History
The Great Stables were built in 1719, on the orders of Louis Henri, duke of Bourbon, Prince of Condé, who believed that he would be reincarnated as a horse. He asked the architect, Jean Aubert, to build stables that would be suitable to house a horse of his rank. The resulting 186 m long stables are considered a masterpiece of 18th century architecture. The stables could house 240 horses and up to five hundred hounds.
In 1830, Henri d'Orléans, duke of Aumale, the fourth son of King Louis-Philippe, inherited the château from his uncle, the Duc de Bourbon. In 1886, Henri bequeathed the château, the stables, the racecourse, and almost 8 km² of forest land to the Institut de France, with the stipulation that it should be preserved as it was.
Riding master Yves Bienaimé had begun his career in 1959, in the riding school housed in the stables. Twenty years later, he was struck by the state of neglect of the still-impressive building. He decided he would do what he could to bring back some of the former glory of the stables. On 6 June 1982, after four years of negotiations with the Institut over the concession, Yves and Annabel Bienaimé opened the museum to the public.
Read more about this topic: Living Museum Of The Horse
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)