French Garden Dreams Inspired by Japanese Garden Reality

“Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?”

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

For years I dreamt of a "bit of earth" and when we moved to Versailles my fantasy was realized, first in the garden of our rental apartment and later when we bought our house.  A decent-sized lot was a requirement (I could care less about the size of the house) as was a layout with possibilities:  small and large spaces, shade and light, trees and shrubs;  and room for fruits and vegetables.  

That was a lot to ask for but the property we purchased has all that if I plan and plant it right.  My time in Japan has both inspired and instructed me.  The gardens here are amazing and they provide clever solutions that apply to my garden at home:  How do I get the maximum effect out of the space I have?

In the front of my is house a small rectangular courtyard which gets sun in the morning and shade in the afternoon.  It was separated from the street by a horrible chain link fence covered in blue plastic and a very nice maroon metal gate. Here is what it looked like back in 2012 after I got rid of the weeds.

The blue plastic went to the dump.  We had the chain link fence painted maroon to match the gate and I also painted the concrete brick walls.  After amending the soil I started to plant a few things every year.  Here is what has been accomplished so far.

Better but still a work in progress.  The house is very close to a busy street and the noise and pollution are a big problem.  M. (our house sitter) planted a row of shrubs along the chain link fence which (interestingly enough) is a plant that comes from Japan: Aucuba japonica.  We chose this shrub because it's an evergreen with lovely foliage and because there is already a row of them growing insanely fast in the backyard and they are lush and green with no hint of disease. The next phase is to plant more small trees like Japanese maples (there is already one on the other side of the courtyard and I'm waiting to see if it does well) and/or alders and/or witch hazel and a few box shrubs (or perhaps azaleas) so that there will be a mixture of tall and short things that provide a beautiful multi-layered screen against the dust and noise. Another idea I have is to pull up some of the flagstones and put a small tree in the middle of the north side for yet another beautiful barrier against the street.  

It was in Japan that I really got a feel for how to place and prune trees for a small space. The rule I have lived by ever since I read Cass Turnball's works  is never plant anything that you can't allow to grow to its full height and width.  Well, the Japanese don't do it that way and their way works and looks fantastic.  I have walked gardens in Himeji, Hiroshima, Shodoshima, Kyoto, Tokyo, Wakayama, Sapporo, and Osaka and have taken countless pictures of how they pruned in particular spaces and what trees were used to create certain effects.  Two books I have read and would recommend to you are The Art of Creative Pruning: Inventive Ideas for Training and Shaping Trees and Shrubs and  Niwaki: Pruning, Training and Shaping Trees the Japanese Way.  Both are by Jake Hobson.

Turning to the backyard garden this is what it looked like when we moved into the Versailles house.

Messy but filled with potential.  A garden with great "bones".  Note on the right side of the photo the diseased shrubs.  In the back right corner what looks like a shrub was actually growth coming out of a tree stump.  But along the back stone wall there were roses and muguet which said to me that this garden was wonderful once.  The first step was one of subtraction - everything that was dead and dying had to go and it took months.  Only then could I amend the soil and start adding.  Slowly.  A few things a year.

Here is what it looks like now.

See what I mean by good "bones?"  So what's the plan here?  See that big bush on left side just after the bamboo?  That one is a conundrum.  There are many lovely varieties of weigelia but this isn't one of them.  This one has spindly boring flowers and has to be cut back fiercely at least once a year. So much work for so little reward.   I want to move it (perhaps to the front courtyard if there is enough light) and place a small pond in its place.  Something that looks like a smaller version of this:

In other words I want to dip my toes into water gardening.  When we were in Brittany we brought back some beautiful granite stones and a small auge which I will use instead of a waterfall.  The effect would be something like this:

So much to do and it's all doable with sweat and blood (I cut myself often).  And affordable if I just spend enough hours on Le Bon Coin. 

But I am so grateful to have spent time in Japan and to have had my old ideas about gardening challenged.  And to be abundantly clear, I don't want a Japanese garden.  What I want is a garden with the best and most locally appropriate ideas from the three countries I've called home:  the United States, France, and Japan.   I want it to be the best "bit of earth" it can be - a transnational garden from an old transnational gardener.

And just for fun (since it's Friday)  here is a short clip about my favorite garden in Japan:  Kokoen Garden in Himeji.  If you have only one thing to see in that city, skip the castle and go to see this garden divided up into nine spaces that are so beautiful that each and every one will make your heart sing.

