FrenchKate

Nov 30: Looking down on Château d'Écouen

Some wonderful things in France--floors and ceilings--are rarely photographed. You have to be right there, looking down. 

Monday, Nov 29: Château d'Écouen

Using FrenchKate as an index of life balance is proof positive that my life has been out of whack for some months now. We have spent the summer clearing out my mother's house (preparing it for sale) and organizing family papers and photos. A friend once advised me--we call it the Peterson principle--that as you clean up one mess, another mess will  as a result. This was so true. As we cleared out my mother's house, my dining room began to fill up. It was three feet deep in boxes at the beginning of November, and we needed to clear the dining room for Thanksgiving. Weeks of effort were required. I need time to read and compose posts, and I haven't had it as we worked through all these memorabilia details. I posted only twice in August and once in September, and though I somehow managed to get seven posts up in October, I posted nothing in November until today. But (I hope) today is the first day of the rest of my life, and that I will again have time for FrenchKate. The dining room is clear.

...And it has been two years since we have travelled to France, thanks to covid-19. Who knows when we will feel safe enough to travel again?

On our last trip in November 2019, one of our first stops was the château d' Écouen, a Renaissance treasure built between 1539 and 1555 for Anne de Montmorency (1493 - 1567}, the Grand Marshall of France (chief minister and commander of the army) for Kings François I and Henri II and perhaps the richest man in France in his day. It has housed the collections of the National Museum of the Renaissance since 1975--paintings, sculptures, ceramics, stained glass, furniture, textiles and such from the French Renaissance. 

I am going to let wikipedia describe the architecture:

"The Château was laid out following the plan of the royal château of Chambord n the Loire Valley. It was set on a terrace overlooking the countryside below, encircled by a false moat with a fortified wall surrounded with bastions, probably symbolizing the Constable's role as commander of the army."

"The chateau was in the form of a rectangle around a central courtyard, with square pavilions on the corners. It was composed of two three-story residential wings, connected by a one-story entrance wing. Both of the residential wings had monumental stairways in their centers to provide access to the suites on the upper floors."

"The Constable and his wife, Madeleine of Savoy, resided in the south wing, which contained their private chapel and apartments. The north wing was entirely devoted to royal visitors: It contained the suite of the Queen on the first floor and the suite of the King on the floor above."

"...the name of the building's original architect is uncertain, but it is known that the royal architect Jean Bullant... participated in decoration of the Château, particularly in the design of the north wing's ornate neo-classical peristyles employing the colossal order that face both the inner courtyard and the exterior north gardens. Bullant's addition of classical columns and entablature elements to the north wing is an early example of the merging of classical and medieval forms, which became a distinguishing feature of French Renaissance architecture."

Image 1: Entrance to château d'Écouen

Image 2: A model of the château as it was in the 17th century in the guard room.

Image 3: The central courtyard showing the south wing

Image 4: The central courtyard showing the north wing (showing the neoclassical peristyle designed by Jean Bullant).

Image 5: A floorplan of Écouen