Bagatelle Gardens

Bagatelle has not only an atmosphere of poetic beauty and serenity on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne
close to the bustle of Paris, but is also a place of great historical and horticultural interest.
Its history stretches back almost three centuries including a château which is an 18th century 'folly'.
Since 1905, it has belonged to the City of Paris and is used for exhibitions, concerts and cultural events.
The Scottish gardener Thomas Blaikie was commissioned to lay out the grounds.

The charm of Bagatelle lies in its scenic variety; the water lilies, the big rockery, the orangery and its floral parterres,
the footpaths in tunnels cut in the greenery and big spaces planted with trees.

The rose garden is laid out in the purest of French styles with 9000 roses from 1000 varieties in bloom in June.
In 1992 France established a national collection of clematis at the Bagatelle Garden.

The Bagatelle was originally just a small house bought by the Maréchal d'Estrées in 1720.

Soon afterwards transformed into a luxurious small castle, it turned into an extremely costly folly.

Christened "Bagatelle", it was to become a location for festivities and a hunting meet.
In 1770 Count Chimay, the chief huntsman of Count d'Artois, brother of Louis XVI became the owner.

Invited by Chimay, Count d'Artois developed a passion for the estate and bought it in 1775.
He demolished the now decaying folly and built another even grander and quite extraordinary castle.
his saw the appearance of a fabulous estate with a landscaped park.

Miraculously spared during the Revolution, Bagatelle experienced several fates:
as a restaurant in 1797, then as a hunting meet under Napoléon, the estate being returned
to the family of Count d'Artois under the Restoration.

Bagatelle was reborn when it was bought by Lord Seymour in 1835.

With the addition of a grand entrance on the park side, an orangery and new stables,
the park was extended then transformed into the Jardin Napoléon III in the second half of the XIXth century.

Sir Richard Wallace, the adopted son of Lord Seymour, had the Trianon built
and the two present sentry pavilions and the two terraces which still exist.

In 1905 Bagatelle was sold to the City of Paris.

Just prior to its redevelopment, Bagatelle was a strange sight. A landscape where rivers,
paths and beds of flowers, created in the XIXth century, softened the surprise effects of
the pre-romantic gardens of the Count d'Artois without detracting from its spirit.

From 1905, the J.C.N. Forestier, the Commissioner of the Jardins de Paris, succeeded in retaining
the garden's style whilst at the same time redeveloping it.

In order to make the public more aware of the growing popularity of horticulture, J.C.N. Forestier
created temporary and permanent collections of horticultural plants.

He built the famous rose gardens, the iris garden and the presenters, designed a pond to improve
the presentation of aquatic plants and water lilies which were so dear to the painter Claude Monet.

In 1907 he organized the first international competition for new roses.
Jules Gravereaux provided the original roses.

Exhibitions, concerts and various cultural events are periodically held in
the castle and the magnificent Bagatelle gardens.