The Flophouse Painting Project Phase II

"It begins in the imaginations of the people who built it and is gradually transformed, for better and for worse, by the people who occupy it down through the years, decades, centuries.  To tinker with a house is to commune with the people who have lived in it before and to leave messages for those who will live in it later.  Every house is a living museum of habitation, and a monument to all the lives and aspirations that have flickered within it."

David Owen
The Walls Around Us

Been doing a lot of that "communing" this past week.  Phase II of the Paint the Flophouse Project kicked off a few days ago.  (Phase I was the garden walls so ably and beautifully painted by Mike, our favorite Ikea technician from Dax).

Brick (or stone) houses still have a lot of wood in them:  under the eaves, certainly - under that tile roof are wood supports that hang over the house and protect the sides and hold up the gutters - but also decorative wood around the porches.  At least I assume they are decorative and not holding up anything important. Guess we'll find out, won't we?

 I don't know much about brick but I'm a girl from the Pacific Northwest of the good old US of A and I do know wood.   Go outside the house, stand right next to an exterior wall and look up. You'll see is peeling paint, holes and boards that look loose to me.  Not something to ignore because wood doesn't like to be naked.  It rots when exposed to the elements. Happily, this is something we can fix ourselves.   And that's precisely what we've been doing this past week once we had the obligatory meeting with the city architect and got authorization for the color (RAL 8012).

So far the back porch is done and the eaves on the north side of the house. So far, so good.  No rot and while we were up there we cleaned out the gutters and fixed a huge fissure in the cement. Actually, we didn't do the last - the French navy stopped by (a friend of ours who brought along his son) and lent a hand.  All I can say is that those sailors sure know a thing or two about this kind of work  because everything he did is absolutely perfect.

I am now working on the front porch and here everything David Owen said in the above quotation becomes evident.  There are about 6 layers of paint on that wood in a delicious variety of colors:  off-white, blue, green, red, dark brown, light brown.

As I threw on application after application of that horrible product and scraped,  each color, each layer, became visible and I stopped and tried to imagine what the entire house looked like when it was that blue or that green.  All the way back to a time when the neighborhood looked like this:

Or later.  More specifically in the World War II period.  I have friends here in town who are old enough to vividly remember those days.  One even recalls the house since she passed by it every day when she went to school.  And when I rest and pick up the latest book I'm reading, What Soldiers Do by Mary Louise Roberts, how odd to think that this house and its inhabitants lived through those times - the Occupation and the replacement of German soldiers by American ones (Madame G remembers that all too well).

I feel a bit like an amateur archeologist here and it occured to me that the restoration work I'm doing right now is also an act of destruction.  I am erasing traces of the past. Once I have scraped the last bit of paint from that wood, and people like Madame G pass on, there will be no one to remember the color of the house in the 1940's.  Only me, the latest (and mostly likely not the last) inhabitant of this funny little house.

And that's a tragedy (albeit a very small one that counts for nearly nothing in the larger scheme of things) which leaves me with a strange sense of guilt. Why?  Most likely because I am product of a time that regards preservation/restoration as something of a secular religion (Chris Wilson). Did the previous owners of this house have the same concerns?  I doubt it.

So to salve my conscience and to document (because really what else can we do?) here is what it looks like.

And now, having genuflected in the direction of the altar of "restoration" it's back to the present - my own aspirations and the traces I will leave for future owners to ponder.

Idleness is the Enemy of the Soul

"Idleness is the enemy of the soul.
Therefore the sisters should be occupied
at certain times in manual labor,
and again at fixed hours in sacred reading.
To that end we think that the times for each may be prescribed as follows.

From Easter until the Calends of October,
when they come out from Prime in the morning
let them labor at whatever is necessary
until about the fourth hour,
and from the fourth hour until about the sixth
let them apply themselves to reading.
After the sixth hour, having left the table,
let them rest on their beds in perfect silence;
or if anyone may perhaps want to read,
let her read to herself
in such a way as not to disturb anyone else."

Regula Benedicti

Chapter 48, On the Daily Manual Labor

For me the perfect life would be some combination of the above.  A mixture of manual labor, reading and contemplation.  Last week was all that and more.

