Retour de la promenade en char à bancs de la reine Victoria, l'arrivée au château d'Eu, 4 septembre 1843

 

Retour de la promenade en char à bancs de la reine Victoria, l'arrivée au château d'Eu, 4 septembre 1843, by Jean-Antoine-Siméon Fort, 1844.

The Château d'Eu is a former royal residence in the commune of Eu in Normandy. Built in the sixteenth century to replace an earlier château which had been purposely demolished in 1475 to prevent its capture by the English, it had been the property of the Orléans family since its acquisition in 1657. Between 1830 and 1848 it served as the summer residence of Louis-Philippe. In 1964, the town of Eu acquired the château, in which, in 1973, it installed its City Hall and created the Musée Louis-Philippe.

Louis-Philippe and the royal family twice entertained Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the château, from 3 to 7 September 1843 and from 8 to 10 September 1845. The first visit was to cement an early form of the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France, and was the first time monarchs of the two countries had met since the famous summit meeting of Henry VIII of England and François I of France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold/Camp du Drap d'Or in June of 1520. 

The British royal couple and large family of the "Citizen King" and Queen Marie-Amélie subsequently became close. There was also a family connection; one of the king's daughters-in-law, the duchesse de Nemours, was a first cousin of both Victoria and Albert. With the Revolution of 1848 and his abdication, Louis-Philippe and the Orléans family fled to exile in England where the former king died two years later.

A char à bancs (literally a "carriage with wooden benches") was a large, open-sided carriage - or later a motor coach - with benched seats arranged in rows, facing forward, designed for short-distance, fair-weather travel and sightseeing. A char à bancs presented to Queen Victoria by Louis-Philippe has been preserved in the Royal Mews.

Queen Victoria driving out with Louis-Philippe from the Quadrangle, Windsor Castle, by Joseph Nash, 1844.

Louis-Philippe made the queen a gift of a char à bancs - seen here on the king's reciprocal visit to England - after she had admired the carriages the year before.

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Jean-Antoine-Siméon Fort (28 August 1793 – 24 December 1861), French artist who painted in both oil and watercolor. Louis-Philippe commissioned several of his works, including four large battle scenes intended for the king's musée historique de Versailles.