Park of Versailles

History

At the 17th century the king Louis XIV wishes to settle well off Paris: he seeks for that a vast space to build a Château with the measurement of his capacity: he chooses Versailles and the gardener André Ours to arrange a garden with his taste. This last imposes a style which is diffused in Europe: the Garden with the Frenchwoman. The ground being marshy, work of draining and plantation of trees lasts several years. In the gardens of Versailles, nature is tamed: the Parterre S of flowers are geometrical, the rectilinear alleys and the symmetrical basins. The mathematics and advances in knowledge (Rene Descartes) are reflected in the park of Versailles. Ours designs the basins and the terraces according to the rules of the optical illusion: the Large Channel seems close when the visitor is with the foot of the castle. At the time of Louis XIV, several hundreds of workmen and gardeners were to maintain the park.

The king plays on the garden which is alive to inspire it by its life in order to better feel there and to rest itself there. He works it with his image by improving this one with the passing of years but he also works there with an aim of impressing the ambassadors and tries to make of it a symbolic system of France glorious and triumphing at that time.

The Tempête of 1999 cut down a great number of trees centenaries (see the section #La Tempête of 1999). Thanks to the files, one tries today to restore the gardens such as they were at the 17th century.

Remarkable places of the park

Thickets

the thickets of Versailles were formerly called “green rooms”. Made of a true maze of alleys, their large hedges hide basins, gardens, open-air theaters… thus creating a calm space and close friend, contrasting with the royal alley.

List of the thickets

Thicket of the Baths of Apollo
Thicket of the Domes
Thicket of Encelade
Thicket of the Queen (old Labyrinth)

During its creation by Ours in 1665, this thicket is initially conceived like a simple labyrinth, traditional in the Jardin with the Frenchwoman. A few years later, it is enriched by a decoration inspired by Charles Perrault on the topic of the fables of the Greek storyteller Ésope whose statue posed on a pedestal of rubbles framed with that of the Love which faced him (and which held in its hand the wire of ARIANE) the entry of this “educational” thicket; indeed, the 39 fables illustrated by fountains disseminated in the Labyrinth were intended for the education of the dolphin and were chosen to represent each one a stage towards the wisdom whose shape of the labyrinth was the symbol of research. Of a difficult maintenance (the few 333 animalist sculptures were out of metal alloy painted " with the naturel"), the Labyrinth of Versailles was removed in 1778 to leave room to a Jardin with English the in the honor of Marie-Antoinette, the current thicket of the Queen.

Thicket of the Ballroom, or Thicket of Rubbles

This thicket is certainly most known. Steps of greenery pointing out the variations of the 100 steps encircle a track of dance. Grinding stones of Ile-de-France attached on the walls of these steps are used as cascades, thus accompanying the music by the melody by water. This thicket is decorated by incrustations with shells and lapis lazuli coming from Madagascar. After the death of Ours, its successor Jules Hardouin-Mansart replaces the track of dance by an small island. The king then old of almost 70 years does not dance any more.

Garden of the King
Thicket of the Three Fountains (restored in 2004)

At the time of its restoration, the old techniques were respected. Thus the weldings were made with lead, with the ladle, like the craftsmen of the time of Louis XIV.

Thicket of the Triumphal arch
Thicket of the Dolphin
Thicket of Girandole
Thicket of the Colonnade
Room of the Chestnut trees
Thicket of the Green Round (old Water theater)
Thicket of the Star

Basins and fountains

At the time of the Sun king, the gardens counted some nearly 2000; today, only 1700 are in activity, in particular the days of Large Musical Water.
the water supply of the basins constituted a big challenge at the 17th century. 30 kilometers of cast iron or lead drains ran under the park. A tank was on the flat roofs of the castle. Water ran thanks to the Gravité towards the gardens located downwards. Other tanks were under the terraces. A whole system of hydraulic installations, called the Rivière of the Sun king was created to bring water necessary starting from the close ponds. The stopping on the Bièvre with the Etangs of the Mine was another source of supply. Louis XIV even ordered to divert the the Eure, but its project fell through because of the war. The Machine of Marly, consisted of 14 paddle wheels, made it possible to forward the water of the Seine to the basins of Versailles.

