Château de Vincennes

The Château de Vincennes is located at the eastern edge of central Paris in the Bois de Vincennes. It is one of the most extensive and best preserved fortified castles in Europe. The origin of the castle goes all the way back to 1150 when Louis VII built a hunting lodge there, which was soon expanded. The actual castle, originally a fortress, was built by Charles V about a century later, including the impressive donjon (central tower.) Half fortified castle, half classic palace, the Château de Vincennes was used as a royal residence from the 12th century until the 18th century, when the king moved to the Palace of Versailles, around 1670.

 

 

 

Approach to the chateau with a view of some of the towers that make up the fortification wall. In 1410 the fortress was walled in by an enceinte (a fortification wall) 3,937 feet long, lined with 9 towers, originally up to 138 feet high. The wall stretches around over more than half a mile and protects a rectangular space of several acres.

 

The Village Tower is the original main gate of the chateau.

 

The entrance by way of a footbridge across the moat

 

The road into the chateau

 

The visitors’ passageway

 

The plan of the chateau

 

 

A scale model of the chateau

 

 

Looking back at the entrance from inside the walls of the chateau

Nowadays, the pavilions to the left and right of the entrance are home to military libraries and part of the Ministry of Defense’s Historical Service archives.

 

 

Donjon

At 170 feet, it is still Europe's tallest donjon. Look closely, and you can see the meurtrières--slits in the turret through which defenders fired arrows at the enemy. One of the FIAC sculptures in the Tuileries had the "arrow slit" as a feature of the sculpture.

 

The chatelet (gateway flanked by 2 towers) forms the main entrance to the donjon.

 

Entrance into the donjon

 

 

A deep moat, originally filled with water, protected the donjon.

 

A look down at the footbridge across the moat from the terrace of the chatelet

 

The courtyard of the donjon

 

In the courtyard is the oldest preserved example of an outwork stairway (one built against another, larger building), lit by 5 openings, one above the other.

 

The spiral staircase

 

L’escalier d’honneur, The Grand Staircase

 

Terrific spiked doors

The donjon has a total of eight floors counting the terrace. The first five floors have a large central hall and secondary rooms in the corner turrets with access to the latrines. The ground floor was probably used as a store room and housing for relatives or servants. On the first floor, the central hall was probably a meeting room. The general layout of the second floor, which housed the King's bedroom, is similar to that of the first floor. It is speculated that the upper two levels of the donjon were used by the king’s entourage.

 

 

 

Entrance to the exhibit, Le Donjon des Rêves De Piranese a Schuiten (Imaginary Prisons from Piranesi to Schuiten)

 

This exposition was possible because twelve etchings of “The Prisons” of the artist Giovanni Piranesi (1720-1778) were donated to Vincennes. The cartoons of Francois Schuiten, a contemporary artist, were strongly influenced by Piranesi. Both the engravings and cartoons are displayed throughout the levels of the donjon. On display are the artistic representations of the dungeon, Piranesi in his etchings and Schuiten with the same subject matter in a different medium three centuries later. I was not familiar with either of these artists before I visited the chateau, but I wish I had known more about them because I would have paid more attention to their works of art.

 

Four levels are all laid out in the same way: a large square room whose sides are 30 feet long with a central pillar supporting the ribs of the vaults. The walls are ten feet thick. The ceiling is 23 feet high at its peak on the ground floor and 26 feet high in the first, second and third floors.

 

 

Artwork by Piranesi and Schuiten are exhibited on easels

 

 

A Schuiten cartoon flanks the huge fireplace. You can see the "flames" of a fire inside the fireplace.

 

Piranesi etchings on either side of the fireplace. There was a fireplace on each of the levels.

