January 13, 2020 • 29 mins
Le Nôtre's work defined the French formal garden in the 17th century. Today in part one, we’re going to cover his life up to a project that was controversial not for Le Nôtre's part in it, but because of its implications for the property’s owner.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Wilson. Uh.
And this is a two parter. This is the first
of a two parter. And this has been the word
works for a long time. It has been since our
(00:23):
trip to France in June, so like six months. Uh,
And it has taken a while for a few reasons.
Um when we had Sarah Roberts from the Atlanta History
Center on to talk about the center's historic gardens. As
we were talking after we had recorded, I mentioned to
her that I was working on an episode about French
gardener Andre Lenore and that I thought it was going
(00:44):
to have to be two episodes because there was so much,
And she responded, how are you going to get it
all into just two episodes? Admittedly she comes at this
from the perspective of someone who is steeped in horticulture,
and so to her it could have been a whole
podcast series. But even if you are not from that background,
it's a lot. Because Na was a very busy man.
(01:07):
He worked on many, many very high profile landscapes and
gardens in France and throughout Europe, including most famously the
grounds of Versailles, and his work really defined the French
formal garden in the seventeenth century, and a lot of
that work is still being enjoyed today, more than three
hundred years after his death. He also was very long lived,
so that is part of why he was so influential
(01:29):
and there is so much to talk about. You will
find statues and memorials to him in a number of
different locations in Paris and the surrounding areas, because his
work was really instrumental in developing the cultural identity of
France as an epicenter of design and style. If you
walk around Toulri, there is a bust of him there.
If you are driving through the town of Versailles going
(01:50):
up to the palace, you will see a statue of him.
I saw another smaller one just in a little neighborhood
while we were walking around at the end of our trip,
when everybody had left but Brian and my sell and
so like. He clearly is very very important. Um So
today in part one we are going to cover his
life up to and including a project that was controversial,
not for Lenussle's part in it, but because of its
(02:12):
implications for the property's owner, there was scandal, but it
did not impact Lenore negatively. And then on part two,
we're going to talk a lot about Versailles, and then
the last years of Leno was life. Before we get started, though,
we're going to do a little level set on the
use of the word gardener versus another term like landscape
architect or something else that might seem a little more
(02:35):
descriptive of what he was actually doing. The term landscape
architect didn't exist at all during Lenore's time. It wasn't
coined until the mid nineteenth century. So even though we'll
default to some degree to using the term gardener or
master gardener because that's often named as his profession, historically,
his work really went way way beyond that as his
(02:57):
role under Louis the fourteenth evolved and expanded. Not only
did he turned his intellect into learning geometry and mathematics
to ensure that his landscape designs were sound, but he
also ended up needing to learn a lot about engineering
for his more large scale works, and he had to
develop management and leadership skills. Also. In the mix of
all of this, was a love for an understanding of art,
(03:19):
and that informed all of his other work. So even
though we're going to call him a gardener, there's no
disrespect intended with that, and he was much more than
what we might describe as a gardener today. Yeah. I
think if someone working professionally today did the types of
things he did and you called them a gardener, they
would be super insulted. That is not the intent. Um.
(03:39):
It is this impressive combination of his of skills and disciplines,
as well as a very calm and humorous temperament that
enabled him to collaborate with a variety of strong minded people,
and that has given Andre Lenoza an important place in
French history and has made his work something that continues
to influence landscape architecture around the world today. Centuries after
(04:01):
he was born, he was really born into his life's
work and consequently into his legacy. His father, Jean Lenore,
was royal gardener. He worked for King Louis the thirteenth
and his expertise was employed at the gardens at Twilerie.
He held the title of Jardignier ordinaire, which was sort
of like a government contractor position under senior gardener Claude Moulle.
(04:26):
Andre's grandfather, Pierre Lenotre, had been one of the gardeners
employed by Catherine de Medici when the Tulry gardens were
first established, and this was also a time culturally in
France when family ties were routinely part of employment security.
All of the gardeners serving the crown in seventeenth century
France were from only a handful of families. When this
(04:48):
continued with the Lennotles, two of Andre's three sisters, Francoise
and Elizabeth, also married gardeners, and they also helped end
some of the royal gardens. His third sister, Marie, was
the only one who married outside of the gardening occupation.
Andre was born on March twelfth in Paris. His family
lived adjacent to Le Jardine de Tuli as part of
(05:10):
his father's employment arrangement. So it's from the really very
beginning of his life his environment was dominated by just
a very carefully managed and beautiful park setting. At this point,
these gardens weren't public, so he was lucky enough because
of his father's position to have access to the menagerie
and the gardens, all these things that had been created
(05:31):
at Katherine de Medici's order for Royalty to enjoy. As
a child, Andrea Lenotre is said to have watched his
father draft designs for hours, just mesmerized, so it seemed
like gardening was truly not just in his blood, but
was just a source of fascination for him. But despite that,
initially it didn't seem like gardening or landscaping or any
(05:52):
kind of work in that vein we're going to be
Andre's career calling because as much as he loved watching
his father work, he was way more interested initially in
becoming a painter. From the time he was sixteen until
his mid twenties, the Notre studied with painter Similan Buai Hua,
who painted the Italian Baroque style, was a prominent artist.
(06:13):
He served as Louis the thirteenth primary painter and portraitist.
Bua was situated in a studio at the Grand Gallery
that was built to connect the Louver to the Tutelary Palace,
so he was very close to the Notre's residence and
at this point, all the elements that are today part
of the Louver Museum complex, we're still royal residences and
(06:33):
art Academy spaces, and he also studied under architect Lancis Mansus,
and Mansut's influence on French culture and specifically Versailles is
pretty significant. His nephew by marriage, Jules Hardouin Mansut, would
become the main architect of the Chapel at Less and
Valid and the Grand Trianon at Versailles, as well as
(06:54):
a lot of renovation that happened at Versailles much later.
