From Marie-Antoinette's Garden: An Eighteenth-Century Horticultural Album

A horticultural tour of Marie-Antoinettes domain, the lavishly constructed gardens at Versailles, accompanied by eighteenth-century archival illustrations. Plants, flowers, and trees were Marie-Antoinettes passion; she transformed the Petit Trianons gardens into an enchanted escape from the oppressive shackles of Versailles. Based on archival documents, this book meanders through Marie-Antoinettes estate as the queen herself would have walked it: traversing hyacinths, buttercups, and anemones in the French Gardens, via winding paths in the Anglo-Chinese Gardens, through the conifers of the Belvedere Gardenswhere fabulous nocturnal parties were hostedpast the entrancing aromas of the shrubs surrounding the Temple of Love, to the wildflowers of the Garden of Solitude. This fascinating reconstruction includes descriptions of the cosmetic and medicinal uses of the gardens plants, anecdotes from the royal court, and watercolors of the herbarium.