BIPM - monsieur

In 1661 Monsieur married his cousin Henrietta, sister of Charles II of England, and they took up residence in the Château de Saint-Cloud, or the Maison de Gondi as it was still sometimes called. Already from 1659, and during the forty years that followed, Monsieur devoted himself to his estate, increasing it in size from 12 hectares to nearly 600 hectares, undertaking major building works to enlarge and improve the Château and laying out the park on a grand scale, buying land right down to the Seine. As well as building the Trianon (Thomas Gobert) some 500 toises (1 km) south of the Château at the southern extremity of the allée du Mail and the 'Grande Cascade' (Antoine Le Pautre) he had the gardens laid out by Le Nôtre.

The first known drawing of the Trianon de Saint-Cloud is an engraving by Pérelle and Poilly in 1674. It shows an asymmetric building perched on a balustraded terrace over a formal garden laid out in the French style. Ten years later a second engraving by Pérelle (after Gobert) shows a satisfying symmetry and apparent completion of the building, although in this engraving the terrace, which exists to this day, is missing (evidence of the liberties taken by engravers of the period!). At the bottom of the sloping ground below the Trianon, far steeper than it appears on the first engraving of Pérelle, was the magnificent fountain of Venus (1673). It is shown, viewed from the Trianon, on an engraving by Mariette. The fountain of Venus was at the centre of the 'Grand Parterre' and in the middle of the fountain the goddess was seated on a chariot in the form of a shell; behind her was a cupid holding a parasol formed by a jet of water and four Tritons lying in the water appeared to be blowing bubbles from their shells. All figures were gilded. This fountain, along with much of the layout of the Parc de Saint-Cloud, is attributed to Le Nôtre, the greatest landscape designer of the age. All that now remains of the 'Grand Parterre' is the curvature in the massive retaining wall which separates the property of the Pavillon de Breteuil from the lower Parc de Saint-Cloud.

It is probable that the existing circular pool, some 12 m in diameter and nearly 2 m deep, in the middle of the formal garden just in front of the Pavillon de Breteuil dates from the time of Gobert. The pool is still fed by water from the lakes at Ville d'Avray, some 5 km to the West, through the network of cast-iron pipes originally made to feed the fountains and pools of the Domaine de Gondi in the 17th century. Although repaired and extended since that time, much of the original cast-iron system still remains.

In the years that followed its completion in about 1680 Monsieur, Duc d'Orléans, used the Trianon as a pavilion for fêtes. Giving the illusion of an inhabited property, the Trianon contained (according to an inventory made just after his death at Saint-Cloud in 1701) a drawing room, a bedroom, a dressing room and an office. It was furnished and decorated with great taste and refinement. Mention was made of a six-branched gilded chandelier in the drawing room, a Turkish carpet, mirrors and paintings. In the bedroom there was a four-poster bed and rich curtains and hangings. It seems, however, that Monsieur never stayed in the Trianon.