Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Archeological french history

Protected by empty moats, an heteroclite architectural mixture shines over the historic city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, lines of red bricks are entertwined with white cement, towers on each side don’t share the same height, and it doesn’t look like it’s a square plan.

The château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye sits 30 minutes away from Paris, both the place where kings were born and a magnificent garden atop a hill overlooking the capital. Its odd look is merely due to many many eras of construction, leaving a building entangled in centuries.

The castle where many kings were born, now exhibits the fantastic archeological french collection. It became a museum during the Second Empire (1862), when it was a military jail considered for destruction. Under the ‘joug’ of the emperor Napoleon the IIIrd, the historic building welcomed his personal archeological collection. All made in an effort to reunite what made France national history (for example Alesia’s famous battle against Julius Cesar), the era being when nationalism started to sprout all over Europe. Containing 2 million of excavated artefacts, the royal galleries ‘only’ displays 19,000 at a time, from the Paleolithic era from the more ‘recent’ Roman occupation starting in 52 BC.

Comparated archeology makes a shining appearance in a red-brick room, being the very last surprise along the way of the permanent collection visit. Helping consider the variety of the world’s inhabitant through time and space in one room is a tricky move, but beautifully achieved. The archeological collection detains artefacts from the 5 continents, and from all eras. (Typochronology) What’s the more enticing to visit this place is the ever-changing display, with each month new temporary display featuring a special aspect of french history. temporary exhibitions also have a space in the palatine chapel, with a gothic twist. This jewel of architecture, majestical to every tinted glass window, resembles the Sainte Chapelle. Maybe because it was ordered by the same king Saint Louis, built under the mysterious architect the “master of Saint Denis”. (What’s a palatine chapel? it doesn’t especially mean a genre of architecture, rather to its use: simply for kings).

Currently showing archeological discoveries from the late 19th century, in and around the Aegean region, many secrets from antic Greece and its archipel of islands are unveiled.

Next time you are in Paris, take a morning (except on Tuesdays) to hop on a regional train (RER) to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, visit the castle and the gardens while witnessing a different era than the one which saw King of Scotland Jacques the IInd incarcerated in the castle, or Louis the XIVth running in the garden alleys, while getting valuable insight into France’s early history, back in the day when it was called ‘La Gaule’.

Originally published on my blog.

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