Studying under Vuai in particular opened a lot of doors
for Lenore. Because the painter was so connected to King
Louis the Thirteen, he knew everybody, so spending time in
Vouet's atlier meant that Andre Lenotre was meeting all the
powerful people who came to visit, and he in turn
(07:15):
visited those people with Voua. He was also part of
a group of young men who were studying with the
painter who would rise up to prominence in their own
right as they got older, including Charles Lebrun, who Lenotre
would collaborate with later on in his life. That, of course,
was the great uncle of Elizabeth b Lebron's husband, and
despite spending several years studying to be a painter. Lenotrea
(07:38):
eventually decided that he would follow in his father's career
footsteps after all, and so he started working with his
father at Tuleri. And this definitely was not a situation
where those years of study of art had been wasted
due to this shift in direction, though, because Lenotre throughout
the rest of his career applied the artistic principles that
he had learned to his work designing gardens. In sixteen
(08:00):
thirty five, when he was twenty two, his career as
a gardener officially began. Through the connections that he forged
through Simone Vue and through his father's good reputation, he
was brought on as head gardener for Louis the thirteenth
brother Gaston the Duke d'Or leon. The Luxembourg Gardens ground
of the Luxembourg Palace where the Duke lived, served as
(08:21):
Leonotia's first professional responsibility. These grounds had already been laid
out and established, though, so there wasn't a whole lot
of change or innovation on his to do list. It
was more about maintenance and upkeep. When Andre's father, Jean
Leno retired from the Tuilerie in sixteen thirty seven, his
son was named as his replacement. I ran into some
(08:41):
sources that incorrectly reported this event as taking place because
Jean le Notre died. That is not the case. The
senior gardener, Lenotrea lived another eighteen years after he quit
working and went to a life of retirement. As was
the case with the Luxembourg Gardens, tou Lerie at this
point was designed and in pretty good shape. This did
not end Andre Lenatre's work, by the way, at Luxembourg Palace,
(09:03):
he managed the grounds of both the Duke d'arleon and
the grounds at Tulerie, as well as other side projects
for wealthy clients. Lenotre married Francois Langrois in sixteen forty.
Her father was an artillery officer and her family was
considered low level nobility. This marriage match seemed to be
a good one. The two of them had three children
(09:24):
over the course of their marriage. They were Jean Francois, Marianne,
and Jeanne Francoise. All of them died very young, though
their first born, Jean Francoise, had been born just shy
of three years into the marriage, and the two daughters
were born much later on sty three, King Louis died
and his son Louis the fourteenth, who was just four
(09:45):
years old at the time, became the King of France.
Of course, there was a regent involved when he was
still a child. Lenotre's work continued after this transition in monarchs,
just as it had before louist death. We'll come back
to the next step in his career, but first we
will have a quick sponsor break. In sixteen fifty seven,
(10:10):
Lenore was granted the title of General Controller of Buildings, Gardens,
arts and Factories, and this was an appointed position for
the crown, but Lenotre was still, to some degree kind
of a cog in the much bigger machine of maintaining
optimally beautiful surroundings for the King, the king's family, and
his guests. Lenota at this point was sort of like
(10:31):
a company man being promoted through the ranks, but he
actually had to pay for the privilege of being promoted
into this role, which was customary for the time. This
was not a post that Lenotre held exclusively. The controller
roles were usually shared among three men, with each man
serving for a year at a time. On this three
year rotation, Lenore paid forty thousand livre for the job,
(10:54):
while the annual salary for it was only three thousand.
But this also meant that he was given the title
of advisor to the King, and that was sort of
like social security. The job gave him enough cloud that
the side projects he took on more than made up
for the money that he had paid for this title.
And the job duties of the notalist controller post were
varied and they covered a lot of different things, as
(11:16):
indicated by that wording of buildings, gardens, arts and factories
that he was like a very wide swath of potential things. Uh.
He had to supervise all kinds of projects that were
going on in any of the royal buildings, and he
also had to review financial records of contractors before payment
for work could be issued by the treasury, essentially like
approving invoices would happen today. And he was also himself
(11:40):
a contractor, working as the King's designer and submitting his
own paperwork for payment. That would be very frowned upon
today in most places, but at this point it was
not at all unusual. When he rose to the controller position,
the Nore was already a year into a significant undertaking.
In sixteen fifty six, he had started work on a
(12:00):
project for Finance Minister Nicola Fouquet. He designed the landscaping
at the Chateau de Vaud de Viconte near Milneux, France,
that was about thirty miles outside of Paris, and that's
a famous example of French Baroque architecture. Over the course
of five years, as the chateau on site was being built,
Noture worked to create a design that took advantage of
(12:22):
this natural rise and fallow the ground. He also used
water features to make an already very large landscape look
almost infinite from ground level. Fouquet entertained King Louis the
fourteenth vau le Vicomte by staging a historically famous party,
and the king was wildly impressed with what Lenotre had
accomplished there. Lenotre had worked alongside the famed architect Louis
(12:45):
Leveaux and the artist Charles Lebrun, who painted the lavish
chateaus interiors and designed all of the sculpture. And Lebron
in particular had a reputation for being headstrong, but because
he and the very good natured Lenore were old friends
from their days. Under the tutelage of simul Vue, the
master gardener was able to negotiate most conflicts among the
(13:06):
three creators and keep things pretty even keel. The party
thrown to show off this new estate was just mind blowing.
It featured an eight course meal served to a thousand
guests on gold plates. That was just the beginning. Moliere
staged a play in the gardens. Jean Baptiste Lulie, sometimes
called the grandfather of ballet, staged a ballet for the guests.
(13:29):
Partygoers could roam these beautifully laid out parterre or sit
by Lenotre's water features as they watched the spectacular end
of the evening fireworks display. Allegedly, the stillness of the
night made the water reflect the fireworks so perfectly the
guests lost track of whether they were looking at the
fireworks or the water. And you might think that all
(13:50):
of this, which sounds like a pretty fantastic party, was
a feather in his cap situation. For Fouquet, he had
built an incredibly impressive estate fit for an entertaining the
guest of honor at his marvelous fete, the King of France.
But three weeks after the party Nicola, Fouquet was arrested
by none other than the musketeer d'Artagnan on charges of
(14:11):
embezzling money from France's treasury, with the implication that he
had used those funds to build Voule Viconte. This story
is often told in sort of a shorthand, as though
Louis the fourteenth was jealous of Fouquet's dazzling, hunderd Acre
estate and then had him arrested because of that jealousy.
According to this version of the story, the king was
(14:32):
affronted that somebody of lesser rank than he was would
dare to create a grander chateau than a royal palace.
