Jardins Anglo-Chinois

only an imitation of those in China", he called the French version of these Anglo-Chinese gardens "les jardins anglo-chinois".

From the early 1770s until the revolution, jardins anglo-chinois were all the rage in France. While they did usually include some Chinese style buildings, their range of architectural styles was the same as at Kew. In the garden of the Petite Trianon at Versailles, the Chinese element was provided by a "Chinese" jeu de bagues (merry-go-round); a plaything for Marie-Antoinette and her circle of friends.

After the French Revolution, many French aristocrats returned to find their formal gardens in ruins. A high percentage of them had spent their years of exile in England and rather than restore their old gardens, they replaced them with gardens in the English landscape style (a l'anglaise). These later gardens tended to be less frivolous than the pre-revolutionary jardins anglo-chinois; they were closer to the landscapes of Capability Brown and they have always been called jardins anglais.

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