Château de Bagatelle

The rear façade of the château

View of the front façade

The Bathing PoolbyHubert Robertwas at the Château de Bagatelle until 1808.

TheChâteau de BagatelleinParisis a smallNeoclassical-stylechâteauwith severalFrench formal gardens,a rose garden and anorangerie.It is set on 59 acres of grounds inFrench landscape stylewithin theBois de Boulogne,which is located in the16th arrondissement of Paris.

There are other châteaux named Bagatelle in France, including theChâteau de BagatelleinPicardyand theChâteau de BagatelleinBrittany.

Origins

The château is a glorified playground, actually amaison de plaisanceintended for brief stays while hunting in the Bois de Boulogne in a party atmosphere. The French wordbagatelle,from theItalianwordbagatella,means a trifle or little decorative nothing. Initially, a smallhunting lodgewas built on the site for theMaréchal d'Estréesin 1720.

In 1775, theComte d'Artois,Louis XVI's brother, purchased the property from thePrince de Chimay.The Comte soon had the existing house torn down, with plans to rebuild. Famously,Marie-Antoinettewagered against the Comte, her brother-in-law, that the new château could not be completed within three months. The Comte engaged theNeoclassicalarchitectFrançois-Joseph Bélangerto design the building that remains in the park today.

The Comte won his bet by completing the house (the only residence ever designed and built expressly for him) in sixty-three days, from September 1777. It is estimated that the project, which came to include manicured gardens, employed eight hundred workers and cost over three million livres. Bélanger's brother-in-law, Jean-Démosthène Dugourc, provided much of the decorative detail.

The central domed feature was a music room. The master bedroom was fitted up in the manner of a military tent,andHubert Robertexecuted a set of six Italianate landscapes for the bathroom.Most of the furnishings were provided by numerous Parisianmarchand-merciers,notablyDominique Daguerre,and a decorative painter was A.-L. Delabrière.

Motto

On the entablature of the entrance facade are inscribed theLatinwordsParva sed Apta( "Small but suitable" ), copied from the inscription the Italian poetAriosto(d. 1533) had inscribed on his modest house atFerrara.The full inscription read:

Parva sed apta mihi,

Sed nulli obnoxia, sed non Sordida,

Parta meo sed tamen aere domus.

One translation in verse reads:

Small is my humble roof, but well designed,

To suit the temper of the master's mind;

Hurtful to none, it boasts a decent pride,

That my poor purse the modest cost supplied.

History

Map of the gardens surrounding the château

In 1777, a party was thrown in the recently completed house in honour ofLouis XVIand the Queen. The party featured a new table game featuring a smallbilliard-like table with raised edges and cue sticks, which players used to shoot ivory balls up an inclined playfield with fixed pins. The table game was dubbed "bagatelle"by the Count and shortly after swept through France, evolving into various forms which eventually culminated in the modernpinball machine.

The formal garden spaces surrounding the château, which was linked to its dependencies by tunnels, was expanded with a surrounding park in the naturalistic English landscape style by the Scottish garden-designerThomas Blaikie,and dotted with sham ruins, an obelisk, apagoda,primitive hermits' huts and grottoes.

Afêtegiven on 20 May 1780, described in Blaikie's diary, gives a sense of the extravagant atmosphere. An additional part of the Bois de Boulogne had recently been taken into the prince's grounds, but the wall remained:

Mr Belanger had an invention which made a Singulare effect by undermining the wall on the outside and placing people with ropes to pull the wall down at a word.... there was an actor who acted the part of a Magician who asked their Majesties how they liked the Gardens and what a beautiful view there was towards the plain if that wall did not obstruct it but that their Majesties need only give the word that he with his enchanted wand would make that wall disappear; the Queen not knowing told him with a laugh 'Very well I should wish to see it disappear' and in the instant the signal was given and above 200 yards opposite where the company stood fell flat to the ground which surprised them all "

Following theFrench Revolution,Napoleon Iinstalled his sonNapoleon IIthere, before the château was restored to the Bourbons. In 1835, it was sold byHenry, Count of ChambordtoFrancis Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertfordand was inherited on his death seven years later by his son, the4th Marquess,who already lived in Paris for most of the year. It contained the largest part of his extensive collection of French paintings, sculptures, furniture and works of decorative art, most of which went to form theWallace Collectionin London. Bagatelle underwent five years of redecorating and extensions, and then Lord Hertford did not reside in it until 1848.

Like most of his unentailedproperty, Bagatelle was left to his illegitimate sonSir Richard Wallaceon Lord Hertford's death in 1870, as his entailed property and his title passed to a distant cousin. Bagatelle was acquired from his heir,Sir John Murray-Scott,by theCity of Parisin 1905.

TheSantos-Dumont 14-bison an old postcard, flying at the château's grounds

The Bagatelle gardens, created byJean-Claude Nicolas Forestier,the Commissioner of Gardens for the city of Paris, are the site of the annualConcours international de roses nouvelles de Bagatelle,an international competition for newrosesrun by the City of Paris in June of each year. It was first organized in 1907, making it the oldest competition in the world dedicated to this flower.

Though the Revolutionary sales emptied the house, at Bagatelle in Sir John Murray-Scott's time were replicas of the bronze vases at Versailles. Upon the sale of the house by Sir John Murray-Scott, the vases were sent to his brother's house,Nether Swell ManorinGloucestershire.

In 1892, the Bagatelle grounds hosted the firstFrench championship matchinrugby union,in which local side Racing Club de France, predecessor of today'sRacing 92,defeated fellow ParisiansStade Français4–3.The Bagatelle also played host to some of thepoloevents for the1924 Summer Olympicsin neighbouringParis.

A number of the aviation experiments conducted by pioneer aviatorAlberto Santos-Dumontused the grounds of Bagatelle (48°52′5″N2°14′24″E), next to the château, as a flying field, most notably the initial flights of his 1906-eraSantos-Dumont 14-biscanard biplane.

Gallery

• 
  View of the garden and rear elevation
• 
  From the garden in May 2010
• 
  The pond
• 
  The two principal buildings
• 
  The orangerie
• 
  A formal garden
• 
  The rose garden
• 
  The rose garden
• 
  A folly

See also

• History of parks and gardens of Paris

External links

• History of Château de Bagatelle– Mansart Foundation website
• Château de Bagatelle– Tourist Office website
• Parc & Château de Bagatelle– Discover France website
• Château de Bagatelle– Monuments in Paris website