Frédéric Nepveu at the Palace of Versailles, an architect in the service of Louis-Philippe

For fifteen years under the July Monarchy, the student of Percier and Fontaine, Eugène-Charles-Frédéric Nepveu led, as a connoisseur and with talent, the maintenance and transformation of the Palace of Versailles into a museum from 1830 to 1848. Through an ambitious political-artistic program, the omnipresent King Louis-Philippe placed the estate under the supervision of the General Intendance of the Civil List, a mock ministry financing the project. While receiving this king-builder on 398 occasions, Nepveu recorded for history the transformation into a museum and the construction site of the century. The study of this site gives the opportunity to better know this committed man, with a strong character, standing up to the king who valued his loyalty.

Imbued with the ideals of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, Louis-Philippe and Frédéric Nepveu, four years the king's junior, both appreciated the classic authors whose works covered the shelves of their libraries. In his youth, the Duke of Orléans studied architecture with his tutor Madame de Genlis, who recorded the details of his church visits in her diary. The sketchbook of Louis-Philippe and his children, preserved in the National Archives, remains a witness to the king's keen interest in the graphic arts, which gave him a taste for reading plans, section details, and the reports produced. by Nepveu so valuable for understanding the Versailles museum project.

Family and studies

Frédéric Nepveu was born in Paris on July 14, 1777, into a family of master masons whose origins date back to the 16th century. This naturally led him to the profession of architect. From his father, Michel Nepveu, a sworn architect before the French Revolution, he learned the technique of building private mansions and the art of fitting them out, a lucrative activity. But it was with his brother, Jean-Charles Nepveu, a building contractor, that Frédéric cut his teeth. If the sons of this older brother, Marie-Charles Adolphe, and François-Eugène, chose architecture at the School of Fine Arts, Frédéric Nepveu, for his part, studied drawing very early at the Harcourt College (current high school Saint Louis in the 5th arrondissement). There he became friends with Louis Hersent, who painted the rare known portrait of him in 1863. The Nepveu reflect the professionalization of the building trades and the split between the professions of architect and mason which took place throughout the 19th century.

Frédéric Nepveu follows each step to become an architect, training with renowned masters. The history painter Jean-Baptiste Regnault and the landscaper Jean-Victor Bertin recommended him for entry to the School of Fine Arts. From 1804 to 1805, the student-architect took courses in architecture, general history and art history, mathematics, geometry, and model making with Antoine-François Peyre, in full works at the Château d'Écouen in 1802, and Charles Percier, close to Pierre Fontaine (1). These daily exercises were to prepare him for the “Prix de Rome”, with which he would never be honored. Far from giving up, the architect traveled around Rome and Italy at his own expense from 1805 to 1809, learning from the field.

Returning from Italy, Frédéric Nepveu occupied, from July 1, 1810, the position of building controller at the Palace of Versailles, under the direction of the architect Guillaume Trepsat, who hardly appreciated his character. He discovered the palace and estate, wrote these first reports, and drew his first sketches. In charge of the maintenance of the two Trianons, he prepared for the arrival of the imperial court, a task whose formative aspect he would discuss in 1836 for the rest of his career.

Transferred on May 1, 1811, by Baron Louis Costaz to the Château de Fontainebleau, he trained with the architect Maximilien-Joseph Hurtault, a student of Richard Mique, the great project manager of the works on the Château de Versailles under Louis XVI. Then in 1815, appointed inspector, he was sent to Alexandre Dufour, “a man of merit […] a skillful administrator”, in charge of Trianon and the stables from 1817 according to the Directory of Building and Public Works. Then called an architect in October 1821 at the Rambouillet Palace, he was entrusted with the maintenance of the rooms of the palace by Louis XVIII.

Little employed in Rambouillet, Nepveu tackled private construction, two library projects, and an opera in 1814 and 1819 which were never completed, as well as maintenance work on the churches of Notre-Dame d'Épernay and Saint-Jean de Troyes. (Aube) for the Ministry of Religion and the Interior. In 1827, Casimir-Louis-Victurnien de Rochechouart, Duke of Mortemart, his childhood friend, commissioned him to create rooms on the second floor of the Château de Neauphle-le-Vieux, then from 1832 to 1840, he created new rooms at the Château de Maintenon for the Duke of Noailles, in parallel with the demolitions carried out in the Midi wing at Versailles started in 1834. All this work allowed him to prepare the great work of his life at the Palace of Versailles, which he knew perfectly even before his arrival in June 1832.

