3-083-000 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Duc d'Aosta's Marriage with Princess Hélène of Orleans: portion of the Chateau d'Eu, 1895. 'In 1872 the National Assembly at Versailles decreed the restitution of the property of the Orleans family, so that the early childhood of Princess Hélène was passed, not in exile, but at the Chateau d'Eu, where the Comte and Comtesse de Paris and their children were living happily on their own estates...The Chateau...is a handsome pile of brick, topped with numberless pointed roofs of slate, and stretching its graceful facade along the noted terraces which front on to the rose-garden. Here, in the summer months, thousands of blossoms bloom, scatter their petals, and die unseen...Past the rose-garden and the wooded glade, from which a beautiful view of the house is obtained, the pavilion of Mademoiselle de Montpensier is reached. Ugly as this structure is in outline, it is full of historical and romantic interest. Here Mademoiselle entrenched herself and defied the King, and from these windows she watched for her faithless lover de Lauzun, who never came...Besides accommodation for three hundred guests at a time, there is stabling for one hundred and thirty horses, and standing-room in the coach-houses for sixty carriages'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.