Palace of Poitiers
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The Palace of Justice in Poitiers (French: Palais de justice de Poitiers) began its life as the seat of the Counts of Poitou and Dukes of Aquitaine in the tenth through twelfth centuries.
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[edit] Origin
The former Merovingian kingdom of Aquitaine was re-established by Charlemagne for his son Louis the Pious. A palace was constructed for him in the ninth century above a Roman wall datable to the late third century, at the highest spot of the town. Louis stayed there many times as a king and then returned to the palace after becoming emperor, in 839 and 840. After the disintegration of the Carolingian realm, the palace became the seat of the Counts of Poitiers. The first palace of Poitiers was completely destroyed by a fire in 1018.
The palace was completely rebuilt, straddling the wall, by the Counts-Dukes of Aquitaine, then at the pinnacle of their power. In 1104, Count William IX added a dungeon on the town side. It is known as the tour Maubergeon, after his mistress Amauberge ("the Dangerous"), wife of Vicomte Aimery de Chatellerault and grandmother of Alienor of Aquitaine. The rectangular keep is reinforced with four smaller square towers projecting from each corner; it was greatly damaged when the southern portion of the palace was set ablaze by Henry of Grosmont in 1346.
Between 1191 and 1204, Alienor fitted up a dining hall (50 metres in length, 17 metres in width), perhaps the largest in contemporary Europe. The hall had not retained its ceiling; it has been covered by chestnut woodwork, constructed in 1862 by a team of marine carpenters from La Rochelle. The walls of the hall are daubed and painted so as to imitate stone facing. Their monotony is relieved by cusped arches resting on slender columns. A stone bench rings the walls of the hall. In the later palace of justice, the medieval dining hall became known as la salle des pas perdus ("hall of lost footsteps").
[edit] Reconstruction
Duke John I of Berry, who was also appanage count of Poitiers, rebuilt the part of the palace which had been destroyed by fire in 1346. On the one hand, the dungeon and the ramparts were reconstructed; on the other hand, the private apartments were restored in the Gothic Flamboyant style by the architect and sculptor Guy de Dammartin. These works were undertaken between 1388 and 1416, during the pauses in the course of the Hundred Years' War.
The tour Maubergeon was reconstructed on three floors with ogival vaulting, illuminated by glazed windows and topped by nineteen statues. Of these, only sixteen pieces survive: they represent the duke's counsellors in clerical habits, while the statues of the duke and his wife are missing. In its unfinished state, the tower has neither machicolations nor the canopies above the statues.
At the behest of Guy de Dammartin, three monumental stoves were installed in the grand hall; they were decorated with Gothic Flamboyant statuary and surmounted by a gallery. The southern wall of the hall was also overhauled: it was pierced by great bays which masked the pipes from outside view. The exterior of this wall was decorated with flamboyant ogives.
[edit] Later developments
The count-dukes sometimes administered justice in the grand hall. It was there that Hugues de Lusignan, comte de la Marche, publicly challenged Louis IX on Christmas day, 1241. After the province of Poitou was reattached to the royal domain, la salle des pas perdus was renamed la salle du Roi ("the royal hall"). A judicial insitution, le parlement royal, sat there from 1418 to 1436.
The palace was used for administering justice both before and during the French Revolution. On 5 June 1453 Jacques Coeur was tried there. In 1821, a monumental staircase with a Doric portico was attached to the medieval building. Duc de Berry's private apartments were gradually demolished to give room to the appellate court and its chancery.
A scene from Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc was filmed in the grand hall of the palace.
[edit] References
This article is based on a translation of the equivalent article of the French Wikipedia on 4 November 2006.
