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With more than 2,000 acres of ground and a 2,300-room palace, the Château de Versailles requires a lot of maintenance. It stands to reason, then, that some areas of the estate might need to wait quite some time to be restored to their original grandeur. Case in point: Marie Antoinette’s private garden, known as the Queen’s Grove, which has languished since her untimely death—not to mention the major damage sustained during the great storm of 1999, which saw some 15,000 trees uprooted across the estate. But a grand $2 million, multiyear restoration is finally under way, having begun this past winter.
The garden, located just to the west of the Orangerie, was originally a labyrinth installed by Louis XIV in the mid-17th century, but by the time Marie Antoinette resided at Versailles in the mid-18th century, it had fallen out of fashion and into disrepair. The queen hired architect Michel-Barthélemy Hazon to redesign the plot, not in the classic linear French style of the rest of Versailles’ grounds, but inspired by the more natural English gardens that were en vogue across the Channel—these gardens were to be her private sanctuary rather than a reminder of strict court life. “In the Grove, Marie Antoinette was free to wander and relax,” says Abbie McLean, a Versailles tour guide with The Tour Guy. “She was actually afforded privacy in this area, which did not exist in the Court of Versailles.”
Unlike in the rest of the gardens of Versailles, the focus in the Queen’s Grove was on the plants themselves, rather than the formal design. Ever the tastemaker, Marie Antoinette brought in trees, shrubs, and flowers from North America for her garden, her favorite among them being the Virginia tulip tree. The restoration will see the queen’s original vision realized once again—archaeological research performed before the replanting this spring confirmed the precise layout of the Queen’s Grove as it stood in 1776, the year it was created. The original plant species will be reinstated, as will reproductions of the original sculptures and furnishings.
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While the first tulip trees were planted this winter, restoration work is scheduled to continue over the next couple of years—even though Versailles’ gates are currently shut due to the coronavirus pandemic. But the Queen’s Grove has weathered far worse storms, and it’ll come out the brighter when all has passed.