We should mention here that there were also rumors that
Fouquet had even offered all of Volviconte to the king
at the end of the night as a gift. But
there is a whole lot of additional context to this story.
(14:52):
Even though Fouquet had been incredibly loyal to the throne,
even through an uprising of nobles against the crown that
was known as the Frond, which could be its own episode,
at some point Louis the fourteenth was turned against him
through the scheming of other members of the court. At
the point in time of the famed voe Viconfette Nicola,
Fouquet was the superintendent of finance for the king and
(15:14):
had been since Louis the fourteenth was fifteen, and some
accounts even suggested Fouquet was something of a father figure
to the monarch. The man who served as the primary
antagonist to Fouquet was Jean Baptiste Colbert. Over time, as
Colbert had managed the responsibilities of Cardinal Joue Mazarin, he
had become trusted by King Louis the fourteenth. Colbert was
(15:38):
the first person to accuse Fouquet of mismanagement at the treasury,
and his efforts to get him out of office began
in earnest In sixteen sixty one, letters written by the
king indicate that even before the famed vote Vicomfette, Louis
the fourteenth had already decided Fouquet's fate, but decided to
go to this lavish party and enjoy the meals and
festivities and see just what had been built before he
(16:01):
did anything about it. There is a famous quote by Voltaire,
who was writing on the subject, that says, quote on
Auguste that six in the evening, Fouquet was King of France.
At two in the morning, he was nobody. Fouquet is
sometimes characterized as a man who really seemed to have
no idea that the entire life that he had built
for himself was about to come crashing down. But if
(16:23):
you look a little closer, that doesn't really align with
what we know about the construction of the site and
the days leading up to that giant party. There were
plenty of intrigues about who had visited Vaux de Vicomte
during construction and whether they were reporting back to the
king about how suspiciously expensive it appeared. And then a
letter sent to Fouquet by his friend, the Marquis Duck
(16:44):
Says a few days before his events, stated quote, the
King would like to be rich, and he does not
love those who are more so than he, because they
undertake things he cannot do, and he has no doubt
that the great wealth of these others has been stolen
from him. Those were definitely some ominous words, and in
just a moment we'll talk more about how Fouquet and
(17:05):
his project, including the creations of the nore, causes downfall,
But first we will have a quick word from one
of the sponsors who keeps the show going. So before
the break, we established that Fouquet undoubtedly knew that his
(17:26):
situation was precarious before he had this ostentatious party, and
there probably was a little bit of jealousy in the
mix when it came to Louis the fourteenth sire, and
that the lavish display of vaili vicomte did seal Fouquet's
fate with the king. But to say that Louis the
fourteenth had Fouquet arrested for building a better house than
the king had its kind of tabloid e and it's
(17:47):
not really representative of all the machinations in play. After
a three year trial, which is another thing that would
be a good future episode if I can get my
head around all of it, because there are a lot
of strange legal things involved, Fouquet was ultimately sentenced to
life in prison. As for the actual guilt of Fouquet,
that comes with a lot of questions on its own,
(18:09):
and some people see him as a villain, while others
portray him as a man who was part of a
very convoluted and bizarrely organized government who was behaving in
ways that were pretty normal for his station. There was
money flowing back and forth between Fouquet's private funds and
the Crown. The accounts were a big mess overall. He
(18:29):
mortgaged his wife's estate to give one point to million
liver to the crown, and then later borrowed a lot
of money for the treasury thirty million livre, but in
his own name and with his own property for collateral.
His own accounts and that of France were almost one
and the same, and he was not innocent in this.
He was making a lot of money by leveraging this
(18:51):
fluidity and his position to make deals and acquire a
greater personal fortune. Yeah. I don't know if anyone has
ever fully unable to untangle like where money was going
at any given point and how much was coming in
from Fouquet versus possibly going out. I have read accounts
that suggests that there were certainly other people that were
in buzzling, which makes it even more complicated and convoluted.
(19:15):
But even during his lengthy trial, there were people in
France who came to support him and believe that he
had been less conniving and more just kind of really
bad at his job. And there have been plenty of
people through the centuries that contend that he was part
of a system that had enabled far worse behavior from
previous finance ministers, and to reiterate, Louis the fourteenth had
(19:37):
been very impressed with Vot de Vicomte, and with good reason.
He had heard of the splendor of the chateau and
its grounds from his brother, the Duke dour Leon, who
had been at a smaller gathering there a month before
the famous party. The notes contributions were really extraordinary. It's
still considered by many to be his highest achievement, even
(19:58):
greater than Versailles, which will get two in Part two.
The gardens of Voile Vicante were, as we mentioned, made
to look as though they stretched out to infinity if
you stood at ground level and looked across the vista.
But that was not the only optical illusion that Lenore created.
From some angles, particularly higher points that looked out onto
garden spaces, he was also able to make large expanses
(20:20):
of land appear to be small and intimate. If you
looked out into the gardens from the chateau, it wasn't
inviting and beckoning vista that did not look too far
to walk, an illusion Lenotre created with the placement of
for reflecting pool basins of progressively larger sizes as they
sat farther and farther from the chateau. This use of
space is called anamorphosis abscondito, which translates to hidden distortion.
(20:46):
A paper written in twenty and published in the Journal
of Cultural Heritage used three D modeling to analyze the
layout of the Lenore's garden design and to analyze that
using the rules of linear perspective. This paper breaks down
the process of how he was tricking the mind of
the observer by offering up a wide variety of visual
(21:06):
information at various distances while arranging all of these things
around a strong central axis. But of course he achieved
all that without the use of any kind of three
D modeling. But while the math holds up when analyzing
Lenore's visual trickery, he undoubtedly learned how to fool the
mind's visual perception in Simone Vue's painting studio. Yeah, it's
(21:29):
sort of mind blowing to me that they when you
do the numbers. He was managing the space in like
the optimal way to trick the human mind. Based on
what we now know of, like vision and optics, which
were not things he probably knew about. Uh, he was
just a genius um. This whole space was basically one
(21:51):
big long rectangle with that central access line. It was
an open avenue that runs still from one end of
the property to the other, and the chateau is situated
on that line as a central element with a moat
around it. One description that I read of the landscape
design at Voilee Viconte described it as a vast outdoor room.
