Press Release - Versailles - Château de Versailles

First edition of
the Gardening
Book Prize
14
Alain Baraton, head of the gardening
department of Trianon, specialised bookshops
and readers.
Book-signings by authors, round
table debates, workshops for adults
and children, a photo exhibition, a
competition, concerts etc. will
enliven these days.
On Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 June, the
gardens, the palaces of Trianon, and
Marie-Antoinette’s Hamlet will be
freely accessible.
EUROPeaN Heritage days
15 AND 16 September 2012
napoleonic Bivouac in Trianon.
spectacular reconstruction
of an unknown aspect of Versailles.
The visits made by Napoleon to Versailles are not
well known. Visitors can rediscover them at the
Grand Trianon, too often neglected. The very vast
gardens of the Grand Trianon will be the setting
2013: year
of Le Nôtre
In 2013, Versailles will pay
special and different kinds of
homage to André Le Nôtre to
mark the 4 th centenary of
his birth.
Thirty years of uninterrupted
conversation between Louis XIV
and Le Nôtre to design the history and
the legend of the monarchy earned Le
Nôtre this homage of a year dedicated
to him. Indoors and outdoors… The
Star Grove will be reborn following
the instructions of the King’s Gardener.
The Round Green Grove will be
reinterpreted by our contemporaries.
Events in autumn and winter will focus
on the unsuspectedly complex personality
of this man who stayed in his
place while sharing the intimacy of the
monarch. Enriched with unpublished
scientific discoveries, the exhibition
for an "Empire Bivouac” recreated by associations
of volunteers who reconstruct past events and
drawing on the expertise and the partnership of
the magazine Napoleon 1 er . Infantry, music,
cavalry, canteen, carriages, activities for children
(roundabout, fencing, disguises, photos, etc.) will
provide an original show and entertainment for
the very numerous visitors during the European
Heritage Days.
A Napoleonic bivouac
in Versailles
In partnership with the town of Rueil-Malmaison
and the Palace of Malmaison which is organising
in 2012 a Napoleon Jubilee Year.
“Louis XIV and Le Nôtre
walk in their dream: this
park that they both
created. Some days I tell
myself that Versailles is
only their footprints that
have come down to us.”
Erik Orsenna
that will be dedicated to him will also
show an artist and an aesthete through
his collections. Contemporary art and
music will also be on the menu for this
rediscovery of Le Nôtre whose vocation
was to create beauty.
General curatorship of the exhibition:
Béatrix Saule, Director of the National
Museum of the Palaces of Versailles
and Trianon.
Curators: Patricia Bouchenot-Déchin,
associate researcher at the Research Centre of
the Palace of Versailles, and Georges Farhat,
full-time lecturer in the Ecoles nationales
supérieures d’architecture.