Tea at Trianon: The Design at Hotel Château du Grand-Lucé

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

The Design at Hotel Château du Grand-Lucé

From Vanity Fair:

Designed by Mathieu de Bayeux as a summer palace for Baron Jacques Pineau de Viennay, and built on the site of a medieval castle, this magnificent building was completed in 1764. Named Grand-Lucé (“great light”) as a tribute to the Age of Enlightenment, the château hosted many of the period’s great thinkers including Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot (even Mozart had a sleepover), and is one of only a few buildings to have survived the French Revolution wholly intact. Since then it has served as a military hospital (during WWI), a store for priceless works of art from the Louvre (during WWII), a government tourism office and, most recently, the private property (and project) of American interior designer Timothy Corrigan.

In 2017, the keys were passed from one Usonian to another as dynamic Marcy Holtus, along with husband Tom, took the helm. Since their arrival, Grand-Lucé has undergone extensive superficial renovations masterminded by Paul Allen Design, including sympathetic wooden panelling and bespoke De Gournay wallpaper.

The Salon Chinois, on the ground floor, boasts an 18th-century mural by Jean-Baptiste Pillement (the only other surviving Pillement mural is in the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s private garden palace at Versailles), presiding over several centuries of antiquities, a few Corrigan flourishes, and a pinch of Christian Lacroix, Hermès and Jean Paul Gautier—a glorious concoction. This distilled grandeur might sound intimidating but the atmosphere couldn’t be less stuffy, thanks in no small part to the incredible warmth of the hospitality team, suitably clad in camel cashmere, Vuitton pochettes and white Stan Smiths. Très chic. (Read more.)