September 13, 1751 The fire at the Grande Écurie

Two hundred and seventy years ago, on September 13, 1751, the festivities celebrating the birth of the Duke of Burgundy, grandson of King Louis XV and heir to the throne, came to a dramatic end. A few hundred meters from the castle, the launch of fireworks caused a fire that devastated the King's Great Stable. Beyond the scale of the damage, this disaster is at the origin of an architectural evolution with the appearance of new materials intended to limit the spread of fire.

By Mathieu Geagea, historian

On the night of Sunday, September 12 to Monday, September 13, 1751, it was around a quarter past one when the dauphine Marie-Josèphe de Saxe gave birth to her second child at the Palace of Versailles. The Court holds its breath. Barely more than a year after the birth of a girl, this time it is a boy that the dauphin gives birth to. Arriving in haste from the Grand Trianon, Louis XV immediately went to his daughter-in-law’s bedside to contemplate his grandson. The sovereign's joy can be seen on his face. At four o'clock in the morning, the church bells of Paris began to ring and the king decreed three days of unemployment and illuminations in honor of the newborn, who became heir to the crown of France after his father, the Dauphin Louis Ferdinand. The future of the dynasty is therefore doubly assured.

At five o'clock in the morning, the sovereign went to the castle chapel to hear a Te Deum. In the afternoon, the inhabitants of Versailles flock to the Cour de Marbre to show their joy. According to custom, the town's citizens asked for permission to set off fireworks to celebrate the event and thus contribute to popular jubilation. Permission is granted to them by the royal power. However, the organizers decided to set off the fireworks not near the Swiss pond, on the castle grounds, as was usually the case, but from the end of the avenue. of Paris, right next to the Place d'Armes between the two royal stables. An initiative that will prove to be unfortunate.

Rapid spread

As night falls, the fireworks begin. Falling prematurely, a rocket enters the Great Stable through a skylight that opens onto the attic of one of the wings of the building. In a few moments, the fodder stored under the roof burst into flames. From the castle, however, neither the king nor the courtiers paid attention to this start of fire, perceived as a simple bonfire. Thus, the memoirist Charles-Philippe, Duke of Luynes, wrote: “There were fireworks in the evening on the Avenue de Paris, between the two stables. It was very short, but magnificent due to the prodigious quantity of artifices, and very well served. » It was only a little later that the king was informed of the disaster in progress. The fire spread at an impressive speed and the entire building built seventy years previously under the leadership of the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart was threatened. In the minutes that followed, the Swiss and French guards, retired army invalids, carpenters, masons, and roofers were mobilized and arrived near the Grande Écurie to form a human chain armed with buckets. All the pumps in the castle are connected to a battery. At the beginning of the 18th century, the first leather pipes connected to water points appeared. However, if the means of action to fight fire have been improved and made it possible to transport water to the scene of the disaster, they remain insufficient. Firefighters from the capital were also dispatched to Versailles to help and try to contain the fire. Despite their speed, the emergency services were poorly coordinated and failed to control the situation.

A fierce struggle

Informed of the evolution of the fire and faced with the ineffectiveness of the means implemented, Louis XV prepared, with regret, to abandon the fight. It is at this precise moment that Jean-Baptiste Berthier, geographical engineer and lieutenant in the army of Marshal Saxe, intervenes. Thirty years old and living in Versailles, the young man, who participates in the human chain, boldly suggests to the sovereign that they try to put out the disaster. Louis XV gave his agreement and Berthier immediately set about the task.

Showing remarkable energy, the person concerned reorganized the teams fighting the fire and coordinated their action. All night long, and the next day as well, Berthier directed the operations and efforts of the Swiss and French guards. Risking his life, he does not hesitate to rush into the blaze to the point of finding himself suspended from a beam, above the void and the flames, when a floor collapses under his feet. His tenacity and intrepidity command the admiration of the king who witnesses his exploits.

Twenty-four hours after it broke out, the fire was contained and, a day later, it was completely extinguished. If the building is saved, the damage is no less considerable. One of the vaults of the stables collapsed, the roof was destroyed and there were numerous injuries, but no deaths were reported. The amount of repairs payable by the Superintendency of Buildings is then estimated between 150,000 and 200,000 pounds. Jean-Baptiste Berthier is the subject of a report addressed to the king to summarize his service records to obtain a pension. For the preponderant part taken in extinguishing this fire, Berthier is credited with “[…] having saved the Grande Écurie from a general conflagration on September 13, 1751. All those who were present saw him risk his life to stop the fire, and no one could deny him the authentic testimony that it is to the measures he took in this fire that we owe the entire preservation of this superb building.

