hand a year or so after completing this work. 

The Impossible Dream

François I had a dream, a single goal that motivated the foreign policy of his entire reign: the recovery of the duchy of Milan, a region of Italy he had inherited from his great-grandmother, Valentina Visconti, and which had been lost by his predecessor, Louis XII. In 1515, very first year of his reign, François launched an expedition into Italy and succeeded in securing Milan after a stunning victory at Marignano. It was an auspicious beginning which brought him much glory and established his reputation as roi-chevalier, or knightly king.

However, to retain control in Milan, the French needed the support and cooperation of the Pope, Leo X. François initially received Leo's support, but in 1520, the Hapsburg prince Charles V was elected Holy Roman Emperor and Leo signed a treaty of alliance with him instead. In August 1521 the Emperor (who controlled Spain and Flanders and was promised Naples by the Pope) attacked the north-east border of France. The first of an ongoing series of wars between François and Charles began.

After a significant loss to imperial forces at La Bicocca in April 1522, the French lost much of the area they had seized; only the castle of Milan and Cremona remained in French hands. Henry VIII soon entered the war on the imperial side. The rebellion of the duke Charles de Bourbon, Constable of France (a story worthy of its own post), complicated things immensely for François, for Bourbon entered into league with the Emperor and the English king. François's enemies plotted to attack on three fronts. When Bourbon was routed from Marseilles in 1524, François saw the opportunity to invade Italy, a plan he had deferred for years. He crossed the Alps at the head of his troops, determined to recreate his earlier success at Marignano.

Milan had been abandoned by the imperialist troops, so the French army followed them to the city of Pavia, a heavily fortified town whose garrison was commanded by one of the best generals of the day. For four months the French lay siege to the town but refused to be drawn into the open. Finally, during the night of 23 February 1525, the imperial forces staged a surprise attack on the French, who were camped in the walled park of Mirabello. François, forewarned, charged at the head of his cavalry but got in the way of his own guns. This blunder destroyed any chance of victory and the French troops, exposed to imperial arquebusiers and left shorthanded by the failure of their Swiss mercenaries to arrive, were quickly decimated. The French noblemen fought bravely, many in hand-to-hand combat on horseback, but were unable to hold back the imperial tide.

François himself was surrounded by imperial soldiers, each of whom wanted to claim the honor of capturing him. A steward of Bourbon, La Mothe, finally took him prisoner, but François refused to surrender until Charles de Lannoy, the Viceroy of Naples (who shared command of the imperial army with the duc de Bourbon), arrived. To him François gave up his sword, along with his dream of another glorious Italian victory. Adding to the blow was the loss of many of the king's closest childhood friends and comrades in the battle. Topping everything, François, along with Anne de Montmorency and a dozen or so other high-ranking noblemen, became prisoners of his arch-enemy, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. François's captivity at Charles's hands would last more than a year and permanently color relations between the two rulers ever after.

[Source: R. J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron, chapters 8-11]

Tapestry of the Battle of Pavia

National Museum of the Renaissance

Next time you're in Paris, be sure to check out the National Museum of the Renaissance (Musée national de la Renaissance) housed in the beautiful château of Écouen. Located twenty kilometers north of Paris, this museum is a veritable treasure house of sixteenth-century painting, sculpture, pottery, furniture and textiles and is well worth a visit for anyone interested in the era.

The château was built by the Constable of France, Anne de Montmorency, between 1538 and 1555 and served as his principal residence. Many of the noted artisans who worked on the renovation of Fontainebleau participated in its construction. Decorated with painted tile, carved woodwork, stained glass, marble statues, fountains, murals and friezes, the château provided a fitting setting for Montmorency's extensive collections of faïence, enamels, paintings, books and tapestries. It remained in the Constable's family until 1632; during the Revolution, it was used as a patriotic club, prison, and military hospital; in 1805 Napoleon dedicated it as a school for educating daughters of members of the Legion of Honor. Amazingly, it continued to be used as a school for young women until 1962, when it passed into the hands of the ministry of culture and, after extensive renovations, opened as a museum in 1977.

The museum's collections are outstanding. Highlights include twelve painted chimneys; all ten panels of the famous David and Bathsheba tapestry; one of Europe's most complete collections of lace; a superb collection of table clocks and watches; and display case upon display case of enameled cups, plaques, and bowls and other objets d'art. The museum is currently featuring an exhibit on sixteenth-century medicine and regularly hosts concerts, lectures, and other special events. Best of all, the website indicates that entry is free up through June 2008.

For decades, Anne de Montmorency was one of France's most powerful men. A trusted advisor of François I, he became even more prominent and prosperous under the protection of Henri II. Montmorency used his extreme wealth to become a noted patron of the arts. The museum's website reveals that at the time of his death in 1567, he owned 130 châteaux throughout France, in addition to two sumptuous Parisian residences. But, it concludes, Écouen remains his masterpiece.

Be sure not to miss it on your next visit!

Rub-a-Dub-Dub, A King and His Tub

I was surprised to learn recently that Greek and Roman notions of public bathing enjoyed a serious revival among the moneyed classes during the sixteenth century. Even as public baths in French cities were devolving into dens of vice and prostitution, nobles were building suites of bathing chambers in their châteaux. Like their Roman and Greek counterparts, these baths were intended to function as gathering places for learned men to discuss literature, art and politics.

François I constructed a sumptuous appartement des bains at Fontainebleau. Though the baths themselves have not survived subsequent centuries’ renovations, descriptions of the appartement abound in contemporary sources. Six rooms composed the suite: the bath proper (étuves), the steam bath (étuves sèches), the barber’s room, and three rooms for resting or sleeping.

The bath itself was square and five feet deep; spouts provided hot and cold water. A wooden balustrade painted to look like bronze, around which people could walk two abreast, surrounded the pool. The vaulted ceiling of the bath chamber, decorated with frescoes and stuccoed relief by the artist Primaticcio, depicted the story of Callisto. [R.J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron, p. 412]

The three resting rooms housed the jewels of the king’s art collection: Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Andrea del Sarto’s Charity, Titian’s Magdalen, Rosso’s copy of Michelangelo’s Leda, Raphael’s Saint Michael. The twenty or so paintings were fixed to the walls at the center of elaborate stuccoed relief. [Louis Dimier, Fontainebleau, p. 96-97]

Always eager to impress, François would take favored guests and courtiers to the baths to relax, converse, and marvel at the paintings. Modern art historians shudder to think of these masterpieces housed in the damp atmosphere of the baths, but as Knecht points out, “a cultivated Renaissance gentleman would have seen nothing incongruous in the dedication of a building simultaneously to the care of the body and the pleasures of the mind” [p. 416]. Other noblemen followed the king’s example; the Constable of France, Anne de Montmorency, built a similar suite at his nearby château, Ecouen.

Can you imagine a better setting for a scene of intrigue? The naked limbs of painted goddesses and lounging statesmen peeking through wisps of steam; the smell of damp wood and wet plaster mingling with the sweat of over-perfumed bodies; the murmur of conversation rising and falling amid the plucking of lute strings and splashing of water. Just reading the description of place set my mind racing. Rest assured, my readers and I will spend time aplenty in François’s luxurious appartement des bains.