Paris Art Studies - Val de Grâce 1645 - 1667
1615 – Anne
of Austria Infanta of Spain marries Louis XIII King of France at the age of 13.
Disappointed and unhappy in her marriage, unable to bear children, she dreams
of retiring to a convent (at 19). She befriends Marguerite de Veny d'Arbouse prioress of the Benedictine
nunnery of Val Profond de Bièvre-le-Chatel (Seine
et Oise) and raises the priory to the status of an abbey.
1621 –
Anne buys the hotel du Petit Bourbon off the rue St Jacques on the Left Bank of
Paris so as to install the nuns nearer to court.
1624 –
First stone of the new abbey is laid. Building will proceed slowly until 1643.
The first buildings are old- fashioned and austere. Anne’s disgrace at court
and the antipathy of the King means she is unable to raise substantial funds
for the abbey. The Queen visits the nuns in their new quarters at least twice a
week and most often on Fridays when she dines with them in the refectory. From
her apartment at the Val de Grâce she secretly corresponds with the Spanish and
English courts and the court of Lorraine.
1637 –
Chancellor Séguier searches her apartment for incriminating correspondence but
finds nothing. Anne has to sign a humiliating procès verbal of the interrogation. The King forbids her to retire
to the Val de Grâce, but all is forgiven when the Queen at last becomes
pregnant.
1638 – 5
September, birth (at last) of her first child, Louis-Dieudonné, the future
Louis XIV.
1642 –
Death of the Queen’s great enemy the Prime Minister, Cardinal Richelieu.
1643 –
Death on 14 May of Louis XIII. Anne is now regent of the kingdom and free, at
last, to wield power in the name of her 5-year old son, Louis XIV. The new
prime minister and ally of the Queen is Cardinal Mazarin. She decides to build
a new chapel at the convent of Val de Grâce as fulfillment of a vow made before
the birth of Louis.
1645 – The
cornerstone is laid by the 7-year old Louis XIV. The first architect is the
talented but temperamental and spendthrift François Mansart (1598-1666), who
will be replaced by the more diplomatic Jacques Lemercier (1585-1666),
architect of the Sorbonne chapel (1635). Pierre le Muet and Gabriel Leduc will
also be employed in the later stages of the building.
1666 –
Anne retires to the Val de Grâce to die (of cancer of the breast) but is
finally taken back to the Louvre.
1667 – The church of the Val de Grâce
is at last finished.
1793 – During the Revolution the abbey
is transformed into a military hospital and is spared the demolition of the
neighboring convents of the Ursulines and Feuillantines.
The Abbey:
The
plan is inspired by the Escorial in Spain, a royal complex combining convent,
palace and church. The cloister is severe in the Benedictine tradition. The
Gothic buttresses of the old hotel du Petit Bourbon were incorporated into the
new convent.
The
nuns’ cells were on the upper level. The vast gardens were used for growing
vegetables and vines.
The Queen’s apartment
features an Ionic peristyle with ringed columns and is topped by urns with
flames (pots au feu), symbols of
faith, and pelicans feeding their young with their own blood, a symbol of
maternal love.
The Church:
The church is preceded by
a vast courtyard with a great iron gate and fence.
The north wing of the
courtyard was used for housing important visitors (Mazarin’s nieces, Henrietta
of France, Queen Christine of Sweden, Maria Gonzaga, Queen of Poland …) and the
priests affected to the abbey. On the south was the entrance to the abbey.
The projecting temple
portico on the ground floor of the church front is of the Corinthian order and
is tall and dynamic, a typical Mansart design.
The Latin inscription
on the frieze: Iesu Nascenti Virginique Matri is dedicated to the Nativity of
Christ and to the Virgin Mother, alluding also to the miraculous birth of Louis
XIV.
The exterior sculptures
are of St Benedict and his sister St Scholastica.
The upper floor, which
also features a portico of the Composite order and two volutes, is a more timid
and ornamental design by Jacques Lemercier.
The baroque dome,
inspired by Palladio’s Redentore in Venice, was finished by Leduc. On the
inside the dome painting, featuring The
Glory of the Blessed 1663, is by Pierre Mignard. Anne introduced by St
Louis presents a model of her church to God.
The altar baldaquin
with six serpentine columns was designed by Leduc and inspired by Bernini’s
baldaquin for St Peter’s in Rome.
To the right of the
altar is the chapel of St Louis which was reserved for the nuns. An interior
passage connects it to chapel of the Holy Sacrament which is directly behind
the altar. There the nuns could commune without being seen by the faithful in
the nave.
To the left is the
chapel of St Anne, from whose gallery the Queen could discreetly attend mass.
After her death Anne’s heart was placed here in an urn of the altar. The hearts
of later Bourbons and Orléans, including those of Henrietta of England and
Maria Theresa wife of Louis XIV were placed in a tomb beneath the altar. The 45
royal hearts were thrown out during the Revolution.
The interior sculpture
(1662-67) was overseen by Michel Anguier (who in Rome worked as assistant to
Bernini). The altar Nativity is a 19th
century copy of the original by Anguier, now in the church of St Roch.
The organ dates from
1852 and replaces the original organ destroyed during the Revolution.