Mike came up to Versailles from Dax and we scraped, sanded and painted every garden wall here at the Flophouse.  Our work accelerated after a quick look at the meteo (weather report) that predicted rain for Versailles later in the week and so we scraped, sanded and painted even faster.  It was an all out effort but we made it.  Here are the before and after pictures:

What I like about this kind of work is that it is perfect for contemplation.  I get a lot of thinking done in the garden - it's as if working the muscles frees the mind.  On my mind was a book I read a couple of weeks ago called Aftermath:  Deportation Law and the New American Diaspora by Daniel Kanstroom.  Your mileage may vary but it made my stomach hurt.  What he describes may be in complete accordance with the law but certainly does not culminate in what I would call justice. Victor Hugo's words sum it up quite beautifully:  "Le droit et la loi, telles sont les deux forces: de leur accord naît l'ordre, de leur antagonisme naissent les catastrophes."

Whatever the intentions (and it should be noted that with this law and policy there is complete continuity between George Bush and Barack Obama) this catastrophe has had terrible consequences for American immigrants and citizens alike. 

Now that I've had time to reflect on it, I will write a longer review of the book and we can discuss. Easy to point out the injustices of any system - harder to come up with solutions, but Kanstroom tries and what he proposes seems sensible.  Of course, it is too little, too late, for about 13 million people...

Saturday we rested (sort of) and went to the garden store, Truffaut.  I had a list of plants I wanted:  creeping thyme, astilbe and another ornamental tree for the front courtyard.   There was the list (and I did find everything on the list) and then there were the deals I just couldn't pass up:  flats of vegetables for the potager and two huge black plastic pots marked down to 10 euros each.  These are perfect for fulfilling a vision I've had for the front courtyard:  a small fountain just under the bedroom window to cut the noise from the street and add some whimsy.  Here's what it looks like so far:

I'm still filling the pot with water - I just turn the hose that direction when I go out to water and let the rain do the rest.  The next step will be to get a small floating solar water jet - something like this, for example.

This morning we are off to visit the King's Kitchen Garden near the castle and I will end this post with this prayer I read silently to myself as I was sitting in the pew at St. Michel on Easter morning waiting for the services to start.  A good one for all exiles everywhere...

Mon Dieu, sur la terre où je m’exile, où sont les chants de ta maison ? Dans le pays qui veut me perdre, où donc est le festin ? Dans les déserts où je m’enfonce, où sont les eaux de mon baptême? Viens me secourir : assoiffe encore mon cœur et ma chair, pour que je me souvienne, dans ma nuit, et que je te cherche, dès l’aube. Alors, de toute mon âme, je m’attacherai à toi, je lèverai les mains et je te bénirai. 

My God, in the land of my exile, where are the songs of your house? In the country that wishes to lose me, where is the feast? In the deserts where I sink every deeper, where are the waters of my baptism? Come to my aid: make thirsty my heart and my flesh so that I remember in my night to seek you in the dawn. And so with all my heart I will bind myself to you, I will raise my hands and bless you.

The Sick Helping the Sick

Every Wednesday I leave the house around 11:30 and walk over to my church, St. Elisabeth de Hongrie, for the 12:05 Mass.  In my purse I have a small, round, gold box called a custode which I put on the altar with a communion host inside.  After the high point of the Mass, Father closes it up and hands it to me saying "Take this to our sick brother or sister."

The role I'm playing here is called an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion and it's part of the larger parish service to the sick and homebound.  In an ideal world it would be done by a priest or a deacon but lay members of the Church can fill in when the circumstances require it.

I was asked to do this because it wasn't so long ago that I was the one who was sick and stuck at home.  When I was going through chemo I simply didn't know that I could ask for my local parish to do this.  Yes, even us cradle Catholics are completely clueless sometimes.

My assignment is a 90+ year old Frenchwoman who is sharp as a tack but had a really bad fall a year or so ago and is now stuck at home.  In all honesty she's probably done me more good then I've done her.  The visit has a framework but it's also an exchange.  I've learned all sorts of things about Versailles and about her region, Auvergne. She has lived in Versailles most of her life but she still says that she is from Chaudes-Aigues, a small community known for its station thermale (thermal spa/hot springs) which has been around since the 14th century.

Yesterday I was complaining about my arthritis and the joint pain caused by my cancer meds.  Madame G. urged me to head south for a cure.  Book a few days down in my hometown, she said.  It's beautiful there and really will help your arthritis.

Who am I argue with experience?  I checked the Net when I got back home and the water there is supposed to be around 82 degrees Celsius (180 degrees Fahrenheit).  Sounds like heaven to me.

