Dynastic History | Andafiavaratra Palace, Antananarivo — The Office That Outlasted Three Queens

On the night of 6 November 1995 fire took the Rova on the ridge above Antananarivo and destroyed or badly damaged every building inside its walls. People carried out what they could reach. Published counts of the salvage differ, at roughly fifteen hundred objects out of an estimated six and a half thousand, and what came out was taken down the slope to Andafiavaratra, where it is displayed today.

Andafiavaratra sits just below the royal compound: near enough to answer to the palace, separate enough to be a government. Published accounts date it to 1873 and credit the English architect William Pool, though the attribution rests on a thin record. Its occupant is better documented. Rainilaiarivony held the premiership from 14 July 1864 to 14 October 1895 and married three reigning queens in succession — Rasoherina, Ranavalona II and Ranavalona III. In March 1876 he reorganised the administration into eight ministries, and the code of 305 laws issued that year remained the basis of the kingdom's legal system for the rest of the century. The state those instruments ran was funded by tax and by fanompoana, the unpaid labour service owed to the sovereign by household.

It ended by force. After the French campaign of 1895 Rainilaiarivony was removed from office, put aboard ship on 6 February 1896 and sent to Algiers, where he died on 17 July that year. The monarchy was abolished the following year.

The palace is a museum now, silver dome and four brick towers above the roofs of Ambatovinaky, holding the objects that came down off the hill.

📸 Cover: Andafiavaratra Palace, Antananarivo, 2007. Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons