First, a name taken from the dustbin of history: René de Longueil, known as the Marquis de Maisons, superintendent of the Kingdom, the Bruno Lemaire of the 17th century. René de Longueil did not live in Bercy and did not know Emmanuel Macron but his boss, excuse me, Louis XIV.
René de Longueil did not live in Bercy but had a castle built in Maisons-Laffitte in the Yvelines, work of the architect François Mansart. Saved from demolition in 1905, the Château de Maisons now belongs to the historical monuments.
And since André Malraux, the Château de Maisons has had the mission ofhost cultural exhibitions. Right now and until June 26, a very beautiful scenographic exhibition of Finnish painters from the 19th century. Perhaps the least known of the castles of Ile de France, certainly the competition is fierce, Versailles, Vaux le Vicomte and Fontainebleau…
The Château de Maisons is an architectural gem, so much so that a Chinese billionaire who fell in love built an identical replica a hundred kilometers from Beijing.
Louis XIV, Voltaire, Marshal Lannes, Napoleon, banker Jacques Laffitte bought, lived or stayed at Château Maisons. In 1982, the residence even hosted the fine flower of the Pierre Mauroy government and the socialist party led by Lionel Jospin for a “big” rose seminar.
Well then, drop your household activities this weekend, the shopping, the children’s homework, the grooming of the cat and go quickly to the Yvelines, towards the Château Maisons in Maisons-Laffitte and its treasures, the most beautiful French staircase of all the castles in France, the cabinet with mirrors, the guard room, and then the look of the building, a je ne sais quoi of Italian genius applied to French tradition, thank you Mansart! And the icing on the cake or the castle, the exhibition of Finnish painters from the 19th century, from private collections and the National Gallery of Finland.