Château de Compiègne

Louis XV was perhaps even more favorably impressed; the Comte de Chevergny described his infatuation: Hunting was his main passion... and Compiègne, with its immense forest, with its endless avenues amongst the trees, with its stretches down which you could ride all day and never come to the end, was the ideal place to indulge that passion.In 1750, the prominent architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel proposed a thorough renovation of the château.

The ancient town ramparts dictated the château's triangular plan; the resultant building covers about 5 acres (20,000 m2).

Louis-Martin Berthault, Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, decorators Dubois and Pierre-Joseph Redouté, and cabinetmakers François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter and Marcion restored the château.

The writer Auguste Luchet remarked that "Compiègne speaks of Napoleon as Versailles does of Louis XIV".

In 1832 the wedding of Leopold I of Belgium and Louise of Orléans, the daughter of the French king Louis Philippe I, took place at Compiègne.