And into this outdoor room lenotre placed all of the
(22:14):
design elements that would become hallmarks of his work and
of the formal French garden in this era. So there
were pebbled walkways, there were low boxwood hedges, there were
statuary fountains, water basins that reflected the surroundings, a canal,
and various grottos. Lenore was the first garden designer to
oversee all of those things prior to Voilee Vicante. If
(22:37):
there was a similar chateau and grounds being assembled, different
people or departments would handle like the horticultural needs versus
the water features versus the statuary. So this is where
it becomes very very clear that calling him just a
gardener doesn't really encompass what he was doing. One of
the many innovations of the Voile Viconte garden was its
(22:57):
great water mirror, also called the If you face the
front of the chateau, about fifteen hundred feet out from
the building, you can see the entire front of the
structure perfectly reflected in the water. This water mirror was
the first of its kind, and even today people visit
Vote of a cult which is now open to the public,
to capture this perspective photographically. Yeah, you can find modern
(23:21):
photos of this all over the internet if you care
to go looking, and they are really striking. That harmony
between the landscape and garden design and the design of
the chateau itself was all very very intentional. When the
site had been chosen, it was already a settlement, but
to fulfill the desires of Fouquet to create something entirely
new where all of these components were harmonious. The existing church,
(23:45):
cottages and farm were all leveled to be replaced with
the grand Chateau and the properties owned to design Hamlets
Jumeau and Maison Rouge. To execute the grand plans for
the estate Fouque provided lots of labor and estimated eighteen
thousand men worked on the chateau in the grounds. He
also provided plenty of cash. Budget seems to not even
(24:08):
be a thing with this. If something was needed, that
money was available. The three creators were just giving carte
Blanche to do whatever they wanted. That sounds really magical
right as as an art project, to have no budget,
like I think most people that work in any creative
field would just make heart eyes if they are those words.
(24:28):
All of those resources meant that Lenore, who at this
point was kind of in his middle age uh, and
he was able to do something that was unheard of
on large estates. He designed and built a landscape that
looked absolutely beautiful from every possible angle. It would have
been entirely expected, for example, for the gardens to look
beautiful for visitors approaching the chateau from the front or
(24:52):
looking out at the vast property behind the chateau from
the terraces, but to look a little disproportionate or lackluster
from say the back of the property. But Lenota using
his symmetrical layout but subtly different specifics in each area
to avoid a true mirror ring created a space that
was visually pleasing no matter where you stood, in what
direction you looked. And when you consider the visual trickery
(25:15):
that we already talked about, that adds a whole other
layer of complexity to this really amazing achievement. Louis had
been so wowed by this whole thing that he wanted
the dream team of Lenore, Leveaux and Lebron to work
on a project specifically for him. He truly marveled as
his carriage approached the chateau. Some accounts suggest that Lenotre
(25:36):
was traveling with the king as he made his way
to the party, and that he explained all the various
landscape features as the king requested information about them. Yeah,
Louis the fourteenth is we'll talk about a little bit
in the next episode. Was really fascinated by gardening, uh,
and he undoubtedly would have had a lot of questions.
He was also a little bit of an information junkie,
so probably Lena was there explaining how he had and everything.
(26:01):
After Fouquet's arrest, the king took the furnishings and even
some of the more impressive foliage from Voile Vigante, including
the orange trees, and he moved them to his hunting
lodge at Versailles. And that lodge we've talked about on
the show before had started as a very very simple abode,
and Louis thirteen had rebuilt it in se to be
slightly more appropriate for royal housing. It was still considered
(26:25):
by some to be a little lackluster, but Louis the
fourteenth had much bigger plans for Versailles, and it was
of course Lenore who he tasked with creating the gardens there.
And that is the end of part one. It is
continually a marvel to me that the artists involved. As
much as I think it is easy for um modern
(26:47):
folks to characterize the Court of France and Louis the
fourteenth that's this sort of very vengeful and backbiting thing.
They did not punish any of the creators of that
beautiful estate. Uh. They in fact stayed in great favor.
And Leno Tree in particular seems to have been a
man that everyone loved. He just sounds like a great
(27:08):
guy to hang out with. Everyone found him really chills,
super delightful, great and good natured, got along with everybody. Um,
So I love it. And we're gonna pick up with
his his work at Versailles next time. I'm still working
through the many, many wonderful holiday cards we have been
sent by listeners, so I'm going to have a couple
of knows today for listener mail, because there's a really
(27:30):
great stack. Um. Our first one is from our listener Catherine.
It is a card with the Elf on the Shelf
on the front, and it has little note that is
Snitches get stitches, which is a little shaky. It makes
me laugh. Um. Everybody has feelings, but the show. She writes,
Tracy and Holly, you have always been on my nice list,
Wishing you both your cats and family the humans a
(27:52):
merry Christmas and all of the best stuff in the
new year. Catherine. Uh. And she also included pictures of
her adorable cats, Witten and Walter, who send their Christmas greetings.
Witten is a very fluffy creature that has a tummy
that begs for scritches, and Walter is a beautiful orange
tabby who is probably super sweet because orange tabby's usually
(28:13):
are um. This next card delighted me utterly. It is
a repeat listener male that we have read his his
mail before and that is Germaine. In his note, it
is first of all a gorgeous pop up card with
a beautiful Christmas tree in it um and it is
from our listener, Chip, and he writes, Happy Holidays from
San Francisco. This is Chip again, and ladies, you have
(28:36):
rocketed me to stardom for side money. I drive for
Lift and Uber, and when I drive, I have stuff
you missed in history class playing my Riders, especially like
the episodes that involve San Francisco, since that is where
we live. In fact, your great quake and Fire's episode
had us riveted. And then you read the Halloween card
I sent. I went nuts and my Riders burst into
(28:56):
applause and cheers. They all subscribed to stuff you missed
in his tree class before I dropped them off, and
they called me san Francisco's History podcast celebrity. Learning about
our home city from the two of you is always
a blast. Please hurry back for another live show. I
wish you and all you love have a very merry
Christmas and new year of fun adventures. Chip, that is
the sweetest story. I love it to pieces. So if
(29:17):
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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Wilson. Uh.