As I said she's lived most of her life in Versailles and she's been in the same apartment since just after World War II.  The neighborhood is, well, not a great one.  Versailles does have "cheap seats" and this particular one is called Chantiers. There is a big regional train station smack in the middle of the quartier and the surrounding area has seen better days:  lots of run-down buildings, peeling paint and crumbling stonework. Tourists are unlikely to be found here since what interests them is the castle, of course, and the neighborhoods that are directly adjacent to it.

Her apartment building, however, is just gorgeous and well-maintained.  It was probably built in the late 19th/early 20th century by, according to her, an American investor.  The apartments are very small but they have big windows that overlook a lovely courtyard.  And above the big double doors that one goes through to get the courtyard there is a stunning ceramic decoration by A. Bigot.  I think this is a work by Alexandre Bigot, a French céramiste (1862-1927).

I'll leave you to go about your day with a few photos I took of the building as I was walking out yesterday.  Have a lovely day, everyone.

Versailles - les Maisons en Meulière

Versailles is so much more than that gaudy gilded monstrosity at the other end of of town.  Take the road from my house to the Montreuil train station, for example.  Walk up past the community center, take a left away from the Sainte Geneviève high school, and then slow down and start looking at the houses on both sides of the boulevard de la République. Really look because each one is unique and a feast for the eyes.  Do this a few times and you'll start to see common elements that unite them all and make this one of the most charming streets I have had the pleasure to walk. Most of them are what are called maisons en meulière.

What is meulière?  It's a type of stone that is pretty common in this area and it was used for two things:  millstones and houses.  Unlike the smooth cut stones (pierre de taille) that grace many of the grander buildings in the Paris region, meulière is irregular, multi-coloured, and rough.  It has holes like Swiss cheese and every time I get close to it, I want to run my hands over it.  (If there is a geologist reading this, please jump in and give us an expert view.)

The houses built with this type of stone on the boulevard de la République were constructed in the early years of the 20th century.  In contrast to the roughness of the meulière they used brick, cut stone,  faïences, and iron and woodwork to give each house a touch of something special. "Art Nouveau" decor says one of the articles I read. On some of them you can see the name of a very well known Versailles architect "Leon Bachelin" on a little discreet plaque somewhere on the facade.  Bachelin is credited with the invention of the typical "maison bourgeoise versaillaise".  One source I found said that he designed these houses for wealthy Parisians who wanted houses in the close suburbs.  Apparently a hundred years ago Versailles qualified as "the country" for these folks.

Most of the buildings are set back from the street with a little courtyard in front and, I assume, a much bigger garden in the back. Today you can't see as much as you might like because some of the owners past or present have put metal plates over the classic wrought iron fences separating the front garden from the street.

I am a terrible photographer and I couldn't possible do these houses justice but I did find this Flickr site that does.  I invite you to have a look.  There is also this very fine documentary (about 10 minutes) from France 5.


Immobilier a Sannois par immobilier-2

I love these houses.  However, if we had gone looking for one to buy two years ago, we would have suffered instant sticker shock.  They are very expensive, especially in the Montreuil neighborhood.  Here is a link to one that is one the market right now for the princely sum of 1.5 million Euros.  Some nice pictures though and, hey, one can always dream, right?

The Flophouse Godin

Mail and quite a few hits in response to my posts about our Godin wood stove. Here is the story - all the posts I wrote last year about it in chronological order:

A "Petit Godin" for the Flophouse (January 2013)  Why we decided to get a wood stove for our house here in Versailles and a nice video I found that shows how a top-loading Godin works.

The Search for the Perfect French Wood Stove (May 2013)  All the different models we looked at when we went to the Godin showroom in St. Cyr.

 

Tempus Fugit at the Flophouse (June 2013)  The month we finally got the mason to do the work of raising the chimney.  He did great work.  Before and after pictures.

Flophouse House and Garden Fall Projects (September 2013)  The story of how we came to buy our odd little house in Versailles and how the installation of the wood stove by Godin went.

Settling in for the Winter - le Petit Godin (November 2013)  A report on how well we liked our stove once we actually started using it.

People have sent stories about Godins in places like Vermont and Quebec.  I've also heard from folks who either want one and want to know if they are still being exported, or from those who are thinking about it and have questions about how well they work and if it's really worth it.

One wood stove does not make me an expert but, hey, I live to serve.





