Jean-Christian Petitfils “The historian is nostalgic for ancient times”

Biographer of kings, director of numerous collective works, member of the Scientific Council of Versalia, and member of the editorial board of the magazine, Jean-Christian Petitfils has revealed many secrets of the Ancien Régime through his writings. Recent author of a remarkable Henri IV (Perrin), he was led, during his research, to discover many secrets of the castle.

Comments collected by Mathieu da Vinha, scientific director of the Palace of Versailles Research Center

Could you tell us about your first memory of Versailles?

Jean-Christian Petitfils: I was perhaps nine or ten years old – it was around the mid-fifties – when I went to see Sacha Guitry's cult film Si Versailles m'ait conta at the cinema. My parents, who were very fond of History, took me there. I must say that the visit to the Grand Apartments, the vision of the Hall of Mirrors leaves me with memories in black and white: immense rows of dark, cold rooms, without furniture, dozing in their solemn sadness, like the melancholic cenotaph of the past greatness of ancient France. Nothing to do in any case with the prodigious and sparkling renovations accomplished in recent decades thanks to the work of several generations of architects, curators, and teams of highly specialized artists, thanks also to public endowments and generous donations from rich foreigners. as well as the remarkable support of the Society of Friends of Versailles which made it possible to buy back furniture and precious objects scattered since the Revolution. In my adolescence, I was particularly impressed by the gardens: the Latona parterre, the Royal Avenue, and its tired antique statuary, awaiting restoration, but which I detailed with curiosity, the Apollo basin and the Grand Canal. I also remember our impatient wait, from the terrace, for the opening of the floodgates and the magical gushing of the Great Waters. I was seduced by the Trianon estate and the refined, pre-romantic style of its English garden, with the Belvedere, the elegant Temple of Love, and the enchantment of the Queen's hamlet. I found myself there in a place that was much more accessible, and more lively, where one could almost follow in the footsteps of Marie-Antoinette.

What are your best memories of Versailles?

J.-C.P.: First, one of the first night festivals around 1960 at the Neptune basin, an impressive sound and light show, punctuated by a dazzling fireworks display. Then that of my first concert of sacred music at the Royal Chapel, dedicated by the Baroque Music Center of Versailles to Michel-Richard Delalande. And above all two private visits to the premises of the castle, which the late Marcel Raynal, vice-president of the Society of Friends of Versailles, was kind enough to organize for my wife and two friends, who then asked me to be part of the scientific committee of the prestigious magazine that he founded, Versalia. With what intense pleasure I was thus able to get to know the behind-the-scenes and its most secret places, far from the well-known ceremonial rooms, climbing the unpretentious stairs distributed along the interior courtyards, traversing the small corridors, discovering tiny rooms where courtiers, their families, and their servants once crowded together. I also have fond memories of the remains still visible on the exterior walls of the envelope of Le Vau and Orbay, above the vault of the Grande Galerie, walls which framed the old Italian-style terrace. These small details were of great value to me.

After studying political science and a career in banking, how did you become interested in history and that of the French Ancien Régime in particular?

J-C.P.: In reality, a passion for History has always accompanied me, including during my professional career which spanned almost thirty-five years in a large French investment bank. At seven years old, I was interested in Napoleon I and the glories of the Empire (since my Bonapartist fever had subsided); at thirteen I immersed myself with enthusiasm in reading The Cycle of the Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, particularly Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, the episodes of which take place, as you know, during the youth of Louis XIV: the discreet and touching loves of king and Louise de La Vallière, the arrest of Superintendent Fouquet in Nantes by the famous D'Artagnan, two characters to whom I later devoted innovative biographies, supported by unpublished documents. It remains my favorite period. At fifteen, I published, in the Mercure de France, my first article on the enigma of the man in the Iron Mask, so that at twenty-five, Marcel Jullian, then literary director of Plon-Éditions Perrin, agreed to publish the manuscript of my first book devoted to this subject. I was very proud, to have no support in the closed world of publishing. This is what gradually led me to broaden the scope of my research, to study in detail the prison system (notably writing a book on the Bastille), then the political and administrative structures of the Ancien Régime monarchy with their complex mechanisms of clans and clienteles.

And then it’s all gone!

J-C.P.: As a result, I became interested in Versailles. It must be said that in the meantime, alongside my studies at Sciences-Po, at the Faculty of Law and Economic Sciences in Paris as well as at the Institute of Business Administration, I had embarked on studies in history, which led me to take the four certificates for the history-geography teaching license at the “old Sorbonne”. My state doctoral thesis in political science was devoted to the political and social ideas of a little-known figure of the Counter-Revolution, the Count of Montlosier. A great moment for me was the certificate in modern and contemporary history of the old history degree. I followed with intense pleasure the lessons of Victor-Lucien Tapié, Marcel Reinhard, Jacques Droz, Ernest Labrousse, all great “mandarins” who May 68 wanted to get rid of! A sentence from Victor-Lucien Tapié has stayed with me for a long time: “We have difficulty realizing today what a king of France was, the sacred prestige that surrounded his person! It was something extraordinary! » I observed this throughout my work, even at times when the monarchy had begun to seriously desecrate itself. This veneration linked to royal blood and the anointing of Reims still existed at the start of the Revolution. We remember little Louison, seventeen years old, who came to Versailles with the women of the Hall to ask for bread from the king, who stammered a few words in the presence of Louis XVI before fainting with emotion. After my history studies, I had the opportunity to meet several great specialists of the Ancien Régime, Pierre Chaunu, Roland Mousnier, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Yves-Marie Bercé, Bernard Barbiche… In 1977, for example, Roland Mousnier included my synthetic study on Utopian socialisms in the collection “The Historian”, which he directed at the Presses Universitaire de France.

