The Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer (left), and General de Gaulle, in the gardens of the Château de Rambouillet (Yvelines), October 15, 1963. GAMMA-KEYSTONE VIA GETTY IMAGES
We slipped into the dining room where the table was set. Eighteen place settings. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing is planned in the center, facing the majestic body of water in which the first trees of the forest are reflected. On his left, Aldo Moro, the Italian prime minister, who would be kidnapped a few years later by the Red Brigades. On his right, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Facing them: the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, and his Japanese counterpart, Takeo Miki, the American President, Gerald Ford. Further: Henry Kissinger, Jean-Pierre Fourcade… It is November 15, 1975, in the Château de Rambouillet (Yvelines) where the first summit of industrial powers, the G6, is being held…
Castles always tell the story of crowned heads. There resonates the sound of armor, the murmur of plots, the tears of the marquises. Rambouillet is special: there float, silently, on the worn carpets, the ghosts of the ushers of the Presidency of the Republic and the rustle of the pajamas of prestigious guests housed under a beautiful sign. “After hunting in Marly, the Sultan of Morocco was the lunch host of Mr. Vincent Auriol at the Château de Rambouillet,” titre The worldOctober 13, 1950. “Mrs. René Coty died last night in Rambouillet”: two columns on our front page, November 14, 1955. Because that is Rambouillet: the castle of the Republic.
As the estate is immense and majestic, with its lakes, its islands, its National Sheepfold, its shell cottage – and its pheasantry from which reaches us in the distance, on this pale December afternoon, the dull shots of rifle guns. hunting -, as much as the building is modest: 3,900 square meters – a pittance, compared to the 55,000 at Versailles -, and asymmetrical since a factotum of Louis XVI had a wing too deteriorated for his taste dynamited. On the wet cobblestones of the courtyard, the only thing missing from the picture, like in a 1960s film, is the black Citroën DS, these official cars dropping off some minister in a hurry.
Read the report (in 2003): Article reserved for our subscribers Rambouillet, campaign of kings
“It was the refuge of power, a place to breathe, not too far from Paris. We entertained there as a family, with light etiquette in relaxed councils of ministers”, says Isabelle de Gourcuff, the administrator of the place, gathering around her the vanished gallery of guests of the castle as we wander from one room to another. No film has ever been filmed here. On the plans, when she arrived, some areas were blank. Top secret. National security. The council room, the apartments of foreign heads of state… “Did you notice, when you arrived, that it’s a castle that you can’t see from anywhere?underlines the administrator, smiling. This is quite exceptional, since, a priori, this type of building was made to be seen. »
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2023-12-14 01:52:23
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