The Château de Bagatelle () in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
is a small
Neoclassical-style
château
A château (, ; plural: châteaux) is a manor house, or palace, or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking re ...
with several
French formal garden
The French formal garden, also called the , is a style of "Landscape architecture, landscape" garden based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. Its epitome is generally considered to be the Gardens of Versailles designed ...
s, a rose garden and an ''
orangerie
An orangery or orangerie is a room or dedicated building, historically where orange and other fruit trees are protected during the winter, as a large form of greenhouse or conservatory. In the modern day an orangery could refer to either ...
''. It is set on of grounds in
French landscape style within the
Bois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park that is the western half of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by the Em ...
, which is located in the
16th arrondissement of Paris
The 16th arrondissement of Paris (; ) is the westernmost of the 20 arrondissements of Paris, the capital city of France. Located on the city's Right Bank, it is adjacent to the 17th and 8th arrondissements to the northeast, as well as to the ...
.
There are other châteaux named Bagatelle in France, including the in
Picardy
Picardy (; Picard language, Picard and , , ) is a historical and cultural territory and a former regions of France, administrative region located in northern France. The first mentions of this province date back to the Middle Ages: it gained it ...
and the in
Brittany
Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...
.
Origins
The château is a glorified playground, actually a ''
maison de plaisance
In Renaissance architecture, Renaissance and Early Modern German architecture, a ''Lustschloss'' (, both meaning "pleasure palace") is a country house, château, or palace which served the private pleasure of its owner, and was seasonally inh ...
'' intended for brief stays while hunting in the Bois de Boulogne in a party atmosphere. The French word ''bagatelle'', from the
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
word ''bagatella'', means a trifle or little decorative nothing. Initially, a small
hunting lodge was built on the site for the
Maréchal d'Estrées in 1720.
In 1775, the
Comte d'Artois,
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...
's brother, purchased the property from the
Prince de Chimay. The Comte soon had the existing house torn down, with plans to rebuild. Famously,
Marie-Antoinette
Marie Antoinette (; ; Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution and the establishment of the French First Republic. She was the wife of Louis XVI. Born Archd ...
wagered against the Comte, her brother-in-law, that the new château could not be completed within three months. The Comte engaged the
Neoclassical architect
François-Joseph Bélanger
François-Joseph Bélanger (; 12 April 1744 – 1 May 1818) was a French architect and decorator working in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassic style.
Life
Born in Paris, Bélanger attended the Académie Royale d'Architecture (1764–1766) whe ...
to design the building that remains in the park today.
The Comte won his bet by completing the house (the only residence ever designed and built expressly for him) in sixty-three days, from September 1777. It is estimated that the project, which came to include manicured gardens, employed eight hundred workers and cost over three million livres. Bélanger's brother-in-law, Jean-Démosthène Dugourc, provided much of the decorative detail.
The central domed feature was a music room. The master bedroom was fitted up in the manner of a military tent, and
Hubert Robert executed a set of six Italianate landscapes for the bathroom. Most of the furnishings were provided by numerous Parisian ''
marchand-merciers'', notably
Dominique Daguerre, and a decorative painter was A.-L. Delabrière.
Motto
On the entablature of the entrance facade are inscribed the
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
words ''Parva sed Apta'' ("Small but suitable"), copied from the inscription the Italian poet
Ariosto
Ludovico Ariosto (, ; ; 8 September 1474 – 6 July 1533) was an Italian poet. He is best known as the author of the romance epic '' Orlando Furioso'' (1516). The poem, a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's ''Orlando Innamorato'', describ ...
(d. 1533) had inscribed on his modest house at
Ferrara
Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...
. The full inscription read:
:Parva sed apta mihi,
:Sed nulli obnoxia, sed non Sordida,
:Parta meo sed tamen aere domus.
One translation in verse reads:
:Small is my humble roof, but well designed,
:To suit the temper of the master's mind;
:Hurtful to none, it boasts a decent pride,
:That my poor purse the modest cost supplied.
History
In 1777, a party was thrown in the recently completed house in honour of
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...
and the Queen. The party featured a new table game featuring a small
billiard-like table with raised edges and cue sticks, which players used to shoot ivory balls up an inclined playfield with fixed pins. The table game was dubbed "
bagatelle
Bagatelle (from the Château de Bagatelle) is a billiards-derived indoor table game, the object of which is to get a number of balls (set at nine in the 19th century) past wooden pins (which act as obstacles) into holes that are guarded by wood ...
" by the Count and shortly after swept through France, evolving into various forms which eventually culminated in the modern
pinball machine
Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...
.
The formal garden spaces surrounding the château, which was linked to its dependencies by tunnels, was expanded with a surrounding park in the naturalistic English landscape style by the Scottish garden-designer
Thomas Blaikie, and dotted with sham ruins, an obelisk, a
pagoda
A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist, but some ...
, primitive hermits' huts and grottoes.
