La Princesse Mathilde, on 1853, bought a castel near Paris, on the territory of the little city of Enghien. It was Chateau de Luçay, a great mansion with one floor. She created a second floor, a different park and gardens. Nearby, there was le Chateau Catinat, a smaller mansion she bought on 1857 "for the friends's rest". On summer, she received scientists, writers, painters, musicians, for his own pleasure and also because she decided to became a cultural power and a go-between relating the french intelligenzia and his cousin the emperor N.III. During autumn and winter she received in Paris, in his town house rue de Courcelles until 1870 and (after a short exile in Bruxelles) rue de Berry until 1904. Wednesday for writers, painters on Friday.
This very important salon had a positive effect on all the french artistic life. It had been said of her that elle accueillait tous ses visiteurs avec un sansfaçon qui était l'extrême raffinement de la condescendance et de la politesse princière. From his cousin she obtained many advantages for sciencists, artists, writers. She "decided" who became academician, had a decoration, etc. She failed only on the question of the liberty of the press: his cousin agreed with her on the idea of a free press but he never abolished the stupid, heavy, blind french censure of second empire (after the defeat of 1870 free press were an important motive for the tumble of the empire)
Here is a partial list of his guests: Hyppolite Taine, Alexandre Dumas father and son; Émile Augier, Victorien Sardou, François Coppée, George Sand, Ernest Lavisse, Frédéric Masson, Ludovic Halévy. Henri Houssaye, Albert Vandal, Guy de Maupassant, Alphonse Daudet, Edmont About, Octave Feuillet, Eugène Violet-Leduc, José-Maria de Hérédia, Émile Gebhart, Jules Sandeau (writer friend of George Sand); Eugène Delacroix, Paul Delaroche, Ary Scheffer, Paul Beaudry, Gustave Boulanger, JeanLéon Gérôme; physiologist Claude Bernard, physician Alexandre Cabanel; Jean-Auguste Ingres, Horace Vernet, Charles Haas, Eugène Fromentin, Ganderay, Paul Bourget, Hector Berlioz, Georges de Porto-Riche, composers Louis-Joseph Diemer, Reynaldo Hahn; Léon Bonnat, Paul Gavarni, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, duke and duchess de Gramont, Jacques-Émile Blanche, singer Marie Marimon, Gustave Doré, Geneviève and Émile Strauss, Georges Bizet, Alfred de Musset, Gabriel Fauré, Camille Saint-Saëns, Franz Liszt, Charles Gounod, Félix Nadar (she helped him to became a photograph), François Arago, astronom Urbain Leverrier, Ernest Renan, Marcellin Berthelot, Louis Pasteur, Théophile Gautier (she gived him money to "look at his library"); Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Louis Veuillot, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, Ferdinand de Lesseps , Prosper Mérimée, Charles Ephrussi, Robert de Montesquiou, Edmond et Jules Goncourt.... (If you need details upon the names ask for it)
Here is a letter of his beloved Théophile Gauthier (in Correspondance Générale de Théophile Gauthier - quote 1869) who gives an idea of the spirit of the salon:
Princesse,
Je suis très touché de l'intérêt que vous daignez prendre à ma santé. Si je n'ai pas répondu plutôt, c'est que j'espérais vous porter moi-même de mes nouvelles. J'ai une petite douleur au pied qui m'empêche de me chausser (...) Chacun a ses petites misères et tout le monde n'est pas taillé en plein marbre de Carrare ou de Paros comme votre Altesse impériale. Si les déesses ne sont jamais malades, les pauvres mortels, leurs adorateurs, ne jouissent pas de cette sereine inaltérabilité. En tous cas, guéri ou non guéri, j'irai à Saint-Gratien mercredi, même avec une babouche et un brodequin. « Qui regarde vos pieds? » avez-vous dit dans une circonstance pareille, car, comme le paon, je me préoccupe beaucoup de mes pattes, mais je ferai la roue et votre auguste bonté ne regardera que mes plumes.
De votre Altesse impériale, Madame, j'ai l'honneur d'être le très humble et très dévoué sonnettiste*.
Théophile Gautier
* sonnettiste: a word Gauthier creates to express the idea that he is the poet of Mathilde, a poet asked to write only some poems called sonnets.
Between so many intellectuals very differents (soul, style, ideas, judgments, estetic and politic earnestness) she tried until his death to provoke exchanges, solidarity and frienship.
His salon was called "La cour Medicis" (the Medicis' court) because she helped many artists, writers and scientists.
As royals and aristocratic guests we are sure she received : Emperor, Empress, duchesse d'Albe (sister of Empress), comtesse de Teba (mother of Empress) duc de Morny, prince Camillo Borghèse, prince Napoléon and family, princes Louis, Victor and Roland Bonaparte, princess Jeanne Bonaparte, princesse von Metternich, duchesse de Persigny, comte Alfred-Émilien Nieuwerkerke, comte Primoli and wife and son comte Giuseppe Primoli, Wurtemberg royals and russian royals when in Paris, etc, etc.
His salon competed with some other french salons but mainly with the salon of Pauline Metternich, a very different one, but also a very interesting one.
She helped city of Enghien, gave a school, a church, created a foundation for blind girls, a part of his park, ecc, ecc. She is buried in the church of Enghien. His castle is now an estate with appartments, called "Le chateau de la Princesse Mathilde"
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