Increased vigilance

For Louis. The king is too clever to ignore the symbolic dimension and the bad omen that some slanderers will not fail to perceive, arguing in particular that the birth of the Duke of Burgundy is expensive. However, everyone knows that fireworks are dangerous, starting with the monarch himself who always takes the precaution of observing them protected behind a fence. Louis XV is content to now ban fireworks launched from Avenue de Paris.

To ward off this sad night of September 13 to 14, he decided to maintain all the celebrations planned in honor of his grandson. On September 20, a ball given by the bodyguards took place in the large guard room of the Queen's apartment. On December 19, the king's games are held in the Hall of Mirrors, illuminated with hundreds of candles. Finally, on December 30, fireworks are launched from the Swiss pond. Always taking a close interest in these entertainments, the programs of which he followed attentively, the king is still marked by the fire of September. As reported by the memoirist Charles-Philippe, Duke of Luynes: “At the end of the fire, we had to fire six or seven cardboard bombs filled with fireworks, but, as in this number there was a very large one and that the women had spread fear everywhere, for which they were forgiven, the King judged it appropriate for the bombs to be transported to the end of the Swiss room. They were not drawn until after ten o'clock. […] The King saw them from the Queen's bedroom, the windows closed […]. Despite their distance, the shaking of the windows was great enough, especially with the big bomb, to believe that it could have broken the windows of the Gallery (of mirrors) if it had been fired closer. » The enchantment is appreciated and the show takes place without notable incident. Louis XV nevertheless punished two or three pyrotechnicians for ill-timed rockets launched during the festival. After the fire at the Grande Écurie, caution was needed more than ever.

When metal succeeds wood

Struck by the keen intelligence, dynamism, and courage of Jean-Baptiste Berthier during the fire of the Grande Écurie, Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, Marshal of Belle-Isle, decided to take him under his protection. This grandson of Nicolas Fouquet, superintendent of King Louis XIV, invites his young protégé to stay a few days in his castle of Bizy, in Normandy. Owner of the estate for thirty years, the Marshal of Belle-Isle undertook major restoration work. He thus entrusted the architect Pierre Contant d'Ivry with the task of building, between 1741 and 1743, the farmyard with stables for sixty horses inspired by those at Versailles. Berthier carefully observed the structure of the building which included neither beams nor wooden joists, but a metal frame covered with bricks sealed with plaster. This is the first time that this type of construction, developed for a long time in the south of France, has been introduced in the north of the country. Back in Versailles, the geographical engineer convinced his protector to put together a file presenting a new type of building, which would greatly delay the spread of fires.

The appointment by the king of Marshal de Belle-Isle to the post of Minister of State in 1756, then to the functions of Secretary of State in the War Department less than two years later, allowed the latter to be able to speak regularly with the monarch and to explain his views to him. Since Versailles had been established as the capital of the kingdom by King Louis considerable time in the progress of files. Marshal de Belle-Isle then sent the king, at the beginning of 1759, an argument written and provided by Jean-Baptiste Berthier. It describes the disadvantages resulting from the dispersion of ministerial offices in nine different locations in Paris. Berthier, through the Secretary of State for War, submitted to Louis XV the idea of building a building large enough to bring together all the services near the castle. The king gave his approval and granted his minister the concession of land, the former vegetable garden of King Louis XIII, located at the corners of rue Saint-Julien and rue de la Superintendance (current rue de l'Independance Americaine), originally intended to accommodate the construction of the dauphine commons.

An arson

Jean-Baptiste Berthier is proud to raise the entire building for less than 150,000 pounds. Indeed, for reasons of economy, but also to avoid the risk of fire, he proposed the use of the so-called flat vault construction technique, such as he had discovered in the stables of the marshal's castle. Belle-Isle. Begun in July 1759, the project was completed in record time, barely a year and a half later. Wood, except for a few paneled walls, is excluded. The ceiling vaults are made of bricks bonded with plaster, the floor is made of terracotta tiles, all resting on a metal frame and thick brick-core walls reinforce the solidity of the building.

On June 26, 1762, King Louis Three months after the fire which devastated the Saint-Germain-des-Prés fair, in the heart of Paris, on the night of March 16 to 17, the fire remains the main concern of the authorities. To demonstrate the safety of the new building which has just been erected a few dozen meters from the Palace of Versailles, Berthier takes the risk of participating in a dangerous experiment. In agreement with Duke Étienne-François Choiseul, who succeeded Marshal de Belle-Isle as Secretary of State for War since the latter's death the previous year, the engineer voluntarily set fire to one from the upper floors via a pile of wood and bales of straw placed in a room. At the exterior corners of the buildings, a pulley was attached, so that a rope could allow pods, in which disabled soldiers would be placed, to reach the burning floor. In the center of the hotel courtyard, a manual water pump has been installed. Once a fire breaks out, rescuers intervene quickly and efficiently. Each invalid is given a fabric tube connected to the pump. Thanks to the pulley and the nacelles, they can spray the flaming bales as closely as possible. Within four minutes, the fire was brought under control without it having time to spread to neighboring rooms or for the temperature of the hearth to increase considerably. Louis XV was very impressed by this demonstration.

