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==Biography==
[[File:Chateau de Versailles Temple Amour.jpg|thumb|The Temple of Love (''Temple de l'Amour''), built in 1778 in the ''Petit Trianon'' garden]]
Richard Mique was born at [[Nancy]], the son of Simon Mique, an architect and entrepreneur of [[Lunéville]] and grandson of Pierre Mique also an architect. Following their example,<ref>He may have followed the courses of [[Jacques-François Blondel]] in Paris. </ref> he became an architect in the service of duke [[Stanisław Leszczyński|Stanislas Leszczyński]], ex-king of Poland and father of [[Maria Leszczyńska]], the consort of King [[Louis XV of France]]. Following the death of [[Emmanuel Héré de Corny|Héré de Corny]], Mique participated as ''premier architecte'' in Stanislas' grand plans for reordering and embellishing Nancy, his capital as Duke of Lorraine. Stanislas made him a [[knight|chevalier]] of the Order of Saint-Michel and maneuvered unsuccessfully to have Mique placed on the payroll of the [[Bâtiments du Roi]].<ref>Twice politely refused by the [[Abel-François Poisson, marquis de Marigny|Marquis de Marigny]] (Higonnet 2002: 26)</ref> Following his patron's death in February 1766, Mique was called to France the following October, at the suggestion of [[Maria Leszczyńska]]'s Polish confessor. His official career in France was initially stymied by the influence of [[Ange-Jacques Gabriel]], ''premier architecte''. His main clients were a series of royal ladies. For [[Maria Leszczyńska]], he built a convent, prominently sited in the town of [[Versailles]], on lands at the edge of the park belonging formerly to [[Madame de Montespan]]'s [[Château de Clagny]], of which eleven hectares were consigned to the queen by her husband, [[Louis XV of France|Louis XV]]. At the queen's death, her daughter [[Marie Adélaïde of France|Madame Adélaïde]] completed the project.
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During the Revolution, he was arrested along with his son as participants in a conspiracy to save the life of Marie Antoinette, whose favorite architect he had been. He was brought before a revolutionary tribunal and, after a summary trial on 7 July 1794, both father and son were condemned to death and executed the following day. This was just three weeks before the fall of [[Robespierre]] and the end of the [[Reign of Terror]].
Pierre de Nolhac, the historian of the [[Palace of Versailles|Château de Versailles]], in ''Le Trianon de Marie-Antoinette'' (1914), found Mique to have been "un artiste savant, habile, et digne de plus de gloire"<ref>"A learned and skilled artist, worthy of more fame" (quoted in Higonnet 2002).</ref> A street in the city of Versailles commemorates his name.
==Works==
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