And this is a two parter. This is the first
of a two parter. And this has been the word
works for a long time. It has been since our
(00:23):
trip to France in June, so like six months. Uh,
And it has taken a while for a few reasons.
Um when we had Sarah Roberts from the Atlanta History
Center on to talk about the center's historic gardens. As
we were talking after we had recorded, I mentioned to
her that I was working on an episode about French
gardener Andre Lenore and that I thought it was going
(00:44):
to have to be two episodes because there was so much,
And she responded, how are you going to get it
all into just two episodes? Admittedly she comes at this
from the perspective of someone who is steeped in horticulture,
and so to her it could have been a whole
podcast series. But even if you are not from that background,
it's a lot. Because Na was a very busy man.
(01:07):
He worked on many, many very high profile landscapes and
gardens in France and throughout Europe, including most famously the
grounds of Versailles, and his work really defined the French
formal garden in the seventeenth century, and a lot of
that work is still being enjoyed today, more than three
hundred years after his death. He also was very long lived,
so that is part of why he was so influential
(01:29):
and there is so much to talk about. You will
find statues and memorials to him in a number of
different locations in Paris and the surrounding areas, because his
work was really instrumental in developing the cultural identity of
France as an epicenter of design and style. If you
walk around Toulri, there is a bust of him there.
If you are driving through the town of Versailles going
(01:50):
up to the palace, you will see a statue of him.
I saw another smaller one just in a little neighborhood
while we were walking around at the end of our trip,
when everybody had left but Brian and my sell and
so like. He clearly is very very important. Um So
today in part one we are going to cover his
life up to and including a project that was controversial,
not for Lenussle's part in it, but because of its
(02:12):
implications for the property's owner, there was scandal, but it
did not impact Lenore negatively. And then on part two,
we're going to talk a lot about Versailles, and then
the last years of Leno was life. Before we get started, though,
we're going to do a little level set on the
use of the word gardener versus another term like landscape
architect or something else that might seem a little more
(02:35):
descriptive of what he was actually doing. The term landscape
architect didn't exist at all during Lenore's time. It wasn't
coined until the mid nineteenth century. So even though we'll
default to some degree to using the term gardener or
master gardener because that's often named as his profession, historically,
his work really went way way beyond that as his
(02:57):
role under Louis the fourteenth evolved and expanded. Not only
did he turned his intellect into learning geometry and mathematics
to ensure that his landscape designs were sound, but he
also ended up needing to learn a lot about engineering
for his more large scale works, and he had to
develop management and leadership skills. Also. In the mix of
all of this, was a love for an understanding of art,
(03:19):
and that informed all of his other work. So even
though we're going to call him a gardener, there's no
disrespect intended with that, and he was much more than
what we might describe as a gardener today. Yeah. I
think if someone working professionally today did the types of
things he did and you called them a gardener, they
would be super insulted. That is not the intent. Um.
(03:39):
It is this impressive combination of his of skills and disciplines,
as well as a very calm and humorous temperament that
enabled him to collaborate with a variety of strong minded people,
and that has given Andre Lenoza an important place in
French history and has made his work something that continues
to influence landscape architecture around the world today. Centuries after
(04:01):
he was born, he was really born into his life's
work and consequently into his legacy. His father, Jean Lenore,
was royal gardener. He worked for King Louis the thirteenth
and his expertise was employed at the gardens at Twilerie.
He held the title of Jardignier ordinaire, which was sort
of like a government contractor position under senior gardener Claude Moulle.
(04:26):
Andre's grandfather, Pierre Lenotre, had been one of the gardeners
employed by Catherine de Medici when the Tulry gardens were
first established, and this was also a time culturally in
France when family ties were routinely part of employment security.
All of the gardeners serving the crown in seventeenth century
France were from only a handful of families. When this
(04:48):
continued with the Lennotles, two of Andre's three sisters, Francoise
and Elizabeth, also married gardeners, and they also helped end
some of the royal gardens. His third sister, Marie, was
the only one who married outside of the gardening occupation.
Andre was born on March twelfth in Paris. His family
lived adjacent to Le Jardine de Tuli as part of
(05:10):
his father's employment arrangement. So it's from the really very
beginning of his life his environment was dominated by just
a very carefully managed and beautiful park setting. At this point,
these gardens weren't public, so he was lucky enough because
of his father's position to have access to the menagerie
and the gardens, all these things that had been created
(05:31):
at Katherine de Medici's order for Royalty to enjoy. As
a child, Andrea Lenotre is said to have watched his
father draft designs for hours, just mesmerized, so it seemed
like gardening was truly not just in his blood, but
was just a source of fascination for him. But despite that,
initially it didn't seem like gardening or landscaping or any
(05:52):
kind of work in that vein we're going to be
Andre's career calling because as much as he loved watching
his father work, he was way more interested initially in
becoming a painter. From the time he was sixteen until
his mid twenties, the Notre studied with painter Similan Buai Hua,
who painted the Italian Baroque style, was a prominent artist.
(06:13):
He served as Louis the thirteenth primary painter and portraitist.
Bua was situated in a studio at the Grand Gallery
that was built to connect the Louver to the Tutelary Palace,
so he was very close to the Notre's residence and
at this point, all the elements that are today part
of the Louver Museum complex, we're still royal residences and
(06:33):
art Academy spaces, and he also studied under architect Lancis Mansus,
and Mansut's influence on French culture and specifically Versailles is
pretty significant. His nephew by marriage, Jules Hardouin Mansut, would
become the main architect of the Chapel at Less and
Valid and the Grand Trianon at Versailles, as well as
(06:54):
a lot of renovation that happened at Versailles much later.