The same year, adjoining the Hôtel de la Guerre, the Hôtel des Affairs Foreigners et de la Marine was built on a similar construction model to house the services and archives of the two combined ministries. It was once again Jean-Baptiste Berthier who was entrusted with the construction of this building, which was completed in just five to six months. For Berthier, who was only forty-two years old, the culmination of his efforts came the following year, in July 1763. Louis XV, who could not remain indifferent to the prodigious work he had carried out, appointed engineer-geographer of the king's camps and armies, governor of the Hotels of War, Foreign Affairs and the Navy, and supreme consecration, allowed him access to hereditary nobility. One of his sons, Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Minister of War under the Consulate and the First Empire, will be elevated to the dignity of Marshal of the Empire by Napoleon I, of whom he will be one of his closest collaborators, and will receive the title of Prince of Wagram.

Epilogue

Following the disaster of September 1751, the Grande Écurie only underwent a temporary restoration to deal with the most urgent situation. The part of the building ravaged by the flames therefore remained in poor condition. Badly damaged, the ride gradually deteriorated and its frame collapsed at the end of the reign of Louis XVI. It was not until more than a century after the fire that the carousel was completely rebuilt by the architect Charles Questel in 1855. If the Palace of Versailles and its annexed buildings experienced few fires during their history, that of September 1751 made it possible to change the choice of materials used in construction and to reorganize the emergency services.

A previous fire

Nearly twenty-three years before the birth of the Duke of Burgundy, on October 19, 1728, the King's Great Stable had already been the subject of a first fire. It had its origins in the apartment of a valet upholsterer. It was around half past eight in the evening when a simple chimney fire developed so quickly that Swiss soldiers on patrol and even those of the French Guard immediately rushed to the spot. The grand water master of Versailles cut the pipes supplying the Grand Commun to provide more water to the Grande Écurie. The alarm was all the more acute as the chimney flue in the home passed through one of the haylofts. If the fire got there, an entire wing of the building risked burning down. The order was therefore given to throw the fodder out of the windows. The promptness and good organization of the emergency services made it possible to avoid the worst. By ten o'clock in the evening, everything was calm and the fire was extinguished.

A place of festivities

When he died, King Louis XIV had not completed his construction projects at Versailles. Wishing to provide the castle with a large theater, the monarch had considered building it at the northern end of the palace, near the reservoirs. It was then up to Louis XV to complete the work of his great-grandfather. As the Dauphin's wedding approached in 1745, a performance hall was built in the central arena of the Grande Écurie using lightweight materials. The Grand Stable and its quarry will serve as a setting for royal festivities, such as equestrian art shows or performances that extend to the theater and opera. In particular, the comedy-ballet La Princesse de Navarre or the opera-ballet Les Fêtes de l’hymen et de l’amour will be performed there. Created by the sculptor Michel-Ange Slodtz and the painter and designer Pierre-Josse Joseph Perrot, this performance hall only had a fleeting existence of barely seven years since it disappeared in the fire of September 1751.

Bad omen?

Was the event of September 13, 1751, to be seen as a bad omen? It is clear that the Duke of Burgundy, in honor of whose birth the fireworks were launched, met a disastrous fate since he never appeared on the throne and died at the age of nine. consequences of bone tuberculosis. His premature death marked the beginning of a decade of successive mourning within the royal family. Four years later, in December 1765, it was the Dauphin Louis, father of the Duke of Burgundy and son of the king, who also died of tuberculosis. It was the same illness which, a year and a half earlier, had taken away the favorite of Louis XV, the Marquise de Pompadour. Less than fifteen months after the Dauphin's death, his widow, Marie-Josèphe de Saxony, who had provided him with the greatest care in the last days of his life, succumbed in turn to the same illness. The following year, Queen Marie Leszczyńska breathed her last the day after her sixty-fifth birthday. It was not until 1770 that Versailles was released from its gloomy atmosphere. The marriage of the heir to the throne, the Duke of Berry – younger brother of the Duke of Burgundy – with the Archduchess of Austria, Marie-Antoinette, was to turn the page on the dark years. This was without taking into account a tragic event inherent to the festivities organized in Paris to celebrate the princely wedding. During the fireworks launched from Place Louis, Although the fire was quickly brought under control, it nevertheless led to a large crowd movement which ended with a human toll of one hundred and thirty-two dead and around one hundred injured.