Stop Two -The Hunt for Marguérite (and a big WHO KNEW??)

Beth Blatt
11 minutes ago
3 min read

Marguérite and Louis, Queen and King of France in the mid-1200's, live in lots of different châteaux in the course of their 36-year marriage.

One day, I'd like to visit them all. Especially Pontoise...(below) - for salacious reasons (wink wink).

Ramparts of the Château de Pontoise, where the love birds used to hide from his mother so they could play hide the sausage. Photo: Philippe Lhomel

I have this vision of Marguérite appearing to me. It will be a spine-tingling, goose-bumping, life-changing experience.

I had the same vision when I wrote Unsung, the play about Marie Clews which I wrote while living at her home, the Château de La Napoule.

Marie never appeared to me. Though I did not try a ouija board...

Never happened.

But Hope Springs Eternal!

THE MARGUÉRITE HOUSE HUNT - BACKSTORY

After finding no trace of Marguérite on Day 1 at Notre-Dame - well, except the shock that you can kiss the actual Crown of Thorns - I pivot.

There must be somewhere I can find her! (there is sooooooo much Louis)

I've already tried their main residences in Paris - the Palais de la Cité and the Palais du Temple.

The first is now the courthouse, the other was torn down in the 1800's (the last tenants, Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, kinda ruined it for anyone else).

But my research has now turned up a good possibility:

The château in St-Germain-en-Laye

And I'm off!

ARRIVAL

M&L probably live here off-and-on for many years. Intensely at first, when they are newlyweds (1235-1238) and he is building the beta version of Sainte-Chapelle (more on that below).

It's a 40-minute trip from Champs-Elysée on the RER A. When I emerge from underground, there it is. BOOM.

It is MASSIVE.

It was begun by Louis VI – aka Louis Le Gros or Louis the Fat - in 1124 as a hunting lodge.

The English burnt it down in 1346.

Charles V rebuilt it, making it more of a fortress and adding a real moat.

And It is RED.

Brick was a new building material and très chér.

Well, half-red. Thanks to François I, who turned it into a Renaissance-style "Old Castle" (Château Vieux), with alternating bands of pale stone and red brick.

Apparently, brick was the latest hot thing - and very expensive.

THE CHÂTEAU - AND OUR STORY

Our Louis - the 9th, saint-to-be - enlarges the whole shebang and then does the amazing thing:

Builds a mini-Sainte Chapelle.

WHO KNEW THERE WERE TWO SAINTE-CHAPELLES?

The FIRST Sainte-Chapelle - in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

As you may remember from the previous post, Louis bought the Crown of Thorns from the debt-ridden emperor of Byzantium in 1237 or 1238. Some date confusion there.

The Crown will arrive in Paris in 1239.

It has to live somewhere special. Really special.

Louis has ideas. Big ideas. But he needs to try them out first.

Gothic architecture - with its external flying buttresses that allow for huge stained glass windows - is all the rage, in part thanks to Louis's brother-in-law King Henry III of England - who is married to Marguérite's sister Aliénor!

Darn! Construction outside blocks the view.

Louis wants to go one step better - to a more flamboyant style called "rayonnant" - or radiant. He engages the same genius architect who built the necropolis – now the cathedral - at St-Denis.

The genius architect whose name is lost to history. Can you believe that?? Poor guy.

SO WHERE IS MARGUÉRITE?

You get one guess.

Yup. Nowhere.

There are plaques about others who lived here - Louis XIV and his favorites. Diane de Poitiers, royal mistress to Henry II - for whom I wrote a few songs (listen here)

There is no furniture or objets -

it is now the Museum of Archaeology.

Huh??

It is free museum day - the first Sunday of the month - so I make my way around to enter the chapelle.

No! You have to pay for a special exhibit on the Bronze Age to access the chapelle! Money-grasping, mercenary museum!

I refuse, on principal. I know I will probably go in and find nothing.

So I go to the garden instead.

Actually, maybe she is there. People were getting soaked by the fountain. She did have a sense of humor.

She's not there either. Or is she? (see photo caption)

Then to the church across the way. Yes, a Louis. And no, no Margie.

Oh no - I hope that ugly woman on the right isn't supposed to be Marguérite!

Time to go - I have two more stops to do today before they close!