List of the principal basins of Versailles

Basin of Cérès
Basin of the Dragon
Basin of Flora
Basin of Latone ** Basin of Neptune
Basin of the Nymph S of Diane
Basin of the Obelisk
Basin of the Mirror of water
Basin of Saturn (or of the Winter)

The orangery

It is part of the castle where one returns the trees and the shrubs the winter. This orangery was built before even the castle.

The Large Channel

Water part in cross of 23 hectares and 5,5 km periphery. Its characteristic is to offer a visual effect. The basins are different sizes but since the castle one sees them same size.

Statues of the garden

The statues and sculptures of the park contribute to monarchical propaganda: the ancient topics are taken again (Apollo, Latone, Titans) in order to magnifier Louis XIV and his works. The Sun and its race give place to representations carved in the basins and the alleys.

Open-air theaters

to develop

Some figures

Beginning of work: 1669
Surface: 815 hectares
Many plants under Louis XIV: 150 000

The Storm of 1999

The storm which crossed France, on December 26th, 1999 was a catastrophe for part of the French forest and in particular for the trees of the park of the Château of Versailles. This day, more than ten thousand trees were touched on the few two hundred and thousand of the field, among them, some worthy prestigious trees, including both tulipiers of Virginia of the Reine Marie-Antoinette, planted in 1783, and the Pin of Corsica of Napoleon i. Two thirds of them either were broken, or uprooted, and the trees of the last third last being cut because of the danger which they represented from now on. Moreover these trees caused many other damage on the benches, the floors, the sculptures, trellis-work, low walls, drains, rubbles.

In the thickets of the park of the castle, he was deplored the following damage: the English Garden (1 348 trees), the royal Star (1 030 trees), Glaisière (977 trees), Horseshoe (764 trees), the Sabot-makers (632 trees), the Underwood Trianon (525 trees), the Sand pit (459 trees), the INRA (423 trees), the Forecourts (418 trees), the green Round (325 trees), Choisy (319 trees), southern Sailors (234 trees), the Star (231 trees), water Part of Swiss (221 trees), the Flotilla (204 trees), Châteauneuf (172 trees), the Obelisk (149 trees), Baths of Apollo (144 trees), the Garden of Roy (132 trees), the Mirror (109 trees), Floors of Trianon (105 trees), the Hermitage (98 trees), Small Venice (72 trees), the Hamlet of the Queen (53 trees), the Ballroom (37 trees, last thicket composed by Ours), the Menagerie (18 trees).

In 1990, a storm much weaker had made fall thousand eight hundred trees, which at the time had revealed the outdatedness forest of the field. The last regeneration of importance had taken place under Napoleon III and the forest was at least thirty years old of too. Since 1992, a policy of replanting had made it possible to cut three hundred trees each year, but too often ran up against the reserves of familiar of the park which badly agreed to see cutting the most majestic trees. This policy of regeneration and plantation - on average, for a cut tree, ten were replanted - made it possible to avoid a catastrophe even larger, because if the park had remained in the state, the Tempête of 1999 would have cut down nearly forty thousand trees, and of the thickets like that of the House of the Queen or that of the Row would have been entirely devastated.

One of the interests of this storm resides in the fact that certain parts of the accesses of Trianon could be replanted according to the plans of 1783 drawn by Richard Mique, the first architect of Louis XVI of France. He carried out in particular the hamlet of Marie-Antoinette and the interior decoration of Small Trianon - these gardens, left with the abandonment at the time of the French revolution, had been modified on order of Napoleon i. However, it will be necessary more than one century before the field finds its aspect of before the storm.

See too

Castle of Versailles
Garden baroque
Andre Ours
Claude Richard
Part of water of Swiss the
Hamlet of the Queen
Orangery of the castle of Versailles

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