The staircases of the King’s private apartments (le Petit appartement du roi) have a complicated history.

The original staircase was the famous Ambassador’s Staircase.  It was so grand that Louis XIV used to receive ambassador’s and foreign dignitaries on it.  Later, in the reign of Louis XV, it was also the venue for Mme de Pompadour’s theatre, which was made of wood and could be assembled and dis-assembled on demand.

Engraving of the Ambassadors’ Staircase. Credit: Wikipedia.

In 1754, wishing to create a suite of rooms for his daughter Mme Adélaïde, Louis ordered this grand staircase to be demolished.

I had never heard of Cristobal de Villalpando (1649-1714) before stepping through the doors of the Palacio de Iturbide in Mexico City’s Centro Historico in May, 2017.

The Palacio (see the previous post for details of this building: http://versaillescentury.com/2017/06/20/versailles-century-building-palacio-de-iturbide/#more-1068) now belongs to the Banamex Cultural Foundation, which happened to be running an exhibition dedicated to Villalpando.

Sign for the Villalpando exhibition at the Banamex Cultural Foundation, May, 2017.

Walking through the exhibition, I was thunderstruck by Villallpando’s canvases and amazed that I had never heard of him.

The Palacio de Iturbide in Mexico City has a double distinction: it’s one of the great surviving baroque mansions of New Spain AND it was home to independent Mexico’s first emperor.

It was built between 1779 and 1785 for Miguel de Berrio y Saldívar, Count of San Mateo Valparaíso and Marquis of Jaral de Berrio, a creole aristocrat whose fortune was based on mining.  He commissioned it as a wedding gift for his daughter, allegedly spending the exact amount of the dowry for fear that his new Italian son-in-law, one Marquis of Moncada, would otherwise squander the money.

He certainly got his money’s worth.

The facade of the Palacio de Iturbide on Madero Street in Mexico City.

The palace was designed in the Mexican Baroque style then still prevalent in New Spain, but architects  Francisco Antonio Guerrero y Torres and Agustín Duran purportedly modelled it on the royal palace in Palermo, perhaps in honour of their employer’s son-in-law.  It has 3 floors and the inner courtyard is surrounded by an 18-arch arcade.

So, now that the serialization of A Novella of the 18th Century is done, what’s next?

Those who enjoyed the novella will be happy to learn that more of Mme de Boigne’s work is on the way!

Adélaïde d’Osmond, Comtesse de Boigne (1781-1866).

As I mentioned in a previous post, Mme de Boigne is known mainly as a memoirist.  Her memoirs, entitled Récits d’une tante (An Aunt’s Tales), were posthumously published in 1907 and have never since been out of print in France.  Proust read them when they were first published and hugely enjoyed them.  He is said to have based the character of Mme de Villeparisis in Remembrance of Things Past at least partly on Mme de Boigne.  Like Mme de Villeparisis, Mme de Boigne had a famously mixed salon where aristocrats rubbed shoulders with academics and princes with painters.

La Maréchale d’Aubemer, Nouvelle du XVIIIème Siècle, or The Widow of Field Marshal d’Aubemer: A Novella of the 18th Century, posthumously published in 1867, is a novel by the author and memoirist Madame de Boigne, born Adélaïde d’Osmond (1781-1866).   Mine is the first English translation, available here for the first time anywhere.

In Chapter 15, the final chapter, the Maréchale pays a significant visit to her notary.

THE WIDOW OF FIELD MARSHAL D’AUBEMER: A NOVELLA OF THE 18TH CENTURY

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

An Old-Fashioned Notary

A week of waiting had crept by when Mme d’Aubemer addressed a banal question to a new arrival in the drawing room: “What news?”

“One talks of nothing but Henri d’Estouteville’s wedding.”

“Really!” said the Maréchale, smilingly.  “That seems premature to me.”

“Not so much, if it’s to be next week.  In any case, you are better informed than I, since I see that you are in the know.  Nonetheless, when I was congratulating the Marquis, he told me that they’re leaving on Thursday for Caen, where the wedding will take place.  I haven’t seen Henri.”

