Louis-Philippe à Fontainebleau. Le roi et l’histoire – Exhibition catalogue

When Louis-Philippe ascended the throne on August 9, 1830, he inherited fourteen centuries of monarchy but also the failure of the Restoration. In search of its legitimacy, this new regime wishes to reconnect with the famous “time chain”. The restoration of the Crown buildings is an instrument of this policy: Versailles, symbol of the absolutism of the Bourbons, will definitely become a museum, while Fontainebleau, the “house of the centuries” which bears witness to the entire history of the French monarchy since the Middle Ages, will be both a place to live and a history book. At a time when the policy of Historic Monuments was being born and at a time when the romantic movement was expanding to pay tribute to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Louis-Philippe made this castle, where he stayed regularly between 1830 and 1848, a true symbol of the new regime thanks to restoration and refurnishing campaigns. Fontainebleau is a masterpiece of the Renaissance; its transformation under