Editing Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (section)

==Youth and education==

Viollet-le-Duc was born in Paris in 1814.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}} His grandfather was an architect, and his father was a high-ranking civil servant, who in 1816 became the overseer of the royal residences of Louis XVIII. His uncle [[Étienne-Jean Delécluze]] was a painter, a former student of [[Jacques-Louis David]], an art critic and hosted a literary salon, which was attended by [[Stendhal]] and [[Sainte-Beuve]]. His mother hosted her own salon, which women could attend as well as men.  There, in 1822 or 1823, Eugène met [[Prosper Mérimée]], a writer who would play a decisive role in his career.{{sfn|Poisson|2014|page=12}}<ref name=summerson/>

In 1825 he began his education at the Pension Moran, in [[Fontenay-aux-Roses]]. He returned to Paris in 1829 as a student at the college de Bourbon (now the [[Lycée Condorcet]]).  He passed his baccalaureate examination in 1830. His uncle urged him to enter the [[École des Beaux-Arts]], which had been created in 1806, but the ''École '' had an extremely rigid system, based entirely on copying classical models, and Eugène was not interested. Instead he decided to get practical experience in the architectural offices of [[Jacques-Marie Huvé]] and [[Achille Leclère]], while devoting much of his time to drawing medieval churches and monuments around Paris.

At sixteen he participated in the July [[1830 revolution]] which overthrew [[Charles X of France|Charles X]], building a barricade.  Following the revolution, which brought [[Louis Philippe]] to power, his father became chief of the bureau of royal residences. The new government created, for the first time, the position of Inspector General of Historic Monuments.  Eugène's uncle Delécluze agreed to take Eugène on a long tour of France to see monuments. They travelled from July to October 1831 throughout the south of France, and he returned with a large collection of detailed paintings and watercolours of churches and monuments.{{sfn|Poisson|2014|page=12}}

[[File:Banquet des dames aux Tuileries 1835.jpg|thumb|right|200px|''Women's Banquet at the Tuileries'' painted by Viollet-le-Duc (1835)]]

On his return to Paris, he moved with his family into the [[Tuileries Palace]], where his father was now governor of royal residences. His family again urged him to attend the École des Beaux-Arts, but he still refused. He wrote in his journal in December 1831, "the ''École'' is just a mould for architects. they all come out practically identical."{{sfn|Poisson|2014|page=12}} He was a talented and meticulous artist; he travelled around France to visit monuments, cathedrals, and other medieval architecture, made detailed drawings and watercolours. In 1834, at the age of twenty, he married Élisabeth Templier, and in the same year he was named an associate professor of ornamental decoration at the Royal School of Decorative Arts, which gave him a more regular income.{{sfn|Poisson|2014|page=61}} His first pupils there included [[Léon Gaucherel]].<ref>[https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG28522 "Léon Gaucherel"], [[British Museum]], accessed 31 October 2021</ref>

With the money from the sale of his drawings and paintings, Viollet-le-Duc set off on a long tour of the monuments of Italy, visiting Rome, Venice, Florence and other sites, drawing and painting. In 1838, he presented several of his drawings at the [[Paris Salon]], and began making a travel book, ''Picturesque and romantic images of the old France'', for which, between 1838 and 1844, he made nearly three hundred engravings.{{sfn|Poisson|2014|page=68}}