Hommage à
un esprit libre

In the former wedding hall, an Italian-style salon remarkable for its volumes, decorations and Louis XV wing doors, the Flemish artist Jan Fabre created Hommage à un esprit libre (Homage to a Free Spirit): a work inspired by the botanical plates of Pierre Richer de Belleval, the king's physician who created the first Botanical Gardens in France in Montpellier in the 16th century. Set in the lantern that lights the room from above, five bas-relief panels composed of thousands of beetle elytra, assembled over long months, compose a history of Montpellier, evoking the crusades, medicine, justice and the sacred union of marriage.