The King’s Apartment

Floor in black and white marble. Each side of the door is a chimney : the one on the right was used by the keepers until 1789, the one on the left is a dummy. On the walls are consoles bearing the busts of Augustin Fresnel, inventor of the stepped lamp; Beautemps-Baupré, father of modern meteorology; Léonce Reynaud and Léon Bourdelles, two of the Directors of the Lighthouse and Beacon Services. In this room, as in those that follow, a circular hole, or oculus, enabled the keepers, from 1790, to raise to the top of the tower by means of a hoist the combustible materials needed for lighting the lanterns: wood, charcoal, peat, tar, whale blubber, oil, paraffin. A glass showcase which was previously in the storeroom displays different lamps used since the electrification of the lighthouse, as well as the lamp of last resort, fuelled by paraffin, and called Aladdin’s Lamp.
Opposite the entrance, on both sides of the access to the terrace, two wooden pieces of furniture contained the paraffin when the lighthouse was furnished with a paraffin vapour lamp, just before electrification in 1948.
Noteworthy, in the security access to the terrace, are two doors surmounted by heads carved in stone. These heads were both restored at the same time during the 50s; although the one on the left is in perfect condition that on the right is very eroded. The wind which filtered through the loose-fitting door always turned in the same direction because of the Coriolis force, and caused this erosion.