A Tale of Two Gardens

A tale of two gardens.....

One built to impress......one built to inspire.

 One built for a king...........one built by a painter.

Versailles and Giverny

The Palace of Versailles began life as a "humble little hunting lodge" for King Louis XIII.  His son, Louis XIV, who called himself the Sun King began transforming the hunting lodge into the palace as we know it today.  Every little detail is covered in gold leaf, including the fences and gates that display one of many sun motifs that bolster the whole Sun King theme.

The interior of the palace is decorated in the French baroque style with everything drenched in gold leaf or 24 k gold. The French government and court was moved to the palace in 1682.  The road leading to the palace was raised so that the important people visiting the palace wouldn't be able to look out their carriage windows and see commoners walking beside the road. And as a commoner living in the town of Versailles, you had the opportunity to buy the king's table scraps.  No wonder King Louis XIV and Queen Marie-Antoinette were evicted from the palace by revolutionist (many of whom were women) in an event that eventually lead to their beheading. French peasants were starving while the royals lived like this...

This golden border on the velvet wallpaper was woven with genuine gold thread.  The velvet wallpaper was only used in the winter.  It was replaced with silk wallpaper in the summer months.

And did I mention that it was considered an honor to be invited to observe the King wake up in the morning, including watching his first trip to the royal commode.

But we are discussing the gardens.  The gardens of Versailles were designed by Andre' Le Lotre from 1661-1700. The entire park covers 800 hectares (1 hectare = 2.47 acres) with the actual gardens taking up 90 hectares.

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The Grand Canal, located at the top of the above picture, was used for naval demonstrations.  Kind gives you an idea of the scale of the whole thing.  The Republic of Venice gifted Versailles with gondolas manned by gondoliers. And what's a garden without a fountain?

They didn't have the fountain turned on the day we were there, and in the background workers were erecting some sort of sculpture for an upcoming modern art exhibition, but you get the picture.

Gold lizards and turtles surrounding the fountain.

The view King Louis had outside his window.

When the gardens were being made, King Louis didn't want to wait for the trees to mature so he sent his soldiers out into the countryside to dig up 100 year old trees and bring them to Versailles.  Well that did it for me; as beautiful as it might be, I was disgusted.

But part of my disgust came from having visited the most humble, genuine, heartfelt garden earlier in the week- the gardens of Claude Monet.

                                                      More on his beautiful garden next time....

Love ya'll, 

Shelli

All goes back to the earth,

and so I do not desire

pride of excess or power,

but the contentments made

by men who have had little:

the fisherman’s silence

receiving the river’s grace,

the gardener’s musing on rows....

~Wendell Berry, "The Want of Peace"

There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; 

when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets. 

~Robert Ingersoll, A Lay Sermon