The Château de Compiègne is in a very worrying situation

Compiègne (Oise). Since his arrival at the head of the Château de Compiègne in 2018, Rodolphe Rapetti has had one priority: resuscitating the National Car Museum. A lover of automobile design and prototypes – to which he dedicated an exhibition in 2020 – the heritage curator was the author of a report in 2007 on automobile heritage in French museums. Among other considerations on the lack of interest this theme arouses among his colleagues, he described the Compiègne Museum as “an appendage of the establishment, whereas it could constitute (…) the main appeal in terms of attendance and diversification of the public”.

This diagnosis became the establishment project a few years later, with the valorization, then the study around a redeployment of the museum’s collections. Although it is well underway, with a final preliminary project for the Car Museum presented in April of this year, this plan is far from having convinced the Court of Auditors, which published its report on the castle on September 11 from Compiègne. “The Ministry (of Culture) clearly indicates in its response to the Court that its decision has not yet been made; (…) this project could therefore ultimately be postponed, or even canceled, in favor of other emergencies. »

The magistrates therefore urge great caution regarding this car museum project, equipped with some unique pieces such as the prototype of the “Jamais-Contente”. The announced visitor growth projections are received with great reserve in their report, as is the choice to maintain these voluminous collections within the castle grounds. The scientific and cultural project in force, as well as a report from the General Inspectorate of Cultural Affairs (IGAC), recommended finding a dedicated place outside the walls of the imperial palace, which offers limited and unsuitable space.

It is true that the castle-museum (which, in addition to the Automobile Museum, houses the Museum of the Empress Eugénie, just like that of the Second Empire) needs to regain a certain attractiveness: whereas it attracted 230,000 visitors thirty years ago, today it is struggling to cross the 100,000 mark. If the director of the premises sees in the Car Museum the ideal tool to arouse public interest, the Court of Auditors notes his side that the basic work of public policy, and networking with the immediate tourist environment, is not carried out at the Château de Compiègne.

But if the report is so harsh with Rodolphe Rapetti’s project, it is above all a question of hierarchy of priorities. In 2013, the estate’s heritage diagnosis gave an estimate of 85 million euros of necessary work, including 37 million for urgent operations. The ceilings of the first floor deformed since the 19th century – now weakened by the weight of the reserves they support and supported in certain places -, the deteriorated facades whose cornice stones come loose every winter, the “cradle of the empress”the longest arbor in the world, which threatens to collapse… here is a non-exhaustive list of emergencies already noted in 2013, and which have still not been the subject of work.

Of the 37 million euros that should have been devoted to these worrying situations, only 8.6 were actually invested. In 2015, a second technical master plan again gave a list of heritage operations to be carried out, classified into three emergency levels. Here too, only 1/5th of this plan estimated at 47 million euros has been carried out, even though it concerns areas as essential as fire safety or networks. As for the problem of reserves – spaces unsuitable for conservation which occupy 7,600 square meters of the castle, “kind of storage” for the Mobilier national which leaves tapestries there – it has still not been the subject of reflection.

The absence of a clear multi-year investment plan, prioritizing emergencies and directing funding also owes a lot to the administrative nature of the Château de Compiègne. It is one of the few museums managed directly by rue de Valois, through the status of service with national competence (SCN). Without its own legal personality, the castle has very limited autonomy, in areas as strategic as exhibition programming, the search for patrons or the operation of the estate. The latter is managed by the Center des monuments nationaux, while the ticket office of the castle depends on the Réunion des musées nationaux… from this tangle of skills, the SCN only receives a small percentage of the revenue, and depends mainly on the annual allocation granted by the ministry. For the Court of Auditors, “an evolution of status” is essential.

Compiègne is not the only estate to suffer from these complications, since the castle is associated within the same SCN with the Blérancourt estate. Restored at great expense in the 2010s, with the reopening in 2017 of its Franco-American Museum, this castle does not share much with Compiègne, heritage-wise, thematically and even territorially… the two areas being in two different departments. For this Aisne castle in “notoriety deficit”the Court of Auditors recommends cutting the cord with the large domain of Oise, and “search without delay for local authorities interested in the transfer of the Franco-American Museum”.

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