The Maréchale had difficulty disguising her confusion; a few moments later the post brought a letter from Gudule.  After announcing her satisfaction at finding her grandfather out of danger, she recounted the strange note she had received on the day of her departure from Magnanville, and admitted to no longer being able to bear the uncertainty into which it had plunged her.  She enjoined her aunt to shine a light on this cause of her unhappiness and to put an end to the thousand and one conjectures that were running through her mind one after another and that had almost rendered her mad.  Monday was drawing to a close.  Offering some unforeseen business as a pretext, the Maréchale was on the road to Paris the next morning, quite determined to obtain some clarification.  As chance would have it, she met M Chevreux¹ as she was arriving.  She had him summoned.  He had hardly entered her sitting room when she said, “Tell me, I beg you, what you know of Henri d’Estouteville’s supposed wedding!”

La Maréchale d’Aubemer, Nouvelle du XVIIIème Siècle, or The Widow of Field Marshal d’Aubemer: A Novella of the 18th Century, posthumously published in 1867, is a novel by the author and memoirist Madame de Boigne, born Adélaïde d’Osmond (1781-1866).   Mine is the first English translation, available here for the first time anywhere.

In Chapter 14, the Maréchale, Gudule, and Henri are reunited at Magnanville.

THE WIDOW OF FIELD MARSHAL D’AUBEMER: A NOVELLA OF THE 18TH CENTURY

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Return to Magnanville

Seven months had passed since Lionel’s death; the old Marquis was still grieving the father of the great-grandchildren he had hoped for, and the Baronne her adored son, despite the embarrassment in which he had placed her.  Not only had Lionel had spent all of his paternal inheritance, but she had had to make large sacrifices of her own fortune, to which her daughter-in-law renounced her rights.¹ Gudule thus found herself once again the heiress to the slender means of the Saveuse battlements, but she also rediscovered the warblers and roses of her native mountains, as buoyant and fresh as she.  Mme de Saveuse felt in the depths of her soul a wellspring of happiness unknown to her until then, which made her still more beautiful and revealed itself in her smallest actions.   Since the confidences interrupted by such an unforeseen event, by which Gudule had been staggered, d’Estouteville’s name had passed neither the Maréchale’s lips nor her niece’s, but both thought of him ceaselessly, and the suspicion that the other was thinking of him was mutual.  On the pretext of thanking Mme d’Aubemer for her goodness in asking for news of him, d’Estouteville had written to her and an increasingly active correspondence developed between them.  His letters, like many others, were handed to Gudule, but she handed them back without comment.  However, her aunt noticed that on those days her affection for her loved ones was even more effusive and her gaiety more free.

It was not without keen regret that Mme d’Aubemer decided to leave Saveuse; her long stay there had flowed past like a dream.  Surrounded by attention and affection as she was, the days seemed much alike, but since they were diversified by varied occupations, they seemed to her to be sufficiently full.  She almost admitted to herself that there comes a time of life when monotony is not dullness, but rather repose.  The mountain air was good for her, and above all the feeling of isolation from which she usually suffered was held at bay; with her sister, she could speak of their youth and friends of times gone by; with Gudule, she could speak of her present relations.  The old marquis himself had perfect recall, and, having served in the musketeers, linked his memories of former times with the Maréchale’s more recent ones, who thus felt herself growing younger in her own eyes.  A number of neighbours, some of them rather likeable, frequently joined the family circle and soon enough seven months had passed very agreeably.  All the same, the thought of spending the winter out of Paris horrified the Maréchale.  Such a thing had never happened and seemed impossible to contemplate.  Still, she delayed her departure from one day to another.  The first snowfall brought home to her that she could no longer put off the fatal hour.  She would very much have liked to take her niece with her, but Gudule wanted to finish her year of mourning at Saveuse, and the Maréchale very sadly had to concede that it was perhaps more suitable to do so.

Taking messages for various people, the Maréchale asked her, “Shall I say nothing to Henri d’Estouteville?”

“No, Aunt,” replied Gudule, blushing. “Not yet!” she replied in a lower voice, smiling gently.

In some ways, the Kingdom of New Spain, centred in what we now call Mexico, was at its height in the Versailles Century (1682-1789).

It certainly reached its greatest territorial extent in the 1700s, as the map below illustrates.