Etchings and a display of decorative sculpture on exterior windows of the donjon

 

 

 

View of Pavillon de la Reine, Le Tour du Bois and the Pavillon du Roi (to the immediate right of the donjon)

During the 16th and 17th century the Vincennes chateau continued to be expanded, with an emphasis on turning the fortress into a residential palace. The perfectly symmetrical Queen’s Pavilion on the left, the King’s Pavilion on the right, the Tour du Bois (converted into an arc de triomphe--victory arch) in the middle, and the arcade wall, separating the royal courtyard from the rest of the chateau, were built in the classical French style.

Sainte-Chapelle (Holy Chapel) is to the left of the Pavillon de la Reine

 

 

Sainte-Chapelle and Pavillon de la Reine

 

 

Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes

The construction of a chapel, modeled on the Sainte-Chapelle on the Île de la Cité in Paris, with magnificent stained glass windows, was completed after 182 years, in 1552. The Sainte-Chapelle of Vincennes was intended to house part of the relics of the Passion, (the crown of thorns, a fragment of the Holy Cross, the sponge and the spear.) By constructing Sainte-Chapelle, Charles V wished to turn Vincennes into a second capital of the kingdom, alongside the Palais de la Cité in Paris.

 

 

The Sainte-Chapelle of Vincennes is just as high but longer and wider than the chapel of the Cité. Both are achievements of Gothic architecture and both are re-creations of the original churches which were partially destroyed during the French Revolution in 1793.

 

 

Entrance to the the Sainte-Chapelle

 

 

The stained glass Rose Window of the Sainte-Chapelle

 

 

Five-sided apse with stained glass windows

 

The Holy Chapel was built in keeping with the traditional plan of castle chapels: a single nave (main aisle), a choir formed by a straight bay (space between 2 adjacent supports/columns) and a five-sided apse (semi-circular recess) flanked by two oratories (small private chapels) – one for the King and the other for the Queen

 

HISTORY

When the chateau was abandoned by the royal family, it became the site of the Vincennes Porcelain factory and then served as a state prison, housing such infamous personalities as Diderot and the Marquis de Sade. Napoleon used it as an arsenal in 1840, and it was in use as a military fortress. Most of the tall towers around the castle were leveled off during that period. In 1860 Napoleon III turned the Bois de Vincennes, historically the royal hunting ground of the Vincennes Castle, into a 2500-acre public park.

On June 14, 1940, the castle was occupied by German troops. It was used as a military barracks and place of internment. In August 1944, Waffen-SS troops retreating from the Normandy front executed prisoners at the castle before leaving on the 24th. In their retreat, the German troops also destroyed ammunition depots in the south and north-west military buildings, creating a large breach in one section of the wall, which was only filled in 1990.

 

 

RESTORATION

Restoration work at the chateau began after World War II and is still going on today. The instability of the donjon required its closure to the public in October, 1995 for 12 years. Completed in July, 2006, the restoration of the donjon was one of the most extensive and technical restoration endeavors to be carried out over recent years. From 1990 to 2006, the Government spent over 43 million euros on the restoration of the chateau, with all interior and exterior work combined.

Before I visited the chateau, I knew a little about it, but I didn’t realize its importance historically as a fortified castle of the Middle Ages. Also, I take for granted the fact that an erstwhile royal residence would be restored as a matter of course. In fact, the restoration didn’t really gain momentum until the Ministers of Culture and Defense asked former Culture Minister Jean-Philippe Lecat for a report on the restoration and enhancement of the château. This document, which was produced in 1988, raised awareness about the monument and its condition. In Lecat’s own words:

Do you think that if the United Kingdom, Russia, or Germany had, on their capital's doorstep, a monumental complex having witnessed their national history and the birth of the State which forged their rank among nations, they would hesitate to turn its revival into the great project of the upcoming decade?”
The restoration of the Château de Vincennes proceeded from that time on until the present day.

 

NOWADAYS

Presently, the Chateau de Vincennes is the seat of numerous services and institutions operated by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Culture. In 1948, the Historical Service of the Army, as well as its counterparts from the Navy and Air Force, set up premises at the Château. The French Army now uses the château to store its Defense archives, which date back to the 17th Century. It has been said that “Vincennes holds the memory of military France.”