page_title: Musée de la Révolution française
section_title: Castle history
hierarchical_section_title: Musée de la Révolution française / Castle history
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Claude Perier (1742-1801), banquier, industriel, fondateur de la Banque de France, député de l'Isère (1799)
context_page_description: The Musée de la Révolution française is a departmental museum in the French town of Vizille, 15 kilometres south of Grenoble on the Route Napoléon. It is the only museum in the world dedicated to the French Revolution.
  Its exhibits include Jean-Baptiste Wicar's The French Republic and William James Grant's La cocarde, representing Josephine de Beauharnais with her daughter Hortense. The museum was opened on 13 July 1984 in the presence of Louis Mermaz, president of the National Assembly of France.
  It is housed in the Château de Vizille, which has a long history of artistic conservation, and is home to a documentation centre on the French revolutionary period. The museum also organizes international symposiums about the French Revolution.
context_section_description: Located 15 km south of Grenoble on the Route Napoléon, the Château de Vizille (Castle Lesdiguières) is the former home of the Dukes of Lesdiguières. The founder of the dynasty, François de Bonne de Lesdiguières, completed his castle in 1619. King Louis XIII, who made him Constable of France, visited it on 3 December 1622. In 1716, the building was transferred to the Dukes of Villeroy. The Perier family owned it from 5 June 1780 to 23 December 1895. The castle was the summer residence of the presidents of the French Republic from 1924 to 1972. France ceded the castle and its domain to the General Council of Isère, which was entrusted with giving it a prestigious cultural role, in 1973.
  On 21 July 1788, during the presidency of the count of Morges, the Assembly of Vizille met in the castle's jeu de paume room after the 7 June Day of the Tiles in Grenoble. Pope Pius VI spent a night in the castle at the invitation of owner Claude Perier on 5 July 1799, and Napoleon stopped there during his return from the island of Elba on 7 March 1815. Used as a factory, the castle experienced a fire in the night of 9–10 November 1825 which spread to part of the city. In 1828, Adolphe Perier (son of owner Augustin Perier and grandson of Claude) married Nathalie de La Fayette (daughter of Georges Washington de La Fayette and granddaughter of the Marquis de La Fayette) in the castle. Absent from the ceremony, the Marquis de La Fayette was a guest on 19 August 1829 during a visit with Nathalie. Adolphe Perier, after the death of his father in December 1833, continued restoring the castle. In 1862, after Adolphe's bankruptcy, the Académie des Beaux-Arts classified the castle as a monument historique and Henry Fontenilliat (step-father of Auguste Casimir-Perier) became the new owner. Two years later, Henri Fontenilliat died; his daughter, Camille (Auguste's wife), inherited the castle.
  The lessons of the 1825 fire were not learned; on 17 February 1865, a second fire destroyed an L-shaped wing containing the jeu de paume room and a battle gallery built in 1615 by Lesdiguières. They were never rebuilt.
  Activity in the castle's printing factory halted. Auguste Casimir-Perier and his wife, Camille, received Philippe d'Orléans (count of Paris) in 1872 and Adolphe Thiers in 1874. For the centenary of the Assembly of Vizille on 21 July 1888, President Sadi Carnot dedicated a statue of Liberty (also called Marianne) in front of the castle. Sculpted by Henri Ding, its pedestal is engraved with sentences from the assembly and the names of representatives of the province of Dauphiné.
  Two months after France purchased the castle, La Dépêche dauphinoise mentioned the possibility of a museum. The newspaper mentioned it again on 6 March 1932, specifying a museum of the French Revolution. With the opening that summer of the nearby Napoleon Road, a room was devoted to the history of the castle. After the 1981 election of François Mitterrand, the 2 March 1982 decentralization law permitted a museum dedicated to the French Revolution far from Paris. At its 10 June 1983 meeting, the general council of Isère created a museum of the French Revolution in the castle of Vizille. Two people contributed to the museum's founding: Departmental Archives of Isère director Vital Chomel and historian Robert Chagny, curator of its first temporary exhibition. Others who participated in the collection of the first works were Jacqueline Mongellaz (1984–1990) and Alain Chevalier (since 1988). The first rooms of the museum were set up at the beginning of 1984, and its first director (from 1984 to 1996) was art historian Philippe Bordes.
  The museum was dedicated on 13 July 1984 in the presence of the President of the National Assembly, two ministers, and president of its scientific and technical council Michel Vovelle. In November 1987, work began on the Hall of Columns (later called the Republic Room) two large staircases ascending from the current entrance, and elevator access to all levels of the museum. Two new halls were dedicated on 21 July 1988, but financing difficulties dela
caption: Claude Perier, owner of the castle in 1788.
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