Château de la Muette 2.79

The Château de la Muette is a château located on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, France, near the Porte de la Muette.Three châteaux have been located on the site since a hunting lodge was transformed into the first château for Princess Marguerite de Valois, favorite daughter of King Henry II, sister of Kings Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III and the first wife of King Henry IV, in the 16th century. The first château was extended and substantially reconstructed by Louis XV. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette lived at this second château, and the first manned flight, in a hot air balloon, set off from the château in 1783.The old château was demolished in the 1920s to make room for substantial houses, including a new château built by Henri James de Rothschild, which is now part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's headquarters.NameThe meaning of muette is not certain. In modern French, it denotes a mute woman. However, the name of the château may be derived from several words in the French language: muete, a spelling which appears frequently up to the end of the 18th century and signifies a pack of deerhounds;mues, the antler shed by stags in the autumn; ormue, the moulting-period of hunting hawks.It is clear that the name was connected with the hunting-lodge in the Bois de Boulogne, which mediaeval French kings used when they hunted deer in the forest.