Principal architect at Versailles

Project manager in charge of the Versailles palace construction site following Alexandre Dufour, Frédéric Nepveu now heads the second division of the civil list buildings department. To access this position, he benefited from the support, on the one hand of the Duke of Mortemart and of Casimir Perier, president of the Council of Ministers, and on the other hand of King Louis-Philippe himself, who said of him that He was a "very amiable conversationalist", himself having the capacity to expound on history for hours according to the notes in Queen Marie-Amélie's notebook. In truth, Pierre Fontaine, who played a certain role in his appointment, placed him in a vice between the king's orders and the taste for experimenting with certain architectural techniques (conveniences, zenithal openings) more supervised by Fontaine at Versailles. Moreover, a hierarchy is established between them. Nepveu was entrusted with the majority of the rooms, the management of the construction companies, and the accounting of the work, while Fontaine helped him in the more strategic spaces (Battles gallery, Crusades room) to channel and advise a proactive king, always dissatisfied and insatiable in his expansionist wishes regarding the museum, especially in the South and North wings. With 398 visits inventoried, Louis-Philippe directs the site in person and on-site, adjusting the demolitions or the decorations and initiating the rooms to be transformed, without however touching the facades of his ancestors contrary to what Jacques Gondouin planned twenty years earlier, the architect of Napoleon I. The king knew, through Fontaine, that Dufour's former deputy had the expertise and detailed knowledge of Versailles buildings on his side. Nepveu will indeed faithfully apply the program entrusted by the king while exposing his objections in his correspondence to his hierarchy.

Nepveu's "large office with column stove" was installed at the Hôtel du Grand Control in Versailles and fitted out with drawers for plans, a rotisserie kitchen, and granite furniture consoles. A flexible team of 140 people requires a budget of 208,197.56 francs in costs over fifteen years to establish plans, reports, controls, and inspections of company sites. On November 30, 1838, under the pen of Nepveu, it was made up of auxiliaries, subcontractors, administrative employees, draftsmen, and experts checking the figures on the line in the 9,600 work reports, saving four million to the Crown on the palace construction sites. Conversely, the number of workers varied over the reign, reaching a thousand in 1833 and 1838, the site then being at the peak of its activity and also encountering its share of imponderables. Poverty, recounted in Victor Hugo's Les Misèrables, can be seen in the youth of workers, paid 1 franc per day (a quarter of a journeyman), doing arduous work, and acting as "strength boys". At the request of Nepveu, who noted it in his letters, the king took charge of accidental deaths and granted bonuses to art workers. It is the concierge Boucheman, appreciated by the king, who lets the workers pass and counts the visitors whose access is governed by regulations evolving. The Swiss Guards, in livery and sword sheaths, are now the supervisors of a future museum open to the public. Nepveu will coordinate daily meetings with the major beneficiaries of the king's liberal society, the building contractors. Masons, glaziers, carpenters, locksmiths-creators of glass roofs... 140 entrepreneurs were identified, with varied specialties, all tendered and under the orders of Louis-Philippe. Recommended by local elected officials, by the king's architect, and by their predecessors, these contractors produce quotes, and summary reports composed of daily statements for the calculation of site activities, all approved by the Crown. The architect Nepveu is their support, the one who precisely dictates the timetable of actions, their intermediary to assert their demands on the acceleration of payments which are often 3 to 5 years late. Nepveu encourages the entrepreneurs concerned to live nearby in rented accommodation or acquired hotels, renting to companions and workers themselves. Once the orders were received, Nepveu drew up the plans, requested quotes from contractors, informed Godard-Dubuc, director of buildings, and had the king validate them during his visits, recorded for history in meticulous reports.