Studying under Vuai in particular opened a lot of doors
for Lenore. Because the painter was so connected to King
Louis the Thirteen, he knew everybody, so spending time in
Vouet's atlier meant that Andre Lenotre was meeting all the
powerful people who came to visit, and he in turn
(07:15):
visited those people with Voua. He was also part of
a group of young men who were studying with the
painter who would rise up to prominence in their own
right as they got older, including Charles Lebrun, who Lenotre
would collaborate with later on in his life. That, of course,
was the great uncle of Elizabeth b Lebron's husband, and
despite spending several years studying to be a painter. Lenotrea
(07:38):
eventually decided that he would follow in his father's career
footsteps after all, and so he started working with his
father at Tuleri. And this definitely was not a situation
where those years of study of art had been wasted
due to this shift in direction, though, because Lenotre throughout
the rest of his career applied the artistic principles that
he had learned to his work designing gardens. In sixteen
(08:00):
thirty five, when he was twenty two, his career as
a gardener officially began. Through the connections that he forged
through Simone Vue and through his father's good reputation, he
was brought on as head gardener for Louis the thirteenth
brother Gaston the Duke d'Or leon. The Luxembourg Gardens ground
of the Luxembourg Palace where the Duke lived, served as
(08:21):
Leonotia's first professional responsibility. These grounds had already been laid
out and established, though, so there wasn't a whole lot
of change or innovation on his to do list. It
was more about maintenance and upkeep. When Andre's father, Jean
Leno retired from the Tuilerie in sixteen thirty seven, his
son was named as his replacement. I ran into some
(08:41):
sources that incorrectly reported this event as taking place because
Jean le Notre died. That is not the case. The
senior gardener, Lenotrea lived another eighteen years after he quit
working and went to a life of retirement. As was
the case with the Luxembourg Gardens, tou Lerie at this
point was designed and in pretty good shape. This did
not end Andre Lenatre's work, by the way, at Luxembourg Palace,
(09:03):
he managed the grounds of both the Duke d'arleon and
the grounds at Tulerie, as well as other side projects
for wealthy clients. Lenotre married Francois Langrois in sixteen forty.
Her father was an artillery officer and her family was
considered low level nobility. This marriage match seemed to be
a good one. The two of them had three children
(09:24):
over the course of their marriage. They were Jean Francois, Marianne,
and Jeanne Francoise. All of them died very young, though
their first born, Jean Francoise, had been born just shy
of three years into the marriage, and the two daughters
were born much later on sty three, King Louis died
and his son Louis the fourteenth, who was just four
(09:45):
years old at the time, became the King of France.
Of course, there was a regent involved when he was
still a child. Lenotre's work continued after this transition in monarchs,
just as it had before louist death. We'll come back
to the next step in his career, but first we
will have a quick sponsor break. In sixteen fifty seven,
(10:10):
Lenore was granted the title of General Controller of Buildings, Gardens,
arts and Factories, and this was an appointed position for
the crown, but Lenotre was still, to some degree kind
of a cog in the much bigger machine of maintaining
optimally beautiful surroundings for the King, the king's family, and
his guests. Lenota at this point was sort of like
(10:31):
a company man being promoted through the ranks, but he
actually had to pay for the privilege of being promoted
into this role, which was customary for the time. This
was not a post that Lenotre held exclusively. The controller
roles were usually shared among three men, with each man
serving for a year at a time. On this three
year rotation, Lenore paid forty thousand livre for the job,
(10:54):
while the annual salary for it was only three thousand.
But this also meant that he was given the title
of advisor to the King, and that was sort of
like social security. The job gave him enough cloud that
the side projects he took on more than made up
for the money that he had paid for this title.
And the job duties of the notalist controller post were
varied and they covered a lot of different things, as
(11:16):
indicated by that wording of buildings, gardens, arts and factories
that he was like a very wide swath of potential things. Uh.
He had to supervise all kinds of projects that were
going on in any of the royal buildings, and he
also had to review financial records of contractors before payment
for work could be issued by the treasury, essentially like
approving invoices would happen today. And he was also himself
(11:40):
a contractor, working as the King's designer and submitting his
own paperwork for payment. That would be very frowned upon
today in most places, but at this point it was
not at all unusual. When he rose to the controller position,
the Nore was already a year into a significant undertaking.
In sixteen fifty six, he had started work on a
(12:00):
project for Finance Minister Nicola Fouquet. He designed the landscaping
at the Chateau de Vaud de Viconte near Milneux, France,
that was about thirty miles outside of Paris, and that's
a famous example of French Baroque architecture. Over the course
of five years, as the chateau on site was being built,
Noture worked to create a design that took advantage of
(12:22):
this natural rise and fallow the ground. He also used
water features to make an already very large landscape look
almost infinite from ground level. Fouquet entertained King Louis the
fourteenth vau le Vicomte by staging a historically famous party,
and the king was wildly impressed with what Lenotre had
accomplished there. Lenotre had worked alongside the famed architect Louis
(12:45):
Leveaux and the artist Charles Lebrun, who painted the lavish
chateaus interiors and designed all of the sculpture. And Lebron
in particular had a reputation for being headstrong, but because
he and the very good natured Lenore were old friends
from their days. Under the tutelage of simul Vue, the
master gardener was able to negotiate most conflicts among the
(13:06):
three creators and keep things pretty even keel. The party
thrown to show off this new estate was just mind blowing.
It featured an eight course meal served to a thousand
guests on gold plates. That was just the beginning. Moliere
staged a play in the gardens. Jean Baptiste Lulie, sometimes
called the grandfather of ballet, staged a ballet for the guests.
(13:29):
Partygoers could roam these beautifully laid out parterre or sit
by Lenotre's water features as they watched the spectacular end
of the evening fireworks display. Allegedly, the stillness of the
night made the water reflect the fireworks so perfectly the
guests lost track of whether they were looking at the
fireworks or the water. And you might think that all
(13:50):
of this, which sounds like a pretty fantastic party, was
a feather in his cap situation. For Fouquet, he had
built an incredibly impressive estate fit for an entertaining the
guest of honor at his marvelous fete, the King of France.
But three weeks after the party Nicola, Fouquet was arrested
by none other than the musketeer d'Artagnan on charges of
(14:11):
embezzling money from France's treasury, with the implication that he
had used those funds to build Voule Viconte. This story
is often told in sort of a shorthand, as though
Louis the fourteenth was jealous of Fouquet's dazzling, hunderd Acre
estate and then had him arrested because of that jealousy.
According to this version of the story, the king was
(14:32):
affronted that somebody of lesser rank than he was would
dare to create a grander chateau than a royal palace.
We should mention here that there were also rumors that
Fouquet had even offered all of Volviconte to the king
at the end of the night as a gift. But
there is a whole lot of additional context to this story.
