A wedding at Lunéville

 

Claude Jacquart, Marriage cortège of the prince de Lixheim in the courtyard of the palace of Lunéville, on 19th August 1721.

Oil on canvas; 72cm x 121cm.   Lunéville, Musée du château. 

The marvellous painting, by Claude Jacquart, was acquired for the collections of the Château de Lunéville in 2015.  It is  a unique visual memory of a grand ceremonial occasion at the Court of Duke Leopold, in this case the wedding on 19th August 1721 of  Henri-Jacques de Lorraine, Prince de Lixheim, a distant cousin of the Duke's, and Anne-Marguerite-Gabrielle,  second daughter of the Prince de Craon , Leopold's "favori en titre".   

Lunéville - the palace of Duke Leopold [cont.]

LIFE OF THE COURT

Grand ceremonies and festivals

In addition to the splendour of his palace, and his imposition of courtly ritual, Leopold sought to project power and strengthen his dynastic pretensions through public display, in festivals, ceremonial and entertainments. The grand fêtes which punctuated the life of the Court are discussed in a lecture which  given at the Château in 2020 by Caroline Loillier, from the Municipal Archives in Lunéville (video available on Vimeo or Youtube), from which this section is summarised.

0.22. Fêtes in the service of princely power:  Leopold's arrival at Lunéville and entry into Nancy

Entrée de Mr le Duc et de Madame la Duchesse de Lorraine à Nancy le 10e Novembre 1698 (anonymous engraving) Bibl.nationale.  https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8407304x?rk=107296;4

In 1697, following  the War of the League of Augsburg, the Treaty of  Ryswick restored the exiled Duke Leopold to his hereditary lands.  He left the Imperial court on 11th May 1798, having delayed his entry into Nancy until after the departure of the last French troops.   During his progress, the  nobility who had remained faithful to the House of Lorraine joined the cortège. It was three days later, on 14th May, that he made his entry into  Lunéville. The 19th-century historian Gaston Maugras describes the rejoicing which attended his appearance:  

The citizens of the town, organised into companies d'honneur,  rushed up from all directions; the country folk, dressed in their best, arrived from the furthest points and filled the streets with their exuberant cries.  Joy became delirium when the sumptuous cortege of riders and carriages was sighted.   At its head, on a splendid horse,  rode the young duke of Lorraine, Leopold, who was at last taking possession of his hereditary lands.....Long acclamations greeted his passage;  the crowd pressed around him; they took his hands..... 
Gaston Maugras La Cour de Lunéville au xviiie siecle (1904), p.1-3.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2057422/f11.item

The procession impressed and dazzled the inhabitants of Lunéville, particularly the horses, which had been captured from the Turks, and the brilliantly caparisoned camels, animals which the people had never before encountered. 

On the occasion of his formal entry into Nancy on 10th November the Duke received the keys of the town from his chief minister and former tutor, the Earl of Carlingford, with the magistrates and officials in attendance.

Lunéville - the palace of Duke Leopold

One would not believe one had changed location when one passes from Versailles to Lunéville 
Voltaire.

Un peu d'histoire......

For 18th-century Lorraine, the dawn of the 18th-century truly marked a new beginning since.  After years of French occupation, the duchies of Lorraine and Bar were restored to independence by the Treaty of Ryswick. On 10th November 1698 the young Duke Leopold and his French bride, Élisabeth-Charlotte d’Orléans, made their solemn entry into Nancy.  Despite limited financial means,  Leopold was determined to assert to his place on the European stage as a independent sovereign.  Fundamental to this, was the establishment of  his Court in a suitably splendid formal setting.  As the American historian Jonathan Spangler notes, "Printed books, pamphlets, and portraits, and even a grand palace and gardens loaded with political symbolism, were still considerably cheaper than a standing army, and were effective weapons of "cultural capital" (Spangler, 2022, p.133).

Lunéville - rebirth of a palace

"Like a phoenix, our château is reborn from its ashes"

Marie-Danièle Closse, president of the association Lunéville château des Lumières

Quoted in Le Figaro, 26.05.2024.

Once the centre of a glittering court, the Château at Lunéville, the former palace of the Dukes of Lorraine, is currently the object of the most ambitious French state renovation project outside Paris. 

The"Versailles lorrain" has not been treated kindly over the years.  For once Revolutionaries are not to  blame.  It was Louis XV who began the depredations in 1751 when the duchy of Lorraine fell to the French crown after the death of the its last duke, the deposed King of Poland, Stanisław (Stanislas) Leszczyński .  In the years which followed the gutted building became barracks to the elite Gendarmes rouges - earning Lunéville prestige as "la cité cavalière"  but scarcely ensuring careful stewardship.  Above all the palace has been the victim of fire - so much so  that it has gained a reputation for uncanny bad luck. There have been no less than thirteen blazes since 1719, and King Stanislas himself died after his dressing gown was accidentally set alight.  According to one fanciful theory, the Court dwarf Bébé   laid a curse on the palace because Stanislas had frustrated his hopes for marriage.

The last, cataclysmic, fire took place in 2003. The damage to the building was heartbreaking  but there was some consolation in the revived interest which the catastrophe inspired, and the extensive restoration work which has subsequently been funded.  In May of this year, Le Figaro reported that  €43 millions has been spent to date on the reconstruction of the palace, with a further  €14 millions projected by 2028.  The ultimate aim is to  to develop a "un parcours muséal" which will recreate the château as it was at the time of the last dukes.