“For a Greater Compiègne” : this was the title of the Scientific and Cultural Project (PSC) validated in 2007 for the Château de l’Oise. 17 years later, the Court of Auditors’ report covering the last ten years notes that the ambitions of the PSC have never been realized. Furthermore, the master plan for the heritage works to be carried out on the 35,000 m² of the château and the 40 hectares of its estate has only been very partially implemented: of the 38 million euros planned, only 8.6 million euros have actually been invested.
To explain this failure, the magistrates cite the absence of a multi-year investment plan (as is the case at the Château de Fontainebleau, for example), in order to schedule, prioritize and finance the various works. Some of them were urgent in 2013, and are still urgent, if not more so, in 2024.
According to the magistrates, nothing has been done to remedy the sagging ceilings on the first floor, a problem known since the end of the 19th century, aggravated by the use of apartments as storage rooms. Today, some ceilings must be shored up to prevent collapse and the loss of the paintings decorating the ceilings. Since the establishment of the first master plan, the condition of the facades has also deteriorated, and it was necessary to wait for regular stone falls from the cornices for a health diagnosis to be ordered, and submitted in March 2024. Verdict: 10 million euros are needed for this project.
Between the publication of the first diagram, then a second technical diagram in 2015, and today, inflation has increased the costs of the planned restorations. Thus, the “cradle of the empress” – treasures of the gardens of Compiègne, and the longest arbor in the world – required 2.7 million euros of intervention in 2015. The preliminary restoration project, finally established by the OPPIC in June 2024, now expects 3.3 million euros to restore this plant heritage.
While the Court notes the very low investment in the restoration and maintenance of heritage, compared to the path traced by the 2013 and 2015 plans, it is however surprised by the sums and energy devoted to the redevelopment of the National Car Museum installed within the walls of the castle. A construction site “neither a priority with regard to heritage emergencies, nor consistent with museographic issues”point out the magistrates, who recall that the scenario favored by the PSC, then by a report from the General Inspectorate of Cultural Affairs, was that of a move of these automobile collections outside the castle.
The main development axis set by the director of the castle, Rodolphe Rapetti, the redeployment of the Car Museum is based on attendance assumptions that are not very credible according to the Court of Auditors, which recommends that it be “postponed, or even cancelled, in favour of other emergencies.”
