An Unforgettable View of Vaux Le Vicomte
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Sometimes
it’s best to be trusting. When my friend said, "This is something you’ll
never forget. Be ready at 7 p.m., wear comfortable shoes and bring a jacket." Usually there are a dozen questions to be answered, but this time, I didn’t ask one. After all I was in France, the number one travel destination for summer ’98, so why not have an adventure? |
The Vaux Le Vicomte starts a candlelight tour; here are the results. |
| We drove about an hour from the heart of Paris to Maincy. We made one big swing into a driveway, and then my heart stood still. The 17th century chateau, Vaux Le Vicomte was literally glowing. Outlining the sumptuous gardens, originally designed by Le Notre, and glimming from each window were lights. From a distance, it looked as if 10,000 candles were illumining the chateau. |  |
Living with history. |
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Since twilight lasts until 9 or 10 o’clock in this part of the
world, the dome of the chateau as well as the entry were bathed in a rosy glow. There, greeting visitors was the owner himself, Count Patrice De Vogue. Tall, handsome and English speaking, he led us into the Grand Salon. |
Take time for close inspection. |
| I nudged my companion, "I’m impressed!" The salon was circular, the walls pale pink marble, the columns swirls of gray and beige marble, the floor a large checkerboard of white and black marble. Statues but no furniture. Light splashed across each small square of glass, and the giant windows dazzled with reflections. I suddenly had the urge to put on a ball gown and waltz around the grand rotunda. |
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The Count grew up here. |
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Aerial shot of the Vaux Le Vicomte. |
My friend broke into my dream saying, "Visitors come here in the daytime, but this summer the Count decided each Saturday night to have a candlelight tour."
As we walked through the rooms, the Count told the story of Nicolas Fourquet, Superintendent of Finances for King Louis XIV. In 1641, he purchased a small manorial estate and for the next five years built it into the most regal setting in all of France. He didn’t enjoy it long.
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The very night he invited the King and his friends to a grand housewarming party, Louis went into a rage, and had Fourquet put in prison. "The presumption of a non-royal to have anything so perfect!," he stormed. . Fourquet never saw Vaux Le Vicomte again, but many of the ideas were duplicated in a grander scale in Louis’ palace, at Versailles. |
Count Patrice De Vogue stands before his family home. He and his wife live in a smaller chateau on the property. |
"Which just goes to show, never outclass a king!," added de Vogue with a chuckle..
Just then a teenage American visitor interrupted with, "Is this where Leonardo Di Caprio filmed, ‘The Man in the Iron Mask?"
Not being the least disturbed by the query, the Count asked , "Would you like to see the spiral staircase Leo used to get to the roof of the chateau?"
"Would I?," said the visitor almost squealing in anticipation. We followed De Vogue to the next floor, through a door in the wall and up the stairway to a breathtaking view of the rear gardens, ringed with lights.
| I didn’t see the teenager in our group. "Oh," mentioned the Count, "she is still on the lower landing. I was so tired of tourists asking about Di Caprio, I finally hung a poster of the movie on the wall." |
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The Count grew up in the chateau, and knows the library well. |
De Vogue's family has called Vaux Le Vicomte home since his great grandfather began restoring it in 1875. "I grew up here, our children were raised here, and my father gave it to me 35 years ago," he explained. "For the past 15 years my wife, Cristina, and I have lived here, not in the chateau, but in one of the buildings on the property."
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Why isn’t this in every tour book? "It is not run by the French government," my friend explained. De Vogue decided to open it to visitors, and more lately to the DiCaprio movie company, but they draw the line at cocktail parties. |
The artwork is all museum quality. |
| I talked my friend into coming back the next day. In the sunshine, we used one of the golf carts supplied by the Count to drive around the gardens, which is like touring Central Park. At the end of the property, my friend said, "Look back." There, perfectly reflected in the canal that runs across the property, was the shimmery image of the entire chateau. "Those builders knew what they were doing. The canal was constructed so it would be lower than the third terrace, the calculation was so precise, it became a perfect mirror to capture the width and height of the chateau." |
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The Count loans us his golf cart to inspect the lavish gardens. |