A
fête
In the United Kingdom and some of its former colonies, a fête or fete is a public festival organised to raise money for a charity, typically held outdoors. It generally includes entertainment and the sale of goods and refreshments. Fetes are ty ...
given on 20 May 1780, described in Blaikie's diary, gives a sense of the extravagant atmosphere. An additional part of the Bois de Boulogne had recently been taken into the prince's grounds, but the wall remained:
Following the
French Revolution,
Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
installed his son
Napoleon II
Napoleon II (Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte; 20 March 181122 July 1832) was the disputed Emperor of the French for a few weeks in 1815. He was the son of Emperor Napoleon I and Empress Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, Marie Louise, d ...
there, before the château was restored to the Bourbons. In 1835, it was sold by
Henry, Count of Chambord to
Francis Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford and was inherited on his death seven years later by his son, the
4th Marquess, who already lived in Paris for most of the year. It contained the largest part of his extensive collection of French paintings, sculptures, furniture and works of decorative art, most of which went to form the
Wallace Collection
The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse (Great Britain), townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquess of Hertford, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wall ...
in London. Bagatelle underwent five years of redecorating and extensions, and then Lord Hertford did not reside in it until 1848.
Like most of his un
entail
In English common law, fee tail or entail is a form of trust, established by deed or settlement, that restricts the sale or inheritance of an estate in real property and prevents that property from being sold, devised by will, or otherwise ali ...
ed property, Bagatelle was left to his illegitimate son
Sir Richard Wallace on Lord Hertford's death in 1870, as his entailed property and his title passed to a distant cousin. Bagatelle was acquired from his heir,
Sir John Murray-Scott, by the
City of Paris in 1905.
The Bagatelle gardens, created by
Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier, the Commissioner of Gardens for the city of Paris, are the site of the annual ''
Concours international de roses nouvelles de Bagatelle
Concours international de roses nouvelles de Bagatelle (International competition for new roses) is held in June of each year in the rose trial grounds of the Château de Bagatelle in Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List ...
'', an international competition for new
rose
A rose is either a woody perennial plant, perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred Rose species, species and Garden roses, tens of thousands of cultivar ...
s run by the City of Paris in June of each year. It was first organized in 1907, making it the oldest competition in the world dedicated to this flower.
Though the Revolutionary sales emptied the house, at Bagatelle in Sir John Murray-Scott's time were replicas of the bronze vases at Versailles. Upon the sale of the house by Sir John Murray-Scott, the vases were sent to his brother's house,
Nether Swell Manor in
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...
.
In 1892, the Bagatelle grounds hosted the first
French championship match in
rugby union
Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...
, in which local side Racing Club de France, predecessor of today's
Racing 92
Racing 92 () is a French professional rugby union club based in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Paris' western inner Banlieue, suburbs that competes in Top 14. The club plays its home matches at the 30,681-capacity Stadium#Types, domed stadium Pa ...
, defeated fellow Parisians
Stade Français
Stade Français Paris (known commonly as Stade Français, ) is a French professional rugby union club based in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The club plays in the Top 14 domestic league in France and is one of the most successful French ...
4–3. The Bagatelle also played host to some of the
polo
Polo is a stick and ball game that is played on horseback as a traditional field sport. It is one of the world's oldest known team sports, having been adopted in the Western world from the game of Chovgan (), which originated in ancient ...
events for the
1924 Summer Olympics
The 1924 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the VIII Olympiad () and officially branded as Paris 1924, were an international multi-sport event held in Paris, France. The opening ceremony was held on 5 July, but some competitions had al ...
in neighbouring
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
.
1924 Olympics official report.
p. 528.
A number of the aviation experiments conducted by pioneer aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont
Alberto Santos-Dumont (self-stylised as Alberto Santos=Dumont; 20 July 1873 – 23 July 1932) was a Brazilian aeronaut, sportsman, inventor, and one of the few people to have contributed significantly to the early development of both lighter-t ...
used the grounds of Bagatelle (), next to the château, as a flying field, most notably the initial flights of his 1906-era Santos-Dumont 14-bis
The ''14-bis'' (; (; , approximating "14A"), also known as ("bird of prey" in French), was a pioneer era, canard-style biplane designed and built by Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont. In 1906, near Paris, the ''14-bis'' made a ...
canard biplane.
Gallery
File:Paris Bagatelle 01.jpg, View of the garden and rear elevation
File:Jardin de Bagatelle-Mai 2010.JPG, From the garden in May 2010
File:Chateau de Bagatelle2.jpg, The pond
File:Chateau de Bagatelle3.jpg, The two principal buildings
File:Orangery at Parc de Bagatelle, Paris 17 July 2016 001.jpg, The orangerie
File:Chateau de Bagatelle5.jpg, A formal garden
File:Jardin de Bagatelle 001.JPG, The rose garden
File:Chateau de Bagatelle6.jpg, The rose garden
File:Chateau de Bagatelle7.jpg, A folly
See also
* History of parks and gardens of Paris
References
External links
History of Château de Bagatelle
– Mansart Foundation website
Château de Bagatelle
– Tourist Office website
Parc & Château de Bagatelle
– Discover France website
– Monuments in Paris website
{{Olympic venues discontinued events
1777 establishments in France
Houses completed in 1777
Venues of the 1924 Summer Olympics
Olympic polo venues
Bagatelle
Bagatelle (from the Château de Bagatelle) is a billiards-derived indoor table game, the object of which is to get a number of balls (set at nine in the 19th century) past wooden pins (which act as obstacles) into holes that are guarded by wood ...
French landscape gardens
Gardens in Paris
Historic house museums in Paris
Châteaux with formal gardens in France
Rose gardens in France
Buildings and structures in the 16th arrondissement of Paris
Neoclassical architecture in Paris
Marie Antoinette
Napoleon II
Henri, Count of Chambord
Charles X of France