Conspicuous Consumption

One of the reasons that we stayed for two nights in Melun--besides stretching out our cruise time so that we don't arrive in Auxerre too early--was to be able to visit the Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte just a few kilometers outside of Melun. The chateau was the creation of three artisans of the mid-1600's engaged by Nicolas Fouquet, the superintendent of finances to Louis XIV.

The original property owned by Fouquet had a small chateau; however, Monsieur Fouquet had grand ambitions and extravagant taste. When all was said and done, three villages had been purchased and destroyed to obtain enough land for the enlarged chateau and gardens. Built between 1658 and 1661, it is one of the largest castles in France and became an inspiration for the Palace of Versailles. Unfortunately for Fouquet, he didn't have much time to enjoy what had been created for him. He had hoped to impress Louis XIV with the grandeur--in fact, part of the chateau was constructed with rooms specifically for the king--but a too-lavish celebration to honor the King on August 17, 1661, and court intrigues led by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, convinced Louis that the home was constructed with misappropriated public funds. Fouquet was replaced in his position by Colbert, who later had Fouquet arrested for embezzlement as well as treason. 

Fouquet's subsequent trial dragged on for nearly three years. Found guilty of embezzlement, the presiding judges voted for banishment rather than death, but Louis XIV used his pardoning power to change the sentence to life imprisonment. This was the only time in French history a Monarch used his pardoning power to worsen a sentence. Fouquet died in Pignerol prison in the Alps in 1680.

 

The front of the chateau. It barely escaped destruction during
the French Revolution, but managed to remain intact until
 cooler heads prevailed in the late-1790's. It is currently the
largest private estate listed as a Historical Monument in France.

View of the back of the chateau, with a portion of the gardens.

Standing at the bottom of the back steps, with the sweep of the
center lawn/formal gardens behind us. The woodsy areas to each
side are also part of the estate.

View from the 2nd floor balcony in one wing of the chateau,
overlooking the front lawn and the stables.

If it's Louis XIV era decorating--and especially if designed to
impress the king himself--you know that paintings and gold 
are going to be everywhere.

The dining room.

The king's bedroom.

The rooms are decorated with authentic 17th C
furnishings, as though Nicolas Fouquet and
his family were living there. 

Decorated panels on the shutters of
an interior window.

After visiting Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, we felt better about not visiting the Palace of Versailles when we were in Paris. There were considerably less visitors than we would have encountered in Versailles. We did have to deal with several tour groups of schoolchildren, but thankfully, they only created a bottleneck at the end of our tour inside the chateau.

The weather has continued to stay dry and not too hot, so our cruising days have been very pleasant. The Seine continues to be green, quiet, and a world away from the riots that have been occurring in cities and towns in France the past few days.

There are stretches with absolutely stunning houses.

 

Most of the locks on the Seine have had two chambers, so we have
rarely had to wait for a lock passage and at the most we've shared a
lock with another pleasure boat. However, the small chamber of 
Lock 2 was under construction, so we had a small delay while 
waiting to share the lock with another pleasure barge and this 
commercial barge that pulled in next to us.

For our stop on Friday we turned onto the Canal de Loing for about 1 kilometer to reach the halte nautique in the town of Moret-sur-Loing. For several centuries in the Middle Ages it was a fortified royal town, and while most of the ramparts are long gone, it has retained two of its Medieval entry gates, its church, the keep of the 12th C. castle (where Nicolas Fouquet was locked up after his arrest, under the watchful eye of Musketeer d'Artagnan), and in its town center, the typical narrow and winding streets of a Medieval town. Moret-sur-Loing was also the home of Alfred Sisley, a well-known impressionist painter.

The Gate of Burgundy, the east gate into the town. The old
timbered building to the right of the gate housed a restaurant
with delicious crepes.

View of Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativite church
(12th-13th C) as seen through a portal of one of the old
 mills on the Loing River.

Looking down the main street of Moret-sur-Loing from the
Burgundy Gate toward the Samois Gate, the western entry
into the old town.

The Graciot Mill on the Loing River, formerly used in the
tanning process, now an arts center.

The church's Renaissance organ, among the
oldest in France.

The Francis I facade, dating from 1527, was originally located
on the main street of Moret-sur-Loing. In the 1800's it was
purchased by a cavalry colonel who dismantled it and moved it
to Paris so that it could become the facade of a townhouse for
his mistress. It was purchased by the town of Moret-sur-Loing and
returned to the town in 1955, where it was rebuilt in the 
courtyard of the town hall.

The skyline of the town from the Pre de Pins park on the banks of the Loing. Sisley painted 
several canvases from vantage points in the park (as well as elsewhere in the town).

Today we continued cruising, completing our time on the Seine River and starting up the Yonne River, the last waterway on our way to Auxerre. We didn't spend any time exploring our overnight stop in Montereau-fault-Yonne, not because it wouldn't have been worthwhile, but the mooring quay wasn't in the optimum location for us to do so without expending more energy than we wanted to. Hopefully, we will be able to correct that next spring, when we anticipate returning this way during the 2024 cruising season.