Photo : Benchaum / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Château de Bagatelle
The château de Bagatelle is an eighteenth-century folly in the Bagatelle park, in the Bois de Boulogne, in Paris. The Count of Artois, brother of Louis XVI, acquired the property in 1775 and had it rebuilt in 1777 by the architect François-Joseph Bélanger, in only a few weeks, following a bet with Queen Marie-Antoinette. The Scottish gardener Thomas Blaikie designed the Anglo-Chinese-style gardens. In the nineteenth century, the estate was enlarged by Lord Seymour, Marquess of Hertford, then by his son. The famous rose garden, now one of the park's attractions, was created in 1905 by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier, curator of the Bois de Boulogne, with an iris garden. The park is mostly appreciated in spring and early summer, when roses bloom.
