In the dining room, the table is set for 18. French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is positioned in the center, facing the majestic lake reflecting the trees at the edge of the forest. To his left, Aldo Moro, the Italian prime minister who would be kidnapped a few years later by the Red Brigades. To his right, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Opposite them, the British prime minister, Harold Wilson, and his Japanese counterpart, Takeo Miki, along with the American president, Gerald Ford. Further down the table, Henry Kissinger and Jean-Pierre Fourcade. The date commemorated here, in the Château de Rambouillet, is November 15, 1975, the first summit of the G6 industrial powers.
Castles always tell the story of the powerful. Inside the walls, there are the echoes of clinking armor, murmured plots, cries of marquises. Rambouillet holds special memories. Here, in the west of the Paris region, among worn carpets, the ghosts of presidential ushers and the ruffles of pajamas worn by prestigious guests still linger in silence. On October 13, 1950, Le Monde's headline reads: "After hunting at Marly, the sultan of Morocco was [President] Vincent Auriol's lunch guest at the Château de Rambouillet." On November 14, 1955, a front-page article describes is titled: "Ms. René Coty passed away last night at Rambouillet," referring to Germaine Coty, the wife of President René Coty. There is Rambouillet for you: the château of the French Republic.
As vast and majestic as the estate is, with its lakes, islands, and seashell cottage; with the sheep of the Bergerie Nationale – and its pheasantry from which, on this dull December afternoon, it was possible to hear the muffled blasts of hunting rifles in the distance – the building itself is modest. It measures just 3,900 square meters, a pittance compared to Versailles' 55,000 m2. It has been asymmetrical ever since one of King Louis XVI's factotums had a wing blown up because it was too dilapidated for his taste. On the courtyard's wet cobblestones, the scene is missing only the black Citroën DS official cars which, like in 1960s film, carried government ministers in a hurry.
"It was the refuge of power, a place to breathe, not too far from Paris. It was a place where families could meet, where etiquette was relaxed and ministers could meet," said Isabelle de Gourcuff, the château's administrator, summoning the faded gallery of the castle's guests around her as she strolled from one room to the next. No film has ever been shot here. On the maps, when she arrived, some areas were in white, indicating they were top secret, for national security reasons: the council chamber, the apartments of foreign heads of state. "Did you notice, when you arrived, that this is a château you can't see from anywhere?" the administrator said with a smile. "That's quite exceptional, considering that, in principle, this kind of building was made to be seen."
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