Louis XV and Madame Dubarry: Did he have "plans" to "shack-up" with La Favorite at Louveciennes?



King Louis XV apparently liked what he saw at Louveciennes, in spite of the bad-mouthing given Ledoux by the other royal architects, Ange Gabriel chief amongst them (even given his own Neoclassic inclinations and the strong resemblance of the pavillion to his Petite Trianon at Versailles). The King "knew architecture. On the occasion of his first visit to Louveciennes, he dropped a few flattering words: [quoting Ledoux] <<Louis XV, seeing from afar a peristyle of columns which I had erected on the private estate, said: they don't do so badly, yet; approaching closer: they do well>>."

The King also demonstrated strong interest in the habitante: in the 5 year period between 1769 to 1774 he spent almost 4 million livres for her on goldsmiths, jewelers, clothes, perfumers, etc. and a million and a half on works of art and architecture (including 332,852 livres for the Louveciennes property).

According to accounts of the day, the sovereign would come every day from Marly (the royal chateau just down the river, now demolished) to Louveciennes. Here, there was no ceremony, and as little discussion as possible. The comtesse would be running around in a white and pink dressing-gown. The King would go into the pavillion, take some fruit, a glass of Spanish wine [?] and sit himself on the terrace under an old linden tree.

Plan of the Batiment de Louveciennes


Batiment de Louveciennes (detail) Pavillion de Musique

It interesting to note, then, at the time of the King's death, Ledoux had "plans" on the drawing board for a "Batiment de Louveciennes" about ten times the size of the pavillion de musique. Examining the engravings more closely, one finds, tucked away in the northwest corner, a familiar little layout (see detail and floor plan). The plans call for a chambre à coucher du Roy in the adjacent wing. On the exterior, the columns have escalated in order from Ionic to Corinthian, as might befit the rise in rank of the resident. No other royal chateau with as good a view comes to mind, closer than the Loire. One problem not addressed, however, is that of the reported "grincement plantif de la machine" (plaintive creaking of the waterworks) on the Seine below, which was said to have rendered the older Chateau Dubarry "almost uninhabitable". The new building was several hundred meters closer to, and within sight of the pumping mechanism his father had installed to supply water for the fountains at the Chateaux of Marly and Versailles.

But seriously, the following explanation of a "king's bedchamber" being included in the plans is kindly offered by Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D.:

"The King owned all of the land in France. The King--that is to say, the juristic entity parallel to "the Crown" in England, acquired it through inheritance, purchase, or conquest, usually conquest, and accumulated it over the centuries. He then parcelled it out, usually according to its historic boundaries, to his family or loyal retainers--he gave them title to it, so they were titled.
However, it was still his land. These nobles had to have his permission to build on it, largely because in the Middle Ages the King had to guard against these vassals' building fortifications (again, the parallel in England is getting a "license to crenellate"). Louis XIV usually withheld this permission, which is how he forced all of the nobles of France to live in his house at Versailles.
So anything that a vassal built belonged to the King (today, under our system of law derived from those pre-Revolutionary European laws, anything that you build on someone else's property belongs to the owner of the land). Therefore, any château built by a vassal of the King of France belonged to the King of France, which is why the architects of the Bâtiments du roi could be employed on its design, and why the menus plaisirs could be had to arrange parties in them. Afte all, these were governmental--royal--agencies.
That is why all châteaux had accommodation for the King. Vaux-le-Vicomte has an appartement du roi, you know, but Louis XIV never stayed there. Louveciennes was to have been a new château on an old estate that Louis XV gave to Madame du Barry. Therefore it was to have had a proper appartement du roi, but the building itself could never have been intended as a royal residence; it is not planned to accommodate the King on an extended basis. The project just doesn't have the required rooms in the right order, nor does it show adequate dependencies, as you can see by comparing it with, say, Compiègne.
The appartement du roi was used, generally, as a suite of reception rooms. But the only distinction that the Louveciennes project had, among noble (not royal) buildings was the size and expense of the thing. Not even the King's nearest relatives could have undertaken a project that big and that complex. Which, of course, is why it never got too far."