Madame Du Barry's apartment at the Palace of Versailles

Visiting today under the name "Madame Du Barry's apartment" the part of the second floor of the castle, located above the rooms forming the core of the King's interior apartment, maybe a historical paradox. Louis In addition, she lived mainly in rooms whose volumes and decorations pre-existed her arrival. However, since at least the late 19th century, his name has been associated with this large and beautiful apartment. Strongly in love with the young and beautiful Jeanne Bécu, whose very modest social origin and sulfurous past were public knowledge, Louis XV did not hesitate to transgress all the codes of propriety by royally granting her this apartment ideally located in the castle which largely corresponded to his former private offices.

By Yves Carlier, general curator at the Palace of Versailles

The king had granted this apartment to Madame Du Barry all the more easily since he had undergone a very recent campaign of work intended to temporarily accommodate the dauphine Marie-Josèphe de Saxe, after the death of the dauphin in 1765, the time for him to prepare a new apartment on the ground floor, the dauphin having expressed the desire to leave the one in which she had lived with the dauphin. In addition to a social origin that must have represented an impassable line in the eyes of many members of the Court, the establishment of Madame Du Barry in the former cabinets of the King, where the mother of the future Louis XVI and his brothers and sisters had died, certainly participated in the strong prevention that the royal family showed him at the time of his triumph.

If the chronology of operations aimed at improving the apartment for Mrs. Du Barry is known, the date of its installation remains uncertain. It was perhaps made during the spring of 1769, concomitantly with his presentation to the Court which took place on April 26, 1769. It certainly occupied him in May 1770 since, drawing his portrait at that time, the Duke of Croÿ noted in her diary that she was “established in cabinet accommodation.” However, at that date, the apartment was not completely ready, and one must imagine the king's mistress living for around six months in rooms under construction, even sleeping in the corner cabinet, while the bedroom was completed. By making these adjustments, the architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel hoped to work at a minimum and not embark on an expensive undertaking, finding himself torn between the very poor state of finances and other projects that could not be postponed: opera, the dauphine's apartment, and the new Government wing. But that was without counting on the person concerned who went so far as to advance the funds so that the work could be done according to her wishes!

The luxury of a princely apartment

What was executed was essentially in the realm of decoration. The only constructions made for him are the chair cabinet and the room for the maid of watch, erected outside the work on the Cour des Cerfs, above the alcove of the King's bedroom. Gabriel arranged this addition in such a way that it did not prevent the sun's rays from reaching the sundial placed in the same courtyard, on the opposite wall. At the other end of the apartment, a library was built whose bodies and their glass doors were reused from an old library of Madame Adélaïde which was located in the same location, forming an extension of the apartment that the princess occupied on the first floor of the castle. The reuse of these elements was probably more motivated by the speed of their replacement than by concerns of the economy. This library was not restored exactly as it was originally, since the wall was equipped with an alcove with mirrors, erecting the room in the rank of a boudoir ideally located, at the end of one of the staircases that the king took when he was going up to his mistress's house. To the north, a door opened onto a library addition created from scratch. Sometime later, in 1772, this library addition was transformed into a bathroom complete with a bathing room.

Gabriel hoped to be satisfied with a simple wash, a repainting of the woodwork, and a gilding limited to the ice trumeaux. Now, strong in her position and certain of her favor, Madame Du Barry obtained the princely privilege that the woodwork of the rooms lit on the Marble Courtyard was gilded, namely the bedroom, the large cabinet, and the corner cabinet, to which was added the library. She also wanted her chair cabinet to receive the same treatment, but only the corridor leading to it, located behind her bedroom, was gilded, probably so as not to create dissonance between the bedroom and this corridor when the door separating them was opened.

For the common courtiers, the entrance to the apartment was via the public step, known as the Épernon staircase, which led to a small vestibule. It was followed by an antechamber with simply molded paneling, painted in lilac on a yellow background. Able to serve as a buffet room for the neighboring dining room, this antechamber was simply furnished with a bench and stools in painted wood, covered in crimson canvas. To the north, the room opened onto a small corridor alongside a bathroom which was used until 1772, when it was moved next to the library. Heated by a stove and equipped with a bathtub which certainly accompanied a bathbed covered with a basin, the woodwork of this bathroom was painted, varnished in blue on a white background, and enhanced with naturally painted flowers. Continuing further, we reached the rooms reserved for Madame Du Barry’s service. Retracing one's steps, one reached the dining room with simply molded woodwork, except the richly carved window splays, and vestiges of the cabinets from the time of Louis XV's youth. The room was furnished with thirty-one chairs (including a taller one for the king) with molded and gilded wood, covered in green damask. This same fabric had been used to make the curtains and the doors, and the choice of the green color had probably been dictated by that of the paneling painted green on a white background. The room opened with two windows onto the Cour des Cerfs, because the third window had been transformed into a door leading to the corridor serving the chair cabinet and the bedroom for the maid on duty. If this last room was very simple (molded woodwork painted white, fireplace partially in painted stone, and floor covered with terracotta tiles), the chair cabinet was much more refined because its woodwork had been varnished in blue on a white background. By its function, there was a bidet, a business chair, and two corner shelves. Their common appearance stopped there because they were "in marquetry with a white background with blue mosaic and black fillets with red rosettes", the white and blue of the veneer having to be in line with the tone of the woodwork. From the dining room, one accessed the large cabinet created for the installation of Marie-Josèphe de Saxony by dividing the former gallery of exotic hunts of Louis XV into two, of which the paneling of the window sills had been preserved. Madame Du Barry had wanted to have a fireplace in white marble enhanced with gilded bronzes which, if it had been made, would probably have been very close to those made at the same time for her pavilion in Louveciennes.