By Eddo – Own workFile:BlankMap-World-90W.svgFile:New Spain.pngFile:Nueva España 1795.pngFile:Spanish Provinces in the Pacific.png, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11435488

The light green areas represent the last areas to be claimed by the Spanish before the onset of the Napoleonic Wars and the War of Independence, which resulted in the collapse of Spanish rule and Mexico’s independence in 1821, not to mention that of the other countries of Central and South America.

It’s true, dear readers: VC is off to Mexico for the next week. Consequently, there will be no new blog posts until at least Monday, 22 May, 2017.

However, on my return, I plan to bring you words and images related to Mexico as it was during the Versailles Century (1682-1789), when it was still the Kingdom of New Spain.

For instance, late in the period, Carlos III of Spain (r. 1759-1788) initiated a number of reforms in colonial government and sent out energetic viceroys to enforce them.  One of them, Bernardo de Galvez, the 49th viceroy of New Spain who ruled from 1785 to 1788, initiated the construction of the hill-top palace of Chapultepec in Mexico City.  I will definitely visit it and report back to you.

La Maréchale d’Aubemer, Nouvelle du XVIIIème Siècle, or The Widow of Field Marshal d’Aubemer: A Novella of the 18th Century, posthumously published in 1867, is a novel by the author and memoirist Madame de Boigne, born Adélaïde d’Osmond (1781-1866).   Mine is the first English translation, available here for the first time anywhere.

In Chapter 13, a catastrophe befalls the Aubemer-Saveuse household.

THE WIDOW OF FIELD MARSHAL D’AUBEMER: A NOVELLA OF THE 18TH CENTURY

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A Catastrophe

M de Saveuse did not return to the Hôtel d’Aubemer until after everyone had retired, and he left in the morning before the breakfast hour.  That used to happen often, but this time the Maréchale took note of it with unease; not Gudule, however, who had much else to think about.  She had passed the rest of the previous day in febrile agitation, and she wanted to appear at supper to learn the result of M Chevreux’s visit to the Hôtel d’Estouteville.  Reassured by an accurate and truthful account of Henri’s condition, she retired early and, alone in the solitude of her rooms, gave herself over to a serious examination of her own heart.  If that cruel morning had bared her secret to the public, it had been by way of revealing it to herself, as well; she had to admit the illusion that she had been labouring under for a long time and was forced to recognize that Henri reigned despotically over her soul.  The more she plumbed its depths, the more she found it filled with him, to the point of forgetting the pain it gave her for a few moments and abandoning herself to the ineffable sweetness of a love that she felt to be returned.  Gudule was not, however, the sort of woman to delight in such languors.  Once she had recognized the ailment, she sincerely and courageously desired to apply an effective remedy.  Drying her tears and composing her face, she entered the Maréchale’s room the next morning just at the moment when, dressed and ready, she was about to leave it.

“Aunt,” she said in a firm tone, “I must go and I wish to go to Saveuse.  At breakfast, let us speak of my journey as an agreed upon thing.”

The Maréchale contemplated her for a moment, and then said with the most tender understanding, “My poor Gudule, how guilty I am for having exposed you to a danger that with my experience I should have foreseen.”  So saying, she opened her arms to the young woman, who threw herself into them, and, renouncing the artificial composure she had arranged for herself, dissolved into tears.

The Metropolitan Museum has just made a stunning announcement: 375,000 images from its collections will be made available for free use.

That’s right: free use.  As in, you can use the images freely for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.  You can even adapt, modify or build on them.  This initiative has come about through the Met’s Open Access policy and is being operationalized via Creative Commons.  You can read all about it in this post from the Met’s Facebook page: http://mymodernmet.com/metropolitan-museum-of-art-open-access/

For us, here at Versailles Century, this obviously means worry-free, user-friendly access to hundreds of images of the Château, its contents, and its surroundings.  As a foretaste, here are some images of Versailles from the Met’s collections.

A view of the Château from the courtyard by Sylvestre:

“Château de Versailles seen from the forecourt, from Chalcographie du Louvre, Vol. 22” by Israel Silvestre (French, Nancy 1621–1691 Paris) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0