(14:52):
Even though Fouquet had been incredibly loyal to the throne,
even through an uprising of nobles against the crown that
was known as the Frond, which could be its own episode,
at some point Louis the fourteenth was turned against him
through the scheming of other members of the court. At
the point in time of the famed voe Viconfette Nicola,
Fouquet was the superintendent of finance for the king and
(15:14):
had been since Louis the fourteenth was fifteen, and some
accounts even suggested Fouquet was something of a father figure
to the monarch. The man who served as the primary
antagonist to Fouquet was Jean Baptiste Colbert. Over time, as
Colbert had managed the responsibilities of Cardinal Joue Mazarin, he
had become trusted by King Louis the fourteenth. Colbert was
(15:38):
the first person to accuse Fouquet of mismanagement at the treasury,
and his efforts to get him out of office began
in earnest In sixteen sixty one, letters written by the
king indicate that even before the famed vote Vicomfette, Louis
the fourteenth had already decided Fouquet's fate, but decided to
go to this lavish party and enjoy the meals and
festivities and see just what had been built before he
(16:01):
did anything about it. There is a famous quote by Voltaire,
who was writing on the subject, that says, quote on
Auguste that six in the evening, Fouquet was King of France.
At two in the morning, he was nobody. Fouquet is
sometimes characterized as a man who really seemed to have
no idea that the entire life that he had built
for himself was about to come crashing down. But if
(16:23):
you look a little closer, that doesn't really align with
what we know about the construction of the site and
the days leading up to that giant party. There were
plenty of intrigues about who had visited Vaux de Vicomte
during construction and whether they were reporting back to the
king about how suspiciously expensive it appeared. And then a
letter sent to Fouquet by his friend, the Marquis Duck
(16:44):
Says a few days before his events, stated quote, the
King would like to be rich, and he does not
love those who are more so than he, because they
undertake things he cannot do, and he has no doubt
that the great wealth of these others has been stolen
from him. Those were definitely some ominous words, and in
just a moment we'll talk more about how Fouquet and
(17:05):
his project, including the creations of the nore, causes downfall,
But first we will have a quick word from one
of the sponsors who keeps the show going. So before
the break, we established that Fouquet undoubtedly knew that his
(17:26):
situation was precarious before he had this ostentatious party, and
there probably was a little bit of jealousy in the
mix when it came to Louis the fourteenth sire, and
that the lavish display of vaili vicomte did seal Fouquet's
fate with the king. But to say that Louis the
fourteenth had Fouquet arrested for building a better house than
the king had its kind of tabloid e and it's
(17:47):
not really representative of all the machinations in play. After
a three year trial, which is another thing that would
be a good future episode if I can get my
head around all of it, because there are a lot
of strange legal things involved, Fouquet was ultimately sentenced to
life in prison. As for the actual guilt of Fouquet,
that comes with a lot of questions on its own,
(18:09):
and some people see him as a villain, while others
portray him as a man who was part of a
very convoluted and bizarrely organized government who was behaving in
ways that were pretty normal for his station. There was
money flowing back and forth between Fouquet's private funds and
the Crown. The accounts were a big mess overall. He
(18:29):
mortgaged his wife's estate to give one point to million
liver to the crown, and then later borrowed a lot
of money for the treasury thirty million livre, but in
his own name and with his own property for collateral.
His own accounts and that of France were almost one
and the same, and he was not innocent in this.
He was making a lot of money by leveraging this
(18:51):
fluidity and his position to make deals and acquire a
greater personal fortune. Yeah. I don't know if anyone has
ever fully unable to untangle like where money was going
at any given point and how much was coming in
from Fouquet versus possibly going out. I have read accounts
that suggests that there were certainly other people that were
in buzzling, which makes it even more complicated and convoluted.
(19:15):
But even during his lengthy trial, there were people in
France who came to support him and believe that he
had been less conniving and more just kind of really
bad at his job. And there have been plenty of
people through the centuries that contend that he was part
of a system that had enabled far worse behavior from
previous finance ministers, and to reiterate, Louis the fourteenth had
(19:37):
been very impressed with Vot de Vicomte, and with good reason.
He had heard of the splendor of the chateau and
its grounds from his brother, the Duke dour Leon, who
had been at a smaller gathering there a month before
the famous party. The notes contributions were really extraordinary. It's
still considered by many to be his highest achievement, even
(19:58):
greater than Versailles, which will get two in Part two.
The gardens of Voile Vicante were, as we mentioned, made
to look as though they stretched out to infinity if
you stood at ground level and looked across the vista.
But that was not the only optical illusion that Lenore created.
From some angles, particularly higher points that looked out onto
garden spaces, he was also able to make large expanses
(20:20):
of land appear to be small and intimate. If you
looked out into the gardens from the chateau, it wasn't
inviting and beckoning vista that did not look too far
to walk, an illusion Lenotre created with the placement of
for reflecting pool basins of progressively larger sizes as they
sat farther and farther from the chateau. This use of
space is called anamorphosis abscondito, which translates to hidden distortion.
(20:46):
A paper written in twenty and published in the Journal
of Cultural Heritage used three D modeling to analyze the
layout of the Lenore's garden design and to analyze that
using the rules of linear perspective. This paper breaks down
the process of how he was tricking the mind of
the observer by offering up a wide variety of visual
(21:06):
information at various distances while arranging all of these things
around a strong central axis. But of course he achieved
all that without the use of any kind of three
D modeling. But while the math holds up when analyzing
Lenore's visual trickery, he undoubtedly learned how to fool the
mind's visual perception in Simone Vue's painting studio. Yeah, it's
(21:29):
sort of mind blowing to me that they when you
do the numbers. He was managing the space in like
the optimal way to trick the human mind. Based on
what we now know of, like vision and optics, which
were not things he probably knew about. Uh, he was
just a genius um. This whole space was basically one
(21:51):
big long rectangle with that central access line. It was
an open avenue that runs still from one end of
the property to the other, and the chateau is situated
on that line as a central element with a moat
around it. One description that I read of the landscape
design at Voilee Viconte described it as a vast outdoor room.