After the inauguration in 1837, Nepveu moved into the main building, facing the main courtyard, to take advantage of the recent heating installations. From Place Vendôme, headquarters of the Intendance, his superior Isidore Godard-Dubuc directs the expenditure of the buildings of Versailles, validates the millions spent on maintenance and repairs of roofs and gardens, on glazing and parquet floors, leaving however to intendant Camille de Montalivet (2) and the king the validation of the costs of transforming the rooms into a museum and the labor assigned to the destruction. For the sake of form, he submitted the submissions to a building advisory committee, made up of architects. From these exchanges, thousands of plans and work reports were born at the agency, kept at Versailles, and which bear witness to the history of the details of the demolitions and transformations affecting the wings of the palace, never achieved since Louis XIV.

Thus, the Noailles pavilion (north wing) and the apartments in the south wing were emptied of floors, doors, and chimneys. From his office, the architect sees their old wooden frames piling up in the courtyards of the castle, reused in Compiègne, at the Tuileries or Palais Royal. They will give way to the metal skeletons of the industrial era, to the metal trusses made by the founders of the north of France, which make up the framework supporting the decorations with columns and arches, the recessed frames, and the paintings throughout the palace. From five levels, the king's pavilion, former "Noailles", increased to three to give perspective to the rooms of the Crusades, paneled and painted with crests.

The development of the museum is the result of a succession of projects to which only the king will have the key. Nepveu maintains the estate to ensure food sustenance (farms, ice houses), the daily use of horses (stables), and places of safety (gates, fences, guard houses, and military houses). The architect will modernize the heating, by creating central heating passing through the walls from the pounds to the rooms. Removing the wooden frames, he developed overhead lighting, a cast iron and glass frame assembled by the Mignon companies: the Galerie des Batailles, the Midi and Chimay penthouses as well as the African rooms were thus equipped between 1836 and 1845. To restore the Grandes Eaux shows, especially at the inauguration in June 1837, Nepveu redesigned the network of canals and fountains. He had fountain workers and masons replace cast iron pipes, clean ponds and masonry reservoirs, and water features, including that of the Swiss in 1842.

From Nepveu, the client Louis-Philippe requires a quickly assembled museum tour, which requires the creation of marble, wrought iron, or stucco staircases allowing access to the attics to have the maximum possible space for his paintings (Princes' stairs, Ambassadors' stairs – today called the Louis-Philippe staircase – and the Grand Nord staircase – today called the Questel staircase following its reconstruction by this architect). Frédéric Nepveu and Alphonse Cailleux inserted the paintings and arranged the sculptures chosen by King Louis-Philippe and ordered at great expense from hundreds of artists of his time. The museum organizes the reception of the public, arranging varnished iron balustrades in front of the paintings, now embedding the canvases in the decoration of the walls, according to the wishes of the management of the royal museums and the direction of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture. 'Interior. The museum was born from this work and it is the work of this great architect to have set it to music. In an unusual chronological journey, dedicated "to all the glories of France", French victories and generals follow one another from room to room, reflecting the permanent mutation of the royal project, almost linked to current events. Thus, in 1834, the Empire Rooms and the Marengo Room, initially planned to become a gallery of great victories, were to be a provisional scenographic assembly. The king judged that the rooms were not impressive enough and decided to destroy the two upper levels of the South wing to install there from 1835 to 1837 the 1830 room and the Battles Gallery. The latter, reminiscent of the Grande Galerie du Louvre with its atypical columns, is the result of competition between Fontaine and Nepveu. The rooms of the central body, preserved in their original size, house the revolutionary rooms, and the numerous portrait rooms of generals and marshals, while the former Salle des Cent-Suisses becomes the 1792 room, one of the favorite rooms of the king, those dedicated to the revolutionary battles at Jemmapes and Valmy, to the ideas of the Enlightenment before his exile. Finally, the rooms of Africa were decorated by Horace Vernet, his favorite painter, the best endowed of the reign, staying in an apartment at the Grande Écurie and having from 1840 the room of the Jeux de Paume to paint the monumental frescoes at leisure. battles in Africa. His rooms, namely those of Smalah, Constantine, and Morocco, will be doubly symbolic after the death of his son Ferdinand-Philippe, who had fought in Africa. Showing the strength of France to the whole of Europe, they will also become a memorial to its heir who tragically disappeared in 1842.

