A Few Posts from Paris 1 – Parc Monceau

Ah Paris – not a bad spot at all. Trekked over a few weeks ago for a visit and to see the Parc Monceau as despite repeated visits to the City of Lights had never been there before and of course there was a reason to go. So best to post these now before it becomes part of the dim and distant past.

Phillippe d’Orléans, the Duke of Chartres, built the private Parc Monceau in Paris in the 1770s. The artist, Louis de Carmontelle, and a Scottish gardener who moved to Paris Thomas Blaikie, were ordered to create a garden of dreams with fake Gothic ruins that included, as well as a pagoda, a Tartar tent, Egyptian pyramid and a Roman temple. After the French Revolution when the Duke lost his head to Madame Guillotine, the Parc became public property and all Parisians could enjoy the pagoda and its assorted follies. Sadly the pagoda and the Tartar tent appear to have long gone though a couple of bridges, some sculptures and a pyramid thing are still there – not quite the Chinoiserie delight I’d imagined but a perfectly pleasant Paris park all the same and once famous for its Chinois.