Marie Antoinette's Jardin Anglais
This is the second in a three part series of articles about the gardens of the Petit Trianon. My first article describes the gardens during the reign of Louis XV. It will be best to read that article before reading this one.
To understand the design of the Jardin anglais which was created for Marie Antoinette at the Petit Trianon, it is important to realize that the small château which was built for Louis XV is square and each of its facades is different. While the sides of the château aren't lined up with the points of a compass, I will refer to them as the north, south, east, and west facades.
The south facade looks out on a paved courtyard, this was the main entrance for people who arrived by carriage, while the east facade faces the formal Jardin français; both of these areas have remained basically unchanged from the time of Louis XV.
It was the land to the north and the west of the château which was transformed into an English style landscape garden for Marie Antoinette. The first step was the removal of the planting beds of Louis XV's botanical garden which occupied this area; these were laid out in straight, narrow rows; very much like a typical vegetable garden. The large greenhouses to the north of the château were also torn down.
A lake was dug in the area where the greenhouses had been, this fed an artificial river laid out in the shape of an irregular "U". This river is naturalistic in design as it snakes out to the west and then turns south; it is when the river completes the "U" by returning to the east that the influence of the French formal tradition is obvious. As soon as the river bends towards the east it splits in two and flows around and island which is lined up with the west facade of the château. After flowing around the island, the river comes together again, forming a channel which is almost straight, leading directly to the center of the west facade. The river ends by forming an irregular "U" shape around a grassy peninsula. From the west facade the river is like an upside down "Y", leading directly to the island.
The emphasis on a vista which is symmetrically aligned with the facade of the château makes this garden different from English gardens of the same period. The design is more like English gardens of the early eighteenth century, when formal gardens began to be transformed into landscape gardens. This isn't surprising, England and France were at war for much of the eighteenth century. The French only began to experiment with landscape gardens during the last quarter of the century, so their ideas about garden design were still strongly rooted in the formal tradition.
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