Description
The Parc de Bagatelle is a park of 24 hectares inside the Bois de Boulogne, on the western edge of Paris, around a small Neoclassical château. It is part of the city's botanical garden and famous above all for its roses.
The highlight is the rose garden, with some ten thousand rose bushes of about 1,200 varieties, which has hosted an international competition for new roses every June since 1907. Around it lie formal French gardens, an orangery, grottoes and a landscape park in the English style.
The château was born of a bet: Marie Antoinette wagered that her brother-in-law, the Count of Artois, could not build a new house here in three months. He finished it in 63 days, with some 800 workers. Over the door, a Latin motto borrowed from the poet Ariosto reads "Small but suitable".
At a party held here for the king and queen, the count showed off a new table game he called "bagatelle", an ancestor of pinball.
The highlight is the rose garden, with some ten thousand rose bushes of about 1,200 varieties, which has hosted an international competition for new roses every June since 1907. Around it lie formal French gardens, an orangery, grottoes and a landscape park in the English style.
The château was born of a bet: Marie Antoinette wagered that her brother-in-law, the Count of Artois, could not build a new house here in three months. He finished it in 63 days, with some 800 workers. Over the door, a Latin motto borrowed from the poet Ariosto reads "Small but suitable".
At a party held here for the king and queen, the count showed off a new table game he called "bagatelle", an ancestor of pinball.