Lost honors, a meaning to the museum project

From 1837 to 1848, the Palace of Versailles Museum welcomed nearly 4 million visitors to the palace, which was a huge success! Certainly much more on holidays and weekends in the restored gardens. The Grandes Eaux dazzled thousands of bourgeois enriched by the monarch's liberal policies, who came by train from Paris for 2 francs per ticket per person. Distinguished guests also stop at the castle to see the museum. Queen Christine and the mother of the young Queen Victoria, the Duchess of Kent, had the honors of the king and visited all the rooms of the museum on November 27, 1840, and May 3, 1844, as Frédéric Nepveu recounts: a dinner of 50 to 60 place settings are served at each visit in the large gallery for some and the Louis XIII gallery for others. From scholars like the painter Peter von Cornelius, director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, to the son-in-law of Louis-Philippe, Léopold Saxe-Cobourg, future king of the Belgians, or even to the Prussian spy Alexandre Humboldt, The castle is as much the territory of diplomats as the general public, opening it to its new heritage and cultural role.

As for the craftsman of the site, Frédéric Nepveu, decorated in 1834 with the Legion of Honor, he will never have the honor of accessing the great academies, carried away by the troubles of the Second Republic and the Empire. After welcoming his successor Émile Leblanc on March 15, 1848, he was relieved of his duties, ordered to leave his apartments at the Grand Control just like Isidore Godard-Dubuc, and replaced by his deputy Desmarest, a supporter of the Republic. Frédéric Nepveu settled on the ground floor of 13 Place d’Armes (currently 13 Rue Colbert), whose windows overlook the façade and chapel of the château which he helped to restore. From then on, the rich bourgeois received former personalities from the reign of Louis-Philippe, here Jules Janin as evidenced by this letter from November 1850. Nepveu had just attended the king's funeral at Claremont House (United Kingdom), thus showing himself he still had to demonstrate his unfailing loyalty.

Nepveu was able to materialize the designs of King Louis-Philippe and make the sumptuous palace of Louis while preserving for history the emblematic and post-revolutionary notion of the heritage of a place of memory.1• Under the July Monarchy, he was the architect of the first division of the Louvre and the Tuileries, as well as the buildings on the Civil List.

2• Two other personalities will briefly be general intendant of the Civil List, Baron Agathon Jean François Fain and Pierre-Marie Taillepied, Count of Bondy.

Letter from Nepveu to Jules Janin

“Versailles, October 1, 1850. Dear Sir. Returning from a few days spent outside Versailles looking for a few distractions from my last trip to Claremont; On returning home I found a kind word from you with the hope of a good visit to Place d'armes in Versailles n° 13. But it is me now who asks your permission to take you at your word and to invite you on behalf of Mr. Nepveu and mine to come with Madame, have dinner with us, at 5 a.m. 5:30 a.m. next Sunday, the 6th, anniversary of the birth of the king we have just lost. I hope to bring you together with some good servants or friends of a Prince who, the victim of immense ingratitude, did not have a single thought during two and a half years of the harshest exile that was not for the good and the best in life. come from France and who has just finished his long and laborious career, not only with the calm of a soul without reproach, but also with this serenity of mind, this goodness of heart which can only belong to this intelligence of the elite who judge all these infinities highly, and sympathize with us until the last moment without letting slip either complaint or unnecessary resentment. But I return, Sir, to our invitation. Please give Madame Nepveu and so a good and prompt response as well as Madam if the weather is good and you come early around two o'clock, we will use your time for a walk to Trianon or the Palace; and if the weather is bad and you succeed only late, for some details of our work which will not be without interest for you, Sir, who have both the good spirit to be indulgent and the one so happy to be able to return with as much futility as liveliness the good and abundant ideas which assail your heart, when a worthy opportunity presents itself. On a good little affirmative word, you will have achieved, dear Sir, the complete conquest of your devoted servant. / Frédéric Nepveu” (October 1, 1850, coll. part.). This unpublished letter completes a letter he wrote to his wife following their visit to the Nepveu: “Ah! The beautiful and big house! Or rather, the people of Versailles do not live in houses, they live in Palaces! » (Jules Janin, 735 letters to his wife, Paris, C. Klincksieck, 1973, vol. I, p. 562).