Finding a Godin:  From what I am hearing (and if you have other information, please correct me) Godin still exports but not everywhere.  I found new stoves for sale in the UK, for example.  I did not find any resellers in North America BUT I did see more than one used Godin on Ebay under "vintage wood stove" or "antique French Godin" so that's one place to look.   Craigslist might be another - they have sites all over the world.  There are other forums and boards you can check out like this one which gives you a good idea of the prices (used) - I see one in Tacoma, Washington for 300 USD (about 220 Euros).   These stoves are downright indestructible and last forever so it makes sense that there would be used ones out there.  

On the Godin website they have a catalog request form and apparently they have an English language version.  So for you anglophones out there just put in your address and check "Anglais" and "Particulier."  You can also have a look at their on-line catalog.  I'd suggest checking one or the other of these sources to get a good idea of the range of stoves available and then start looking for a used one in your area if there aren't any Godin resellers in your country.

How Well Do They Work?  Well, I haven't received a single comment or email from someone who doesn't love their Godin.  As for us, we are very pleased so far.  Be aware that it's not that cold in Versailles yet.  Early January temperatures are hovering just above freezing at night and there's almost no wind. Depending on how much wood I feed it, I can keep the main floor of our little house between 21 and 23 degrees Celsius ( between 70 and 73 degrees Fahrenheit).

We are using more wood these days and we are now confronted with the problem of picking it up, storing it, and keeping it dry.  We don't have a truck so we have to use the car and we can only fit about 3/4 of a stere in the back per load.  That amount of wood lasts us about three weeks.

Last week we made two trips to Viroflay and Mr. Treps' woodlot and packed 1.5 steres on the front porch.   This is the side of the house least exposed to the wind and rain.  I've learned that it's easier to get the stove started and continuously burning throughout the day if I stack a day's worth of wood and kindling in the house in the evening before I go to bed.

We could get wood delivered and we've looked into it.  But we don't have a driveway and there's no place for a truck to pull up and dump the wood.  Also, we like buying locally and Mr. Treps' prices and service (he always helps us load) are good.  What we may do next summer is build a shelter on the side of the house with room for roughly what we would need for the winter.  Then we would make a series of small trips each month while the weather is good until we fill the space.


Yesterday I got a call from Caldeo, the fuel company (another place with great service) asking if we needed the tank topped off.  Last delivery was 1000 liters in October which brought the counter up to 1200 liters.  I went down and checked and we still have about 800 liters left.  So we are using a little over 100 liters (26 gallons) of fuel a month.  That's about what you would put into an SUV if you took one down to the local gas station and said, "Fill her up."

I think we can do better but it will never be zero because our boiler provides heat and hot water.  I'm an old lady with arthritis and I'm not giving up my hot baths nor will I wash my dishes in cold water. There are limits and il ne faut pas exagérer...

I've set up a spreadsheet and I will be tracking how much wood we use and the rate at which we are burning fuel.  This will give me a baseline for next year.

The Final Grade:  5 Stars.  Two thumbs up.  20/20.  A++.  It really was worth all the trouble and the expense.  I have no idea when we will get a return on the investment but we are clearly using less fuel.  There are also a number of indirect benefits that we didn't think of when we first got the stove installed but have become apparent with time and experience.

Dry heat:  The heat from the wood stove is dry heat and feels better than the heat that comes off the radiators.  Versailles is really humid and cold - it was built on swampland and a few hundred years ago there was a pond where our house sits today.  We get that stove going and we can feel the house getting warmer and drier.  It's great for my arthritis.

Cooking:  I'm not kidding.  I hauled out my grandmother's (great-grandmother's?) cast iron skillet which fits beautifully on the top of the stove.  I've made beef stew, reheated roast chicken and defrosted vegetables from the freezer.  I'm sure I could do much more.  Right now I am looking for a cast iron tea kettle at a reasonable price so I can have tea water on demand.

Fertilizer:  There is a little tray for the ashes in the bottom of the stove.  Every morning I take it out and either dump it in the garden or I mix it into the compost pail in the kitchen (keeps it from smelling).  I used our fireplace ashes in the garden in our old apartment and it made a huge difference - the flowers and vegetables just loved it.  I think this garden will love it too.



Less waste:  We used to take out the recycling bin once a week and it was always full.  These days it's more like every two or three weeks.  This is because we use paper for starting fires.  I'd never realized just how much of our recycling was paper products.  That was an inspiration and now we are looking into just what else is going into that bin that we could reuse.  Here's one example and, yes, I'm going to try it.