After the biographies of Louis XIV, Louis XVI, and Louis XIII, you have just released that of the founder of the dynasty. Is this the end of a cycle?

J-C.P.: Certainly. I will not write about the kings of the Restoration. From Henry IV to Louis XVI there was a great internal cohesion, that of what has been called royal absolutism, about which unfortunately a lot of nonsense has been written and which in reality corresponds to the attempt of a relatively weak power to centralize the country. The installation in Versailles of the king and the government, from 1682, certainly played a harmful role in this spectacular fall, isolating the monarch and his administration far from Paris, cutting them off from the vital forces of the capital. Louis XIV had wanted to domesticate the high aristocracy. The nobility reaction, which appeared upon his death and continued until 1789, ended up turning the tide, domesticating royal power and transforming it into an aristocratic monarchy. You will notice that all the Bourbons who reigned before the Revolution have a particular relationship with Versailles, including Henry IV whose biography I have just published: he certainly built nothing in this place, but the seigneurial land of Versailles and the Val de Galie – the location of the current castle – then occupied by a mill and an old abandoned manor, had been a pleasant hunting place for him!

You know Versailles very well, but are you still amazed by the place?

J-C.P.: I always admire the recent restoration work when I go to the castle several times a year to attend the Versalia Scientific Council. When I think of what Versailles was like in the time of Pierre de Nolhac, almost without furniture, without chandeliers, with its faded hangings – when there were any left – and its degraded interior walls! What can we say about the recent restoration of the Royal Chapel? A perfect success! I will not quibble about certain excess gilding of the roofs at the back of the Marble Courtyard or the reconstruction, imperfect in my opinion, of the gate of the Marble Courtyard, at least compared to its model that we know from certain engravings.

What are your favorite places in Versailles?

J-C.P: The Grande Galerie or Hall of Mirrors, of course, with the shimmer of its gold and the splendor of its mirrors. If you have the chance, it is better to see it at night, without tourists, illuminated by its chandeliers and torchieres: it is a magical, unreal vision of intense splendor. How can we not feel proud to belong to a people who knew how to produce such prodigious works? I also like the King's bedroom, that of Louis XIV, which Louis XV abandoned for less solemnity. It was the high point of the curial mechanism from 1701. I have not forgotten the Council office, where the most important political decisions were made. Outside the castle, there are the Grand and Petit Trianon, unrivaled jewels, so different from each other. My preference goes to the Grand, to the noble and sober grandeur of its pink marble columns. It was there, a few years ago, that I was dazzled by the renewal of the floral art of the flowerbeds, far from the drying rows of boxwood of the early 20th century. I also had the privilege of enjoying unforgettable moments in the park, when the creeping shadows of dusk gradually gained the perspective of the Grand Canal. Nothing in my opinion is more moving.

What does Versailles represent to you: is it well anchored in its time?

J-C.P.: Well anchored, yes undoubtedly, but perhaps not sufficiently. Embellished and restored, the castle is one of the great architectural glories of France. It is not said enough that this jewel served as a model for all of monarchical and princely Europe. From Lisbon to St. Petersburg, from Madrid to Stockholm, from Naples to Copenhagen, from Schönbrunn to Hampton-Court, via Parma, Potsdam, Trier, Kassel, Stuttgart, Würzburg, Ansbach, Herrenchiemsee (Louis' “kitch madness”) II of Bavaria), all the sovereigns of Europe wanted to be inspired by or imitate Bourbonian art and have “their” Versailles. The Republic was right to install the Congress there, but instead of exhibiting contemporary works of art there (like those of Jeff Koons or Anish Kapoor), it should make it more of a prestigious reception place for leaders of foreign States passing through France, as Charles de Gaulle had wanted.

If you were given a magic wand, what would you do for Versailles?

J-C.P.: You should never try to be a historian! I would like to find Jules Hardouin-Mansart's Versailles, before the destruction of the magnificent Ambassadeurs staircase (too bad for Mesdames' apartment), before the work of Ange-Jacques Gabriel, a great architect certainly but whose neo-style inspiration -classic did not lend itself well to the subtle balances of the facade, on the Cour de Marbre side. If I could, I would like to transport myself to Versailles on the evening of that tragic October 6, 1789, at the moment when Louis XVI and the royal family were forcibly brought back to Paris in the middle of the raging horde of women and rioters. “Try to preserve my poor Versailles! » had recommended the king on leaving to the Count of Gouvernet. There, in the frightening silence of the salons and corridors, just deserted by the Court, I would look, I would feel, with a lump in my throat, the remains of a world that had gone so brutally and forever, with its open drawers, his scattered papers, his broken doors, his coffee cups perhaps still full, his charming queen's toilets barely put on. I would go and search in the king's secret cupboards where he kept on the second and third floors of his private apartments on the Cour des Cerfs, well protected from the curiosity of his wife, his political notes, and the sensitive files of his diplomacy. Then I would go and contemplate the gondolas of the Grand Canal at nightfall and listen to the lapping of the water on their black hulls, thinking of the furious march of History.