And into this outdoor room lenotre placed all of the
(22:14):
design elements that would become hallmarks of his work and
of the formal French garden in this era. So there
were pebbled walkways, there were low boxwood hedges, there were
statuary fountains, water basins that reflected the surroundings, a canal,
and various grottos. Lenore was the first garden designer to
oversee all of those things prior to Voilee Vicante. If
(22:37):
there was a similar chateau and grounds being assembled, different
people or departments would handle like the horticultural needs versus
the water features versus the statuary. So this is where
it becomes very very clear that calling him just a
gardener doesn't really encompass what he was doing. One of
the many innovations of the Voile Viconte garden was its
(22:57):
great water mirror, also called the If you face the
front of the chateau, about fifteen hundred feet out from
the building, you can see the entire front of the
structure perfectly reflected in the water. This water mirror was
the first of its kind, and even today people visit
Vote of a cult which is now open to the public,
to capture this perspective photographically. Yeah, you can find modern
(23:21):
photos of this all over the internet if you care
to go looking, and they are really striking. That harmony
between the landscape and garden design and the design of
the chateau itself was all very very intentional. When the
site had been chosen, it was already a settlement, but
to fulfill the desires of Fouquet to create something entirely
new where all of these components were harmonious. The existing church,
(23:45):
cottages and farm were all leveled to be replaced with
the grand Chateau and the properties owned to design Hamlets
Jumeau and Maison Rouge. To execute the grand plans for
the estate Fouque provided lots of labor and estimated eighteen
thousand men worked on the chateau in the grounds. He
also provided plenty of cash. Budget seems to not even
(24:08):
be a thing with this. If something was needed, that
money was available. The three creators were just giving carte
Blanche to do whatever they wanted. That sounds really magical
right as as an art project, to have no budget,
like I think most people that work in any creative
field would just make heart eyes if they are those words.
(24:28):
All of those resources meant that Lenore, who at this
point was kind of in his middle age uh, and
he was able to do something that was unheard of
on large estates. He designed and built a landscape that
looked absolutely beautiful from every possible angle. It would have
been entirely expected, for example, for the gardens to look
beautiful for visitors approaching the chateau from the front or
(24:52):
looking out at the vast property behind the chateau from
the terraces, but to look a little disproportionate or lackluster
from say the back of the property. But Lenota using
his symmetrical layout but subtly different specifics in each area
to avoid a true mirror ring created a space that
was visually pleasing no matter where you stood, in what
direction you looked. And when you consider the visual trickery
(25:15):
that we already talked about, that adds a whole other
layer of complexity to this really amazing achievement. Louis had
been so wowed by this whole thing that he wanted
the dream team of Lenore, Leveaux and Lebron to work
on a project specifically for him. He truly marveled as
his carriage approached the chateau. Some accounts suggest that Lenotre
(25:36):
was traveling with the king as he made his way
to the party, and that he explained all the various
landscape features as the king requested information about them. Yeah,
Louis the fourteenth is we'll talk about a little bit
in the next episode. Was really fascinated by gardening, uh,
and he undoubtedly would have had a lot of questions.
He was also a little bit of an information junkie,
so probably Lena was there explaining how he had and everything.
(26:01):
After Fouquet's arrest, the king took the furnishings and even
some of the more impressive foliage from Voile Vigante, including
the orange trees, and he moved them to his hunting
lodge at Versailles. And that lodge we've talked about on
the show before had started as a very very simple abode,
and Louis thirteen had rebuilt it in se to be
slightly more appropriate for royal housing. It was still considered
(26:25):
by some to be a little lackluster, but Louis the
fourteenth had much bigger plans for Versailles, and it was
of course Lenore who he tasked with creating the gardens there.
And that is the end of part one. It is
continually a marvel to me that the artists involved. As
much as I think it is easy for um modern
(26:47):
folks to characterize the Court of France and Louis the
fourteenth that's this sort of very vengeful and backbiting thing.
They did not punish any of the creators of that
beautiful estate. Uh. They in fact stayed in great favor.
And Leno Tree in particular seems to have been a
man that everyone loved. He just sounds like a great
(27:08):
guy to hang out with. Everyone found him really chills,
super delightful, great and good natured, got along with everybody. Um,
So I love it. And we're gonna pick up with
his his work at Versailles next time. I'm still working
through the many, many wonderful holiday cards we have been
sent by listeners, so I'm going to have a couple
of knows today for listener mail, because there's a really
(27:30):
great stack. Um. Our first one is from our listener Catherine.
It is a card with the Elf on the Shelf
on the front, and it has little note that is
Snitches get stitches, which is a little shaky. It makes
me laugh. Um. Everybody has feelings, but the show. She writes,
Tracy and Holly, you have always been on my nice list,
Wishing you both your cats and family the humans a
(27:52):
merry Christmas and all of the best stuff in the
new year. Catherine. Uh. And she also included pictures of
her adorable cats, Witten and Walter, who send their Christmas greetings.
Witten is a very fluffy creature that has a tummy
that begs for scritches, and Walter is a beautiful orange
tabby who is probably super sweet because orange tabby's usually
(28:13):
are um. This next card delighted me utterly. It is
a repeat listener male that we have read his his
mail before and that is Germaine. In his note, it
is first of all a gorgeous pop up card with
a beautiful Christmas tree in it um and it is
from our listener, Chip, and he writes, Happy Holidays from
San Francisco. This is Chip again, and ladies, you have
(28:36):
rocketed me to stardom for side money. I drive for
Lift and Uber, and when I drive, I have stuff
you missed in history class playing my Riders, especially like
the episodes that involve San Francisco, since that is where
we live. In fact, your great quake and Fire's episode
had us riveted. And then you read the Halloween card
I sent. I went nuts and my Riders burst into
(28:56):
applause and cheers. They all subscribed to stuff you missed
in his tree class before I dropped them off, and
they called me san Francisco's History podcast celebrity. Learning about
our home city from the two of you is always
a blast. Please hurry back for another live show. I
wish you and all you love have a very merry
Christmas and new year of fun adventures. Chip, that is
the sweetest story. I love it to pieces. So if
(29:17):
there's someone in the car with you right now, I
hope they appreciate that we love your cards and they're beautiful,
and I'm glad that you're our history ambassador in San Francisco.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at i heeart radio dot com.
You can also find us everywhere on social media as
Missed in History. If you would like to subscribe to
the podcast, you can do that on the I heart
radio app, at Apple podcasts, or wherever it is that
(29:39):
you listen. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a
production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more
podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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