Chateaux and Cities

8th September, 2010 (Sally)

Before we left the Aisne river we took a short cycle ride through the Royal hunting forest of Compiegne to the Armistice Clearing where a replica railway carriage provides a small museum of the signing of the armistice on 11th November, 1918. The newspapers of the day make interesting reading, and also of interest is that Hitler insisted that the French surrender in 1940 was signed in the same carriage. He then had the original carriage shipped to Berlin for exhibition where it was ultimately destroyed in a RAF bombing raid. From there it was only a short distance to the junction of the Oise river and a turn south to start our journey back to Roanne. It was very obvious that we were on a main transport route, a constant flow of huge barges — wheat going north to Belgium and northern France; and gravel, sand and other building products flowing into Paris. All building materials have to travel into Paris by barge and when one considers that some of those barges carry the equivalent of 100 trucks one can appreciate what an advantage that is to the already busy streets of the city.

Compiegne, our first stop, is a delightful town, the main square dominated by a towering Hotel de Ville dripping with decorations. It is also where Joan of Arc was captured and handed over to the English but it is most famous for its royal chateau. The Chateau was the traditional stop for Kings on their way to be crowned at Reims, and today is a wonderful example of the extravagance of French royalty. Of course there are myriad stories that could be told, it was here that Marie Antoinette met her husband for the first time, it was also here that Napoleon III spent a lot of time, but the one that caught my eye was that when Tsar Nicholas II came to visit in 1901 the Palace was refurnished with ninety two railway wagons of furniture including a library of 3,000 books. One would hope that he had time to read at least one of them. The chateau park is open to the public, a delightful place to stroll, with long arcades of trees, statues and colourful herbaceous borders.

Our next stop was the very ordinary town of Creil where we took advantage of its proximity to Chantilly. A picnic lunch, a short motorbike ride, and we were driving into the chateau grounds literally open mouthed with wonder. Chantilly is the horse racing capital of France, and set in the grounds of the park is the race course, the lovely chateau floating in a lake which forms part of the extensive gardens and the most extravagant stables one could ever hope to see. One can visit chateau, musee, stables and gardens but we defy anyone to do it all in one trip. We elected to spend the time in the gardens, a vista of lakes and fountains designed by Le Notre, that made even Louis XIV jealous and then watched a horse riding exhibition in the stables. These were built by the Duke of Conde who had the foresight to know he was going to be reincarnated as a horse and he wanted fitting accommodation. The stables are virtually a castle for horses with indoor riding arenas, fountains, statues and stalls to hold 250 horses and 500 dogs.

We continued on down the Val d'Oise which was renowned as a favourite haunt of the Impressionists. The small village of Auvers is a shrine to Van Gogh who spent the last ten weeks of his life there. In those ten weeks he painted seventy pictures including the famous Eglise d'Auvers; and many of the spots he painted are celebrated with a picture of his work. He is also buried in the town cemetery beside his brother Theo. It was also a good spot to wait for my sister Myra to join us for five days as we cruised upstream under the bridges of Paris and into the familiar Port de l'Arsenal. Five days in Paris, a chance to see a few more of the things we haven't seen: the Panthéon, how many times have we been outside and not gone in; Rodin's Musée with his wonderful collection of statues; L'Opera, a masterpiece of gilt and opulance; Musee d'Armée at Les Invalides; and another trip for Tony and a first for me to the Maritime Musée. Paris was still busy with tourists, too many in the queue for the Eiffel Tower so we climbed the 280 steps of the Arc de Triomphe again and discovered the lift (for Tony S) only on the way down. So much to see in Paris, will we ever think we have seen enough? A chance also to meet up with a very expectant Delphine and Francois. Is it really sixteen years since she was a Rotary exchange student in Australia? And to say goodbye to Myra and welcome aboard Nancy and Tony Stenton for their second visit to us. Monday morning saw the two Tonys leaving port to meet up with a serviceman to give Sable's boiler its annual checkover, while the two ladies went off for a last day in Paris before catching them up by train, then back on the busy Seine upstream to Melun. One day left before the Stentons carried on to Germany, so once again the two ladies took off to explore. A short bus trip and we were in Fontainebleau, another chateau of extravagance and opulance set in gardens open free of charge to the public. They don't show you all 1,900 rooms, thank goodness, but what you do see is well worth the visit.

The one chateau that has long been on my wish list is Vaux-le-Vicomte, a short cycle ride from Melun. It was certainly worth the wait, as it is simply magnificent. Built by Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV's Minister of Finance, it is said to be the epitome of French elegance and has been the feature of many films. The picture-perfect gardens, all eighty-three acres of them, are a joy of terraces, lakes and fountains and a two huge beds of sculptured box hedges modelled on a turkish carpet. How many gardeners, we could not even hazard a guess. Ironically the breathtaking beauty of the place caused the downfall of its owner, for after its completion in 1661, Fouquet threw a lavish house warming party for the king and his court, with Indian elephants, Italian fireworks and the first performance of a comedy by Molière. Instead of being impressed the so called Sun King was furious, he hated being upstaged, so a mere three weeks later he had Fouquet arrested and charged with having embezzled public money to build his grand home. While his former finance minister languished in prison, the king stole his talented designers and architects and commisioned the mother of all palaces, Versailles. Even today the brochures on Vaux le Vicomte ask the question, "Guilty or Innocent?" but cynics among us would have to wonder how any mere mortal would have honestly found the werewithal to finance such a grandiose project. After Melun we made one more stop on the Seine at Samois, still within commuting distance to Paris, and obviously so from the price of real estate and the size and expense of the cars. We spent the weekend there and used the time to take a couple of motorbike rides through the Forest of Fontainebleau visiting little villages with such interesting names as Bois le Roi and Barbizon, before finally leaving the Seine and finding ourselves once more back doing what we like best — cruising the small canals and the even smaller locks. First signs of Autumn with tinges of red on the virginia creeper and walnuts looking almost ready to harvest. Still a few weeks of cruising to go but our thoughts, like our boat, are turning towards home.