In the shadow of Vaux-de-Cernay

At the start of the Second World War, statues from the Royal Gardens of Versailles were sheltered in the paths of the park of the former Cistercian abbey of Vaux-de-Cernay, located in the heart of the upper Chevreuse valley. This recent history invites us to explore the links forged since the 17th century between these two heritage places that are geographically close, but which at first glance seemed to be in opposition.

By Claire Bonnotte Khelil, scientific collaborator at the national museum of the châteaux of Versailles and Trianon.

Founded at the beginning of the 12th century by monks from Savigny, the Notre-Dame des Vaux-de-Cernay abbey was very quickly attached to the powerful order of Cîteaux, which gave it significant influence.

From the monks of Cîteaux to the Rothschilds

In the following century, Louis IX – the future Saint Louis – made a pilgrimage there with his young wife Marguerite de Provence. According to legend, the prayers of Thibault de Marly, abbot of Vaux-de Cernay from 1235 to 1247, associated with the benefits of the spring gushing over his marshy lands, favored the fertility of the royal couple, sterile since the celebration of their union several years ago. earlier.

Until the Grand Siècle, the abbey endured many vicissitudes. At this time, it also experienced less prosperity, if we compare it to other religious establishments located nearby, notably its powerful neighbor Port-Royal des Champs, destroyed on the orders of Louis XIV in 1712. The latter did not seem to have little interest in Vaux-de-Cernay, which he granted in 1669 to Jean II Casimir Vasa, former king of Poland. A few canals intended to supply the Versailles basins cross the vast forest area. In 1681, the Grand Dauphin made an unexpected stop there with his entourage during a wolf hunt.

Several decades later, Charles-Maurice de Broglie, abbot of Vaux-de-Cernay from 1712, went very frequently to the court of Versailles, where he became a friend of Queen Marie Leszczynska. But the best example of a symbolic rapprochement between the two places comes from a commission entrusted in 1767 by the Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour and superintendent of the King's Buildings, to the painter Joseph-Marie Vien. At his request, the artist was commissioned to design an altar painting intended for the ornamentation of the future chapel of the Petit Trianon, built by Gabriel. The very specific iconography of this work relates to the famous miracle that occurred in the 13th century in Vaux-de-Cernay and featuring Saint Thibaud receiving King Louis IX (Saint Louis) and his wife Queen Marguerite of Provence: the religious their offers a bowl of fruits and flowers, including eleven lily stems, announcing their important descendants. We can see the silhouette of the abbey church in the background, topped by its bell tower. Once completed by Vien, the canvas was installed in its final location in 1775, on the orders of the young Queen Marie-Antoinette.

Damaged several times throughout its history, the abbey once again experienced a particularly dark period at the time of the Revolution, leading to the sale of its property, followed by massive destruction of its ancient monuments. It is a property in a state of ruins and in total abandonment that Charlotte de Rothschild, wife of Nathaniel de Rothschild, acquired in 1874, both a great collector and a customary watercolorist at the Salons. Eager to bring this place back to life, she commissioned her architect Félix Langlais to restore the old buildings and re-erect in this setting, which she mainly occupies during the summer season, a whole set of buildings in a neo-medieval spirit. The Baroness received many musicians, writers, and painters there, breathing a vibrant and eclectic artistic life into Vaux-de-Cernay.

When he died in 1899, it was his son Arthur who inherited the estate, then his grandson, the doctor and writer Henri de Rothschild, who gave it new luster in the interwar period. Mathilde de Weisweiller, his wife, is a friend of the curator of the Versailles Museum, Pierre de Nolhac. Passionate about French art, Henri is an assiduous and knowledgeable collector, but also an exceptional bibliophile, as evidenced by the photographs of the interior of the salons of this residence, which he published in a richly illustrated album published in 1930.

Un dépôt royal en plein air

Le 1er septembre 1939, soit deux jours avant l’entrée en guerre de la France, une partie de la propriété des Vaux-de-Cernay est officiellement réquisitionnée « pour les besoins de la Nation » afin d’y entreposer d’insignes sculptures des jardins de Versailles. Situés dans le même département de la Seine-et-Oise, les deux ensembles patrimoniaux ne sont éloignés que d’une vingtaine de kilomètres, mais l’asile cernaysien paraît plus rassurant que le berceau d’origine des des œuvres, jugé trop exposé aux potentiels bombardements ennemis. L’idée de cette mise à l’abri dans un ermitage moins risqué revient vraisemblablement à Patrice Bonnet, architecte en chef du palais de Versailles, et organisateur du vaste plan de défense passive pour les décors et œuvres d’art relevant de sa charge.

