It was on the third of August that the commissioners, deputies of the Provisionary Government, were brought before the king at Rambouillet. They announced that twenty-five thousand armed Parisians were marching on the chateau to compel him to quit his kingdom. It was not a matter for debate, and at nine o'clock on the same night the monarch gave assent to being conducted to Cherbourg, where he embarked upon his fatal exile.
After 1830, with a business-like instinct, the authorities rented the property for twelve years to the Baron Schickler, and, at the end of the Revolution of 1848, its career became more plebeian still; it was rented to a man who converted the palace into an elaborately appointed road-house, and the lawns and groves into open-air restaurants and dancing places.
Under the Gouvernement du Juillet the chateau, the park and the forest were removed from the Civil List, and entered upon the inventory of the Administration des Domaines.
Under the Second Empire Rambouillet appeared again on the monarchial Civil List. Napoleon III came here at times to hunt, but not to live, and of his rare appearances at the chateau but little record exists. Since 1870 Rambouillet has belonged to the Republican Government, and, since royalties no longer exist in France, Republican chiefs of state now take the lead in Rambouillet's national hunts.
The property, as it stands to-day, is divided readily into four distinct parts, the palace, the parterre, the Jardin Anglais and the park. The grove of lindens is remarkable in every respect, the ornamental waters are gracious and of vast extent, and the Laiterie and the Ferme are decidedly models of their kind; but the Chaumière des Coquillages, a rustic summer-house of rocks and shells and questionable débris of all sorts, is hideous and unworthy.
Not the least of the charming features of the park is the great alley of Louisiana cypresses, one of the real sights, indeed, perfecting the charm of the great body of water to the left of the chateau.
Of the structure which existed in the fourteenth century, the chateau of Rambouillet retains to-day only a great battlemented tower, and some low-lying buildings attached to it. Successive enlargements, restorations and mutilations have changed much of the original aspect of the edifice, and modern structures flank and half envelop that which, to all eyes, is manifestly ancient. The débris of the old fortress, which was the foundation of all, adds its bit to the conglomerate mass of which the chief and most imposing elements are the two tall corps de logis in the centre.
Within, a rather banal Salle de Bal is shown as the chief feature, but it is conventionally unlovely enough to be passed without emotion, save that its easterly portion takes in the cabinet, or private apartment, where Charles X signed his abdication. Adjoining this is the bedroom occupied by that monarch, and a dining-room which also served His Majesty, and which is still used by the head of the government on ceremonious occasions. Its decorative scheme is of the period of Louis XV.
The Salle de Conseil is of the period of Charles X, and has some fairly imposing carved wainscotings showing in places the monograms of Marie Sophie and the Comtesse de Toulouse.
A great map, or plan, of the Forest of Rambouillet covers the end wall, and, if not esthetically beautiful, is at least useful and very interesting.