Marie Antoinette's Petit Hameau
This is the third and final article in a series about the gardens of the Petit Trianon. It will be best to read the earlier articles first. They are:
2 - Marie Antoinette's Jardin Anglais
It will also be best if you look at the Map of the Petit Trianon which was drawn by Richard Mique in 1786.
Arthur Young (1741 - 1820) was one of the first Europeans to elevate agriculture to a science; the books which he wrote about his travels were also very popular. In 1787 he visited the Petit Trianon, and he has left us a valueable record of what a cultivated Englishman though of Marie Antoinette's English style garden. "To Trianon, to view the queen's Jardin Anglois. I had a letter to Mons. Richard, which procured admittance. It contains about 100 acres, disposed in the taste of what we read in books of Chinese gardening, whence it is supposed that the English style was taken. There is more of Sir William Chambers here than of Mr. Brown - more effort than nature - more expense than taste. It is not easy to conceive of any thing that art can introduce into a garden that is not here; woods, lawns, lakes, rivers, islands, cascades, walks temples and even villages. There are parts of the design very pretty, and well executed. The only fault is too much crouding; which has led to another, that of cutting the lawn by too many gravel walks, an error to be seen in almost every garden that I have met with in France. But the glory of the Petit Trianon is the exotic trees and shrubs. The world has been sucessfully rifled to decorate it. Here are curious and beautiful ones to please the eye of ignorance; and to exercise the memory of science. Of the buildings, the temple of love is truly elegant."
The village that Arthur Young refers to is Marie Antoinette's Petit Hameau. This was a picturesque village which was inspired by the paintings of Hubert Robert and seems to have been his idea, but the designs were drawn up by Richard Mique in 1783. The buildings were erected along the edge of a lake which was dug in 1782, along with a new river which flowed into it. This lake was stocked with 27 pike and 2000 carp so that the royal family and their close friends could enjoy the simple pleasure of fishing.
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