Véritable dépôt constitué en plein air, les Vaux-de-Cernay accueillent les premières œuvres de provenance royale à compter du 5 septembre 1939. Un plan légendé conservé dans les archives du château détaille bien la disposition des statues, en grande partie disposées le long de l’allée menant de la ferme des Vallées à l’abbaye, et longeant la fontaine de saint Thibault. Sur cette artère se succèdent la Diane dite Le Soir de Martin Desjardins, la Vénus dite L’Heure du midi de Gaspard Marsy jusqu’au Feu de Nicolas Dossier. Un grand nombre de ces œuvres est issu de la fameuse Grande Commande de 1674, ornant notamment le parterre d’Eau et la Grande Perspective.

Astonishing black and white photographs taken by Emmanuel-Louis Mas show us these famous statues, usually presented on high plinths, here placed in an almost ghostly manner on simple concrete blocks, only a few centimeters from the ground.

To guarantee the stability of certain works, such as the Lyric Poem by Jean-Baptiste Tuby, four metal legs were arranged to hold the statue by the waist.

As for the group of Latona and her children of the Marsy brothers, they take place a few meters from a fence which now serves as a background. Contrary to what was designed in terms of passive defense in the gardens of the Versailles Park, no other protection conceals them. The only precaution lies in the fact that they are here deliberately distanced from each other to limit the risks in the event of aerial bombardment. In addition, these works are monitored by Versailles guards, some of whom are housed on-site at the so-called Vallées farm or in the small pavilion located at the secondary entrance gate.

In the press, the location is kept secret. And if Patrice Bonnet published an important article entitled "Wartime Versailles" in the magazine L'Illustration at the beginning of December 1939, accompanied by a photograph of the royal sculptures scattered in the Cernay Park, it did not provide any precision as to their exact location. “Ten hectares of clearing, enclosed by walls, are reserved for the marble gods,” he only specifies in the caption, also explaining the security requirements that governed this move of “the Versailles Olympus”. We also discover in the newspaper a previously unpublished photograph of the Latona basin as it now stands on site, "emptied, abandoned by the goddess and stripped of decorative lead", overlooking the dry Grand Canal.

Under German occupation

At the time of the arrival of German troops in mid-June 1940, no less than seventy Versailles statues, in marble or bronze, were stored in the Cernaysian park, left to their fate, following the hasty departure of the last guards, refugees in the Vienne department. Very quickly, the invasion and then the occupation of the premises raised the question of the security of the works, despite the gradual reestablishment of a surveillance service. A love sphinx was slightly damaged in July, which helped to quickly organize their return to Versailles, spread out between the end of 1940 and the spring of the following year due to the difficulties of organizing this repatriation. Relieved to witness the smooth running of these particularly delicate operations, the architect Jean Dupré congratulated himself on this happy outcome to Gaston Brière, former museum curator and head of the Brissac castle depot, on December 29, 1940: “To Versailles, the poor exiled statues return home after having endured without fail all the vicissitudes of a move. »

The sculptures are thus the first works to return from storage in Versailles. They were also, it is true, the closest to their place of origin. For example, the museum's works had been sent to more distant castles, such as those of Chambord, Brissac, and Sourches.

After the return of the statues, a more complex story played out behind the gates of Cernay during the Occupation. Stripped of French nationality by the Vichy government like all members of the Jewish community, Henri de Rothschild, a refugee in Switzerland and then in Portugal, was deprived of his personal and real estate assets, of which the Vaux-de-Cernays were a part. The Palace of Versailles Museum was acquired during the year 1942, through state sales, and a certain number of works of art were returned to it in the post-war period. The property, for its part, is the subject of an expropriation measure. Sold at auction in the summer of 1942, it was acquired for 6,400,000 francs by the French state, which ordered the cultivation of the surrounding land and the reforestation of the estate.

The commune of Cernay-la-ville was liberated on August 24, 1944, one day before Versailles. The annulment of Vichy's anti-Semitic laws restored Henri de Rothschild's fundamental rights. After his death on October 12, 1947, the property was purchased several times until it was transformed into a luxury hotel complex in the 1990s, which it remains today. From now on, nothing suggests this unexpected and ephemeral presence of the royal sculptures in the Vaux-de-Cernay park, probably forgotten by walkers and those familiar with these exceptional places.