That's the bilan so far.  If you know other resources or have stories to tell about Godin wood stoves old or new, antique or modern, please share them.  I can attest to the fact that there is interest out there.

And for the next big Flophouse project?  Right here.

Versailles and the Sound of Sacred Music

Let's change channels, folks, and move on to more interesting topics.

Starting earlier this week and continuing over the weekend is the annual Versailles au son des orgues.  This is a series of organ concerts at churches and chapels all around Versailles:  Notre Dame, the St. Louis cathedral, the Chapelle Royale at the castle and many others.  Even my parish church, Sainte Elisabeth de Hongrie, is on the program.

If you just happen to be in town tonight you have a choice between a concert in honor of Elisabeth Brasseur at the Eglise Sainte Jeanne d'Arc  or a free conference, "Histoire, architecture et facture d’un orgue" (History and architecture of the organ) at the Atelier Numérique.

To my deep regret I haven't attended any of the concerts this past week because of my appointments at the clinic but I am planning on making either Saturday's concert, "Musique allemande pour chœur et orgue" (German music for choir and organ)  at Saint Symphorien or  Sunday's concert at the St. Louis cathedral with Daniel Roth.  Both are free to the public.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and if you are interested in going to one of the concerts just let me know via email and we can meet over a little sacred music.  And if you haven't darkened the doors of a church in many many years, just relax and I'll walk you through it. :-)

Les Jeudis Musicaux

Last Thursday the younger Frenchling and I made our way to the Versailles castle for what turned out to be an extraordinary evening.

Les Jeudis Musicaux (Musical Thursdays) are concerts organized by the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles at the Versailles Castle. And not just anywhere in the castle mind you but in the Royal Chapel.    

Sacred music in a sacred place.  What an incredible experience to hear the music written for chapels and churches hundreds of years ago.  The music that people listened to when they went to Mass.


And what was on the program last Thursday evening?

Jean-Jean-François Dandrieu
Magnificat en La 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ave verum

Louis Grénon
Petite Messe en la majeur (A Major)

And for the last they kindly provided both the Latin and the French translations in the program so that we could all follow along as the choir sang the mass.  It was really something at the end when they chanted Domine salvum fac regem (God save the King):

Domine salvum fac regem
& exaudi nos in die
qua invocaverimus te

Seigneur sauvez le Roy
& exaucez-nous au jour
que nous vous invoquerons

God save the King
and answer us the day 
we call on you

These Musical Thursdays are just one of the many cultural events held here in Versailles that are not nearly as well known as they should be.  (Another is the incredible show put on by the  L'Académie du spectacle équestre (The Academy of Equestrian Arts) in the King's Stables).

And would you believe that these musical feasts are completely free to the public?  You don't even have to buy a ticket to get inside the the castle - you just go directly to a door adjacent to the chapel, say you are there for the concert, and they usher you right in.  Amazing.

Don't miss it next time you are in the city.  And if you send me a note ahead of time, I'll go with you.

In fact, I'd go every Thursday if I could.  This is the kind of "stuff" I love and I personally think is well worth paying for.  I am so very grateful that I live in a country that sees nourishment for the soul and the mind as something worth offering to everyone.

Le Domaine de Madame Elisabeth

The younger Frenchling and I made a deal this morning after I came home from mass.  She has one week of vacation left and I have one week before my radiotherapy begins and neither of us really wants to spend that time sitting at home.   So starting today we are going to find at least one thing (monument, park, museum, exhibition) we've never seen before in Paris or Versailles and go there together.

Today's choice was pathetically easy.  We've lived across from the Domaine de Madame Elisabeth for over 5 years now and no one from our family has so much as put one foot inside the gates.  This afternoon we rectified that.

The Domaine de Madame Elisabeth (also called the Domaine de Montreuil) is a property of around 8 hectares (about 19 scres)  that was acquired by the king, Louis XVI, in the late 18th century from a noble couple in financial difficulty.  The king gifted it to his younger sister, Madame Elisabeth, in 1783 when she was 19 years old.  Which meant, as the younger Frenchling pointed out, she didn't have much time to enjoy it.

When the Revolution began she refused to go into exile and was imprisoned with her brother and his wife and followed them to the scaffold in 1794.


Today the Domaine is a public park and entry is free to the public.  It would probably be best to visit in the summertime but today was a cool sunny autumn day and it was perfect for a walk.  Here are a few pictures: