The Jacquemart-André Museum
fills a 19th-century mansion offering the public
a rare, aristocratic open house.
Edouard André and his wife, Nélie Jacquemart,
spent their lives and fortune
designing, building, and decorating
this incredible mansion.
I'm enjoying a tour by one of the museum's fine guides,
Ciara.
Because, you know, they had no children,
they had a lot of money and they used to travel a lot,
and then they'd bring many souvenirs.
So these are souvenirs?
Exactly.
What's this?
That's the music room.
You can almost imagine the clatter of jewelry
mixing with the chamber music
as Edouard and Nélie threw a party.
This is the Italian room.
Exactly, because they traveled in Italy.
They loved Italian art and they brought paintings
of Bellini, Botticelli, Mantegna, Caravaggio.
And Tiepolo, whose fresco graces the mansion's lobby.
And this is the bedroom.
So the monsieur and madame lived here?
Yes, but this was the room of madame, "chambre" of madame.
So they had two different bedrooms?
Exactly, that's Nélie Jacquemart.
And this was Edouard's bedroom,
complete with a deluxe bathroom.
Down a dreamy, tree-lined road,
there's another palace, which was actually
the inspiration of Versailles.
This is the ravishing Vaux-le-Vicomte.
With an unrivaled harmony of architecture,
interior decor, and garden design,
it gets my vote for the most beautiful château
in all of France.
Set in a huge forest with magnificent gardens,
Vaux-le-Vicomte is an absolute joy to tour.
Compared to Versailles, it's more intimate
and comes with a fraction of the crowds.
Take a stroll over the ornamental moat.
Admire the elegance and symmetry of the ensemble.
The gardens stretch far beyond the palace,
but their main axis runs straight through its center.
In this, the cutting edge of sculpted French formal gardens,
the landscaper integrated ponds, shrubbery, and trees
in a style that would be copied in palaces all over Europe.
This was the home of Nicolas Fouquet,
France's finance minister during that
over-the-top reign of Louis XIV in the 17th century.
It all came together
when he hired France's top architect,
landscaper, and decorator,
a trio known as the "brotherhood of genius."
With both a blank slate and a blank check,
Fouquet's dream team made his audacious vision a reality.
An intriguing part of your visit
is a chance to climb through the attic
for a peek at timbers and the structure of the roof.
Then you reach the cupola and cap your visit
with a commanding view
and a chance to survey Fouquet's domain.
The château of Chenonceau is the toast of the Loire.
This 16th-century Renaissance palace
arches gracefully over the Cher River.
Its formal garden combined with the delightful riverside setting
makes it one of the great sights in all of Europe.
The palace is lovingly maintained
with bouquets of fresh flowers
adding fragrance,
and an included audio-guide
making sure visitors understand what they're looking at.
Big fireplaces warmed big beds
while portraits of illustrious owners
give the place a certain pedigree.
While the tapestries kept the rooms cozy,
they also functioned to depict recent history...
to the king's liking, of course.
These 16th-century tapestries are among the finest in France.
Chenonceau was the first great pleasure palace.
With its ravishing grand gallery spanning the river,
it was designed for high society.
Nicknamed the "château of the ladies,"
Chenonceau housed many famous women over the centuries.
In 1547, King Henry II
gave the original castle to his mistress,
Diane de Poitiers.
She added an arched bridge over the river.
When the king died, his wife, the queen,
Catherine de' Medici, took over the château.
She threw out the mistress,
turned Diane's bridge into a fancy ballroom,
and, according to legend, put her own portrait
above the fireplace in her rival's bedroom.
Big personalities like kings
tickled more than one tiara at a time.
Mistresses were a routine part of the mix.
Louis XV decorated this palace
with a painting of the Three Graces,
featuring his three favorite mistresses.
Now, that's the arrogance of power.
A powerful queen or mistress
often managed to get her own private palace
even when the king's romantic interest shifted elsewhere.
In many cases, the king or nobleman
would be away on work or at war for years at a time,
leaving home-improvement decisions up to
the lady of the château, who had an unlimited budget.
Chambord is the granddaddy of the Loire châteaux.
Far bigger than your average Loire castle,
it has 440 rooms
and a fireplace for every day of the year.
It's surrounded by Europe's largest enclosed forest.
It's a game preserve defined by a 20-mile-long wall
and still home to wild deer and boar.
Exploring the vast domain by rental bike,
you can imagine royal hunting parties chasing their prey.
Chambord began as a simple hunting lodge for bored nobles
and eventually became a monument
to the royal sport and duty of hunting.
Of course, when it comes to hunting,
good horsemanship is an important life skill.
Throughout the region it's not uncommon
to see horses prancing and dancing.
Starting in 1519, the French king François I
had this royal retreat built,
employing 1,800 workmen for 15 years.
François I was an absolute monarch,
with the emphasis on "absolute."
In 32 years of rule,
he never once called the Estates General --
that's the rudimentary parliament of
old-regime France -- into session.
This immense hunting palace
was another way to show off his power.
The architectural plan of the château
was modeled after an Italian church.
It feels a like a place designed to worship royalty.
This castle,
built while the pope was erecting
a new St. Peter's Basilica in Rome,
was like a secular rival to the Vatican.
Like a cross crowns a great church,
the tip-top of the tallest tower here
is capped with the fleur-de-lis,
symbol of the French Monarchy.
Each floor of the main structure is the same --
four equal arms of a cross
branching off of a monumental staircase,
which leads up to a cupola.
Grand après-hunting parties
were held under these fine barrel-vaulted ceilings.
Constructed for François I,
his emblem -- the salamander -- is everywhere.
The hunting theme carries on throughout the palace.
This room features paintings and trophies
from Chambord's illustrious hunting past.
Typical of royal châteaux, this palace was rarely used.
Back then, any king had to be on the road a lot
to effectively exercise his power.
That's why he'd have lots of royal palaces
and they sat empty most of the time.
Back in the 1600s, Louis XIV spent a fortune
renovating this place, and he visited only six times.
Touring the lavish apartments of various kings and queens,
you notice, everything inside was designed to be
easily dismantled and moved
with the royal entourage.
Because French kings moved around a lot,
the entire court and its trappings had to be mobile.
A royal château would sit cold and empty
11 months out of the year,
and then suddenly spring to life when the king came to town.
Imagine the royal roadies
setting up a kingly room like this --
busily hanging tapestries,
assembling beds,
unfolding chairs,
wrestling big trunks with handles --
just before the arrival of the royal entourage.
The French word for furniture, "mobilier,"
literally means "mobile."
The fancy spiral staircase
continues to the rooftop terrace,
decorated by a pincushion of spires and chimneys.
From here, ladies could scan the estate grounds,
enjoying the spectacle
of their ego-pumping men out hunting.
One of the most fascinating is Fontainebleau.
When it comes to showing the sweep of French history,
this château is unrivaled among French palaces.
While home to many kings though the ages,
today, with its iconic and sweeping staircase,
it's the domain of tourists.
The palace is richly decorated
in royal and imperial symbolism,
and its walls are hung with exquisite tapestries.
As you stroll, you can enjoy the artistic shift in styles.
There's stately Renaissance, such as this fine hall,
which dates from 1528.
Overseen by King François I,
it inspired other royal galleries,
including the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
The opulent ballroom, which hosted many royal parties,
is Baroque.
In the royal apartments, these ceilings come with
the giddy extravagance of Rococo.
And, finally, there's the more sober
post-Revolutionary Neoclassical.
The decor of this stately library
dates from the 19th century.
It seems every king, queen, and emperor since
has loved this palace.
Louis XIII was born here, Louis XV was married here,
and after the anti-monarchy chaos of the French Revolution,
Napoleon reigned as emperor right here.
Fontainebleau has more Napoleon Bonaparte connections
than any other palace,
with his personal apartments and an adjacent museum.
Napoleon's throne room is the only French throne room
that survives with its original furniture.
You'll see where the emperor slept,
the oversized desk where he worked,
and the little table where he abdicated.
Grand paintings portray the emperor
and his first wife, Josephine, after their coronation.
Rooms are decorated
in the Empire style of the Napoleonic age.
A tent-like room is dedicated to Napoleon at war,
with his small but iconic battle coat and hat,
field cot,
and first-class camp gear.
Napoleon aspired to create his own family dynasty.
To turn his Corsican blood blue,
he married a Habsburg.
His second wife, Empress Marie-Louise,
provided what he called "a royal womb."
The hallway is lined with busts and portraits
of the sprawling imperial family Napoleon created,
relatives he put on various thrones
all across his empire.
It's fascinating
to consider the mix of ideals, charisma,
and megalomania that shaped the emperor.
This revolutionary hero
came out of a movement that killed off the Old Regime...
only to create a new Old Regime.
All this royal, noble, and imperial extravagance
and the resulting political upheaval
is not necessarily a bad thing.
I see it as the growing pains of democracy.
It's instructive to ponder these symbols of excess,
once so out of reach,
and today the playground of the public.
Why are today's French so hell-bent
on defending their civil liberties?
Perhaps it has something to do with their heritage
of overcoming abuse of power
to earn their freedom.