François Nicolas Henri Racine de Monville (October 4, 1734 – March 8, 1797) was a French

aristocrat The aristocracy is historically associated with "hereditary" or "ruling" social class. In many states, the aristocracy included the upper class of people (aristocrats) with hereditary rank and titles. In some, such as ancient Greece, ancient Ro ...

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and

landscape design Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and garde ...

er. He is best known for his

French landscape garden The French landscape garden (french: jardin anglais, jardin à l'anglaise, jardin paysager, jardin pittoresque, jardin anglo-chinois) is a style of garden inspired by idealized romantic landscapes and the paintings of Hubert Robert, Claude Lorrai ...

, the

Désert de Retz The Désert de Retz is a garden on the edge of the forêt de Marly in the commune of Chambourcy, in north-central France. It was created at the end of the 18th century by the aristocrat François Racine de Monville on his estate. The architect Bo ...

, which influenced

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

and other later architects.

Childhood and life at the court of Louis XV

François Racine de Monville was born on October 4, 1734, in the on rue Sainte-Avoie in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. He was the son of Jean Baptiste Racine du Jonquoy, the treasurer-general for Bridges and Highways and Receiver of Finances (General Tax Collector) of the town of

Alençon Alençon (, , ; nrf, Alençoun) is a commune in Normandy, France, capital of the Orne department. It is situated west of Paris. Alençon belongs to the intercommunality of Alençon (with 52,000 people). History The name of Alençon is firs ...

. De Monville was raised in Paris by his maternal grandfather, Thomas Le Monnier, who gave him a good education.

Désert de Retz

In 1774, de Monville bought a country estate at Saint-Jacques-de-Retz, which had a working farm, pasture, and woodlands, and a formal

garden à la française The French formal garden, also called the (), is a style of garden based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. Its epitome is generally considered to be the Gardens of Versailles designed during the 17th century by the l ...

attached to the main house. He resolved to create a

in a style influenced by the

English garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...

. He called the garden the

, planted four thousand trees from the royal greenhouses, rerouted a river, and created several ponds. The Désert de Retz was completed in 1785 and contained twenty-one fabriques, or architectural constructions, representing different periods of history and parts of the world. They included an artificial rock entrance, a temple of rest, an outdoor theatre, a Chinese house, a ruined

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

church, a ruined altar, a classical tomb, an obelisque, a temple to the god Pan, a Tatar tent, and an ice-house in the form of a pyramid. The best-known feature was the ruined classical column, which was large enough to contain enough rooms to be a working residence. However, de Monville preferred to reside in the much smaller Chinese house while at the Désert.Article by Julien Cendres in ''Créateurs de Jardins et de paysages en France'', pg. 167 (see bibliography)

Notes

Bibliography

* Allain, Yves-Marie and Christiany, Janine, ''L'art des jardins en Europe'', Paris, Citadelles, 2006. * Choppin de Janvry, Olivier, ''Le Désert de Retz : Réponses à 101 questions sur le Désert de Retz'', Croissy-sur-Seine, Société Civile du Désert de Retz, 1998. * ---, "Le Désert de Retz," in ''Le Vieux Marly'' Tome III, No. 3, 1968–1969. * Dufort de Cheverny, Jean-Nicolas,''Mémoires sur les règnes de Louis XV et Louis XVI et sur la Révolution.'' Paris, Ed. Plon, Nourrit et Cie., 1886. * Kenyon, Ronald W., ''Monville: Forgotten Luminary of the French Enlightenment,'' CreateSpace, 2013, Revised and updated in 2016. * ---, ''Monville : l'inconnu des Lumières,'' CreateSpace, 2015. * Prévôt, Philippe, ''Histoire des jardins,'' Editions Sud Ouest, 2006. * Wenzler, Claude, ''Architecture du Jardin,'' Rennes, Editions Ouest-France, 2003. * Article on De Monville by Julien Cendres in ''Créateurs de Jardins et de paysages en France de la Renaissance au début du XIX siècle,'' directed by Michel Racine, Paris, Actes Sud, École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage, 2001. * ''Jardins en France : 1760–1820'', Paris, Caisse nationale des monuments historiques et des sites, 1978.

Sources and citations

{{DEFAULTSORT:Racine De Monville, Francois French landscape garden designers 18th-century French architects 1734 births 1797 deaths Architects from Paris Deaths from gangrene