With this beautiful room, the visitor discovered a series of rooms furnished in a refined and luxurious manner, thanks to the help of the most innovative luxury market artisans in the Paris market. The haberdasher Simon-Philippe Poirier provided him with the best, notably an exceptional set of furniture with Sèvres porcelain plates, which were very recent in fashion. The epitome of luxury furniture, those with Sèvres plaques were found, generally in small numbers, in the homes of princesses or high-class courtesans. Madame Du Barry surpassed them all by deploying in her Versailles apartment an almost complete panoply covering the various typologies: chest of drawers, secretary, tiered table, jewelry chest, writing table, backgammon, pedestal table, or planter. Being sought-after objects, several of them were the subject of a gift.

In the large cabinet, there were two sofas, nineteen chairs (including one again for the king), and a gilded wooden screen, all richly carved and featuring trophies symbolizing different themes such as war, science, hunting, music, love, fishing, etc. Under the piers of the two small walls were placed two consoles, in wood just as richly carved, and under the piers between the windows should have been placed two chests of drawers, decorated with Sèvres porcelain plaques painted with bouquets of flowers (only one was delivered before the death of Louis XV in May 1774). In the evening, the large cabinet was to serve as a company lounge where society gathered after supper to talk or play. The tables provided also testified to the luxury of the apartment, notably, two backgammons one inlaid with flowers and very richly decorated with gilded bronzes, and the other covered with Sèvres porcelain plates.

From the large cabinet, one could either head west to enter the bedroom, or east to go to the corner cabinet. Like the large cabinet, these two rooms had been decorated for the dauphine while retaining the window splays dating back to the first work carried out for Louis XV. Before the transformations carried out for the dauphine, the room formed the other part of the gallery of the king's exotic hunts. The only modification for Madame Du Barry was the fireplace cut from white marble in a neoclassical spirit, but sculpted in a refined rocaille style so as not to clash with the paneling. The furnishings were marked by the presence of the four-post bed and its very richly carved and gilded wooden double bed, upholstered with a white background fabric embroidered with bouquets of roses. Having been decorated with ornaments on all four sides, the piece of furniture was to stand out in the middle of the room, accompanied by thirteen chairs, two armchairs, a dressing chair, and its stool, all covered in the same fabric. It is in this room that an astonishing chest of drawers adorned with paintings painted on porcelain delivered by Poirier in 1772 was placed.

A door located to the right of the fireplace provided access to a staircase leading to the King's cabinets. It is therefore very likely that Louis XV sometimes used it to go to his mistress or leave his apartment in the morning. This was certainly not the case for the other members of the Court who, from the chamber, had to retrace their steps. If they passed through the large cabinet, they entered the corner cabinet. The furnishings of the latter were substantial since a sofa, twelve chairs, twelve armchairs, and a screen in carved and gilded wood, covered in satin brocade on a white background, had been delivered. The composition of this piece of furniture suggests that the corner cabinet could also serve as a company lounge and three mahogany pieces of furniture with silver ornaments purchased in England, designated as pedestal tables or tea tables, would happily be placed there, and can -also be a table in hard stone marquetry. To this set, we should add a chest of drawers decorated with a Japanese lacquer panel that Poirier had described as “top quality”.

From this study, one could reach the antechamber through which Louis XV passed if he went up his private staircase. Lighted onto an interior courtyard, the room was covered in simply molded woodwork (except the sculpted pilasters which could come from the reuse of one of the decorations from the cabinets of Louis XV) painted in a pale yellow tone close to putty. From this antechamber, three steps led to the library already mentioned in the section relating to the work carried out for Madame Du Barry. There was a sofa, six armchairs, and a gilded wooden screen “very rich and delicate with ornaments” covered in silk with a white background.

An exceptional art collection

Just as much as the furniture, the numerous decorative or collectible objects that Madame Du Barry had purchased contributed to the luxury and refinement of her apartment. It is not surprising to find productions from the Sèvres factory from which it was an assiduous buyer, either by resorting to haberdashery merchants, or by making direct purchases, particularly during the end-of-year exhibitions which took place in the King's apartment. She purchased a wide variety of objects: vases, flower bowls, bisque busts, cabarets, and toiletries for example. Sèvres was also present through the painted plaques mounted on barometers or clocks, or even a column serving as a support for a clock. As with furniture, his choice most of the time fell on what was up to date and reflected the latest trends.

But the apartment also contained works of “fine art”, mainly sculptures and paintings. As much as the first were in limited numbers according to a document listing what had been removed from his apartment after the death of Louis XV (three marble figures including one of Venus and a bronze bust of Louis XV), the latter were more numerous and demonstrated an infrequent trend at Court. Indeed, his taste or his desire to support the artists of his time made him buy paintings by living masters, particularly Jean-Baptiste Greuze or François-Hubert Drouais. Of the first, the same document mentions six paintings, including a portrait of the mistress of the place, a reduction of Prayer to Love, or another equally famous painting, The Broken Jug. Still by Greuze, Madame Du Barry also owned paintings with themes that were as moralizing as they were ambiguous and then fashionable, namely children holding domestic animals. She had bought him a painting of a young girl holding a dog and one of a young boy doing the same. However, she had hung other paintings illustrating similar themes from Drouais's brushwork: a child holding a dog, another a cat, yet another flower, and a last one a fruit. A fashionable portraitist, Drouais had been led to paint the portrait of Madame Du Barry several times, and a version of the bust where she was painted in flora was in the Versailles apartment as well as, more surprisingly, a portrait of Marie-Antoinette due to the same painter. But it is another aspect of Madame Du Barry’s collection of paintings that makes it so interesting because it was exceptional in the Versailles landscape. Sacrificing the taste for the painting of the old Nordic masters, she had hung several paintings by their brush: Teniers, Poelembourg, Van Ostade, Xavery. However, introduced into the world of amateurs a good decade earlier, this attraction for Flemish painting had only recently become established among collectors and had not yet caught on with official authorities. Between the porcelain plate furniture and the paintings by Flemish masters, we see that it drew its model from Parisian society and not from the Court. Interestingly, it is possible that, like furniture and objects, her paintings followed her when the Court traveled during summer stays in Compiègne or autumn stays in Fontainebleau. Count Mercy-Argenteau, Austrian ambassador to France, relates that, during his stay in Compiègne in the summer of 1770, he went to her house in the company of the Duke of Aiguillon. The latter, “under the pretext of seeing a portrait which was in the next room”, withdrew and took other people with him to leave the ambassador alone with the favorite. Finally, relating as much to painting as to technical prowess, it had a portrait of Louis XV woven in silk in an illusionistic manner by Philippe de Lassalle.

It is in this setting, magnified by furnishings designed outside the traditional and somewhat conservative taste of the Crown Furniture Wardrobe, that Madame Du Barry lived for almost four and a half years, playing her role as a controversial mistress but who managed to impose itself, if only in the heart of the king. She received, at her toilet in the morning or later during the day, the courtiers who had put aside their pretensions and who hoped to attract the good graces of their master by paying court to him. The apartment must have become livelier in the evening, when all those invited to the dinners organized by the hostess gathered in the dining room or, after the meal, in the company lounges. The company then devoted itself to its customary activities: conversation, games or music (in 1773 it had been delivered: “A superb English fortepiano […] veneered in pink wood and with white and blue mosaic and very richly trimmed with matt gold gilded bronze").

After the departure of the favorite, Louis XVI did not take over everything that made up the apartment of his grandfather's favorite, except the service rooms on the Cour des Cerfs which were integrated into his cabinets. Mrs. Du Barry’s apartment was then divided into two entities. The beautiful rooms on the Cour de Marbre and the two additions which were the watch room and the wardrobe were attributed to the Duke and Duchess of Villequier, while the other rooms (the old bathroom, the first, and the dining room) formed the quarters apartment of the king's first valet. The few modifications made on this occasion did not fundamentally distort the premises. By a miracle, Madame Du Barry’s apartment escaped the upheavals ordered by Louis-Philippe. Today, the volumes of the rooms making it up, the restrained richness, and the variety of its decoration certainly make it the apartment in which we can best imagine that Versailles was not only solemnity and pageantry but also a place of life.

Present

The table decorated with a magnificent plaque representing The Fortune Teller purchased in 1772 was certainly offered to Marie-Antoinette before she in turn offered it to her sister Marie-Caroline, Queen of Naples. For his part, the carpenter Louis Delanois, assisted by the sculptor Claude-Nicolas Guichard and the gilder painter Jean-Baptiste Cagny, created consoles and several sets of seats for him, the shapes and ornaments of which prefigure the taste that would impose itself by subsequently under the name “Louis XVI style”.

Plan of Madame Du Barry's apartment with the changes to be made, July 1770.

1. Épernon Staircase. 2. Hallway. 3. First anteroom. 4. Bathroom (from 1769 to 1772). 5. Second anteroom or dining room. 6. Chair cabinet. 7. Watchroom of the first maid. 8. Large cabinet. 9. Bedroom. 10. Corner cabinet. 11. Anteroom. 12. Degrees of the King. 13. Library. 14. Library supplement (from 1769 to 1772) then bathroom room